Icons From Aviation’s Golden Age Featured During AirVenture Activities

Two historic and iconic aircraft types from the Golden Age of Aviation between World War I and II, Fairchild and Travel Air, will be celebrating their centennial years during the 72nd annual EAA AirVenture fly-in and convention July 21-27 at Wittman Regional Airport (OSH) in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Each of the aircraft will be featured on the flight line with programs and activities to be held together with the type clubs for both. All owners of both aircraft types are invited to participate in the centennial activities.

Rick Larsen, EAA’s Vice President of Communities and Member Programs said, “Each of these aircraft companies were founded in 1925, but took very different paths through their histories. Each of these aircraft types made unique contributions to the world of flight, especially the momentous era from 1920 until 1940.”

Fairchild Aircraft was founded in 1925 to build airplanes stable enough to do aerial photography. It also built passengers aircraft but then switched to military trainers and transport aircraft during WWII. Through the acquisitions of Hiller Aircraft and Republic Aircraft in the 1960s it continued production of military aircraft. Its final major product was the famed A-10 Thunderbolt II, affectionately named the Warthog, made through 1984.

The EAA Aviation Museum has the oldest Fairchild still in existence, a 1927 FC-2W in early American Airlines markings who it flew for.

The Travel Air Manufacturing Company had a short history and was a partnership formed among three of aviation’s most famous and recognizable names: Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and Lloyd Stearman. The three were part of Swallow Aircraft but in 1925 went out on their own to create biplanes. They had some success but after some time they separated and Travel Air was absorbed into the Curtiss-Wright Corporation in 1929 and production ended in 1931.

The EAA owns a Travel Air 4000, one of the oldest aircraft in the world that offers passenger flights in seasonal operations out of the EAA Aviation Museum’s Pioneer Airport (WS17), located in the northwest corner of Wittman Regional.

FMI:  www.eaa.org/