Lloyd Stearman

In 1924, Clyde Cessna joined two other men to form a company called Travel Air Manufacturing.

His partners were Walter Beach and Lloyd Stearman.

Three names, three men.

Every single one of them eventually founded his own aircraft company.

Walter Beach went on to found Beechcraft.

Lloyd Stearman's designs became the backbone of American military pilot training in World War II.

The company they all built together, Travel Air, produced some of the finest sporting and racing aircraft of the Golden Age before being absorbed by Curtis Wright.

Between the three of them, they built a significant portion of American aviation.

Well, if I could start out, you know, I'd like to put the Stearman in context because the Stearman is a pretty amazing airplane because of the aviation history wrapped up into it.

Lloyd Stearman is, you know, credited with starting Stearman Airplane Company.

But before that, he was with a company called Travel Air.

Travel Air was founded in Wichita in 1925, and it was Clyde Cessna, Walter Beach, and Lloyd Stearman.

Gosh, have we ever heard of Cessna and Beach, which are still going? So Lloyd left there in 1926, founded Stearman Airplane Company in 1927.

They built a whole bunch of really cool airplanes, and Lloyd resigned in 1931 and moved on.

So the airplane was then initially converted to a agricultural airplane in 1948 by Inland Aviation.

And here's another interesting connection.

It had been started a few years earlier by three names you might know if you love this stuff.

Walter Beach, Lloyd Stearman, and Clyde Cessna.

Yeah, that Beach, that Stearman, that Cessna.

All three of them under one roof before they went off and built the companies that carried their own names.