Beechcraft

Beechcraft is an American brand of civil aviation and military aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of Beech Aircraft Corporation, an American manufacturer of general aviation, commercial, and military aircraft, ranging from light single-engined aircraft to twin-engined turboprop transports, business jets, and military trainers. Beech later became a division of Raytheon and then Hawker Beechcraft before a bankruptcy sale turned its assets over to Textron (parent company of Beech's historical cross-town Wichita rival, Cessna Aircraft Company). It remains a brand of Textron Aviation.

Beech Aircraft Company was founded in Wichita, Kansas, in 1932 by Walter Beech as president, his wife Olive Ann Beech as secretary, Ted A. Wells as vice president of engineering, K. K. Shaul as treasurer, and investor C. G. Yankey as vice president. The company began operations in an idle Cessna factory. With designer Ted Wells, they developed the first aircraft under the Beechcraft name, the Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing, which flew in November 1932. Over 750 Staggerwings were built, including 352 for the United States Army Air Forces and 67 for the United States Navy during World War II.

Beechcraft was not Beech's first company, as he had previously helped form Travel Air in 1924 and the design sequence used at Beechcraft followed Travel Air's, which were continued at Curtiss-Wright, after Travel Air had been absorbed in 1929. Beech had become president of Curtiss-Wright's airplane division and VP of sales, but was dissatisfied with being distanced from aircraft production. He quit to form Beechcraft, using the original Travel Air facilities and employing many of the same people. Model numbers prior to 11/11000 were built under the "Travel Air" name, while Curtiss-Wright built the CW-12, 14, 15, and 16 as well as previous successful Travel Air models (mostly the model 4000/4).

In 1942 Beech won its first Army-Navy "E" Award production award and was among the five percent of war contracting firms to win five straight awards for production efficiency, mostly for the twin-engine Model 18 Expeditor transport which remains in widespread use worldwide.

After the war, the Staggerwing was replaced by the single-engined Bonanza monoplane, which featured a distinctive V-tail which was later dispensed with. It has remained in production since 1947, and has had the longest production run of any airplane. Other important Beech aircraft are the King Air and Super King Air line of twin-engined turboprops, in production since 1964, the Baron, a twin-engined variant of the Bonanza, and the Model 18 Expeditor.

In 1950, Olive Ann Beech took over as president and CEO, after her husband's death from a heart attack on November 29 of that year and continued as CEO until Beech was sold to Raytheon Company on February 8, 1980. Ted Wells was replaced as chief engineer by Herbert Rawdon, who remained until his retirement in the early 1960s.

In 1973, Beechcraft found Beechcraft Heritage Museum to host its historical aircraft.

In 1994, Raytheon merged Beechcraft with the Hawker product line it had acquired in 1993 from British Aerospace, forming Raytheon Aircraft Company. In 2002, the Beechcraft brand was revived to again designate the Wichita-produced aircraft. In 2006, Raytheon sold Raytheon Aircraft to Goldman Sachs creating Hawker Beechcraft. Since its inception Beechcraft has resided in Wichita, Kansas, also the home of chief competitors Cessna, Stearman and Learjet. Throughout much of the mid-to-late 20th century, Beechcraft was one of the "Big Three" in the field of general aviation manufacturing, along with Cessna and Piper.