Stearman Aircraft: A Detailed History

by Edward H. Phillips

The history of the Stearman Aircraft Company is about American entrepreneurship, aeronautical innovation, and the sheer determination to design and manufacture custom-built airplanes that set a standard for the competition to follow. In his new book Stearman Aircraft, author Edward Phillips follows the career of Lloyd Carlton Stearman from his work on the New Swallow biplane to the expansion of Stearman facilities into Boeing Airplane Company plants. In between was the Travel Air years, out of which came the Model A, B, CH, CW, BW, and Type 5000. The book also pays special attention to Stearman's rare C1 and C2 biplanes, as well as later upgraded C2s, the C3 series, the M-2, the LT-1, the luxurious CAB-1, the Model 6 Cloudboy, and others. During World War II, Boeing's sprawling facilities churned out thousands of Kaydet biplanes to train fledgling aviators, more than 1,600 B-29 Superfortresses heavy bombers to pound Japan into submission, and a steady stream of critical airframe assemblies for the famed B-17 Flying Fortress to reduce Hitler's Third Reich to rubble. For its work on these great aircraft, Boeing's Wichita Division earned six Army-Navy "E" awards for excellence in manufacturing and production.

215 pages, Hardcover

First published April 21, 2006

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Stearman Aircraft, a Detailed History". by Edward H. Phillips 2006. There are some beautiful photographs of living legend Tom Lowe chugging away over northern Illinois in his beautifully restored 1929 C3R. But, this book is much more than a few pretty pictures. Aviation, with it's own language and culture, if to be technically written about with any degree of accuracy, requires the writer to be armed with a back ground in maintenance, engineering and piloting. The clean, accurate writing demonstrates that Edward Phillips possesses all the necessary perquisites.