1928 travel air biplane

This Day in Aviation

Important dates in aviation history, 7 december 1928.

The Oakland Chapter of the National Aeronautic Association wanted to have all new U.S. records set at Oakland, and Mrs. Thaden’s altitude flight was a part of that campaign. Officials from the Oakland NAA group observed her flight in order to certify the record for the international body, the FAI.

The Oakland Tribune reported:

AVIATRIX SETS WORLD RECORD

Oakland Pilot Breaks Mark for Women With Altitude of 25,400 Feet.

     Confident that she has established a new world’s altitude record for women fliers, Mrs. Louise McPhetridge Thaden, Oakland aviatrix, clyaims [sic] to have attained a height of 25,400 feet in her plane during a flight of one hour and fifty-five minutes over Oakland airport.

Mrs. Thaden took off from the local flying field at 2:30 p.m. yesterday in a Travelair [sic] biplane equipped with a 180-horsepower Hispano-Suiza motor. She carried two altimeters and a sealed barograph. One altimeter showed a height of 25,400 feet, while the other registered 23,100 feet. Either mark would be sufficient to break the record of 22,000 feet held by Lady Heath of London.

In the plane were a tank of oxygen and a mask which Mrs. Thaden found necessary to use at a height of 15,000 feet. She was dressed in a fur-lined flying suit, fur-lined boots, and wore a fur-lined helmet and gloves.

“It was awfully cold up there,” said Mrs. Thaden after landing at the airport. “The flight wasn’t difficult, and I believe I can establish a higher altitude mark than this one.”

The flight was conducted under supervision of the Oakland chapter, National Aeronautical [sic] Association, with Leo S. Nagle, local president, assisting. The sealed barograph will be sent to Washington, D.C., for official calibrating to make Mrs. Thaden’s flight official.

     WICHITA, Kansas, Dec. 8.—(AP)—Mrs. Louise McPhetridge von Thaden, Oakland, Calif., aviatrix, who believes she has established a new altitude record for women fliers, learned to fly while she was in Wichita working as a saleswoman for a local company. She came here from Bentonville, Ark., where she formerly taught school.

Walter Beech, president of the airplane manufacturing company which built the plane Mrs. Thaden used in her altitude flight, said he picked as a person having natural ability for flying after she had only 10 hours of instruction in the air.

— Oakland Tribune , Vol. CIX, No. 161, Saturday, 8 December 1928, Page 1, Column 6

Because of the altitudes at which she intended to fly, Mrs. Thaden carried a cylinder of pressurized oxygen and face mask. In her autobiography, she wrote:

. . . Every foot of altitude was a battle. “Come on baby,” I breathed, “Just a hundred feet more! You can do it—just a hundred feet more. Come on, baby— hunnert—feet —.”

     There was a ringing in my ears, a far away, dim, yet sharply ringing like the sound you hear coming out from under ether. The plane was nose down, turning in wide, fast circles, engine bellowing protestingly under wide-open throttle.

     Automatically easing the throttle back and giving back pressure on the stick, I glanced at the altimeter: 16,200 feet. I fumbled clumsily and my numb fingers succeeded in prying the frozen mass of ice and mask from my face. Fresh air tasted good as I breathed in long, hard, deep, gulps. The plane weaved crazily.

     I thought, “I must have passed out.”

— High, Wide, and Frightened , by Louise McPhetridge Thaden. University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, 2004. Chapter 2, Page 24

Louise McPhetridge had been employed by Walter Beech as a sales representative for his Travel Air Manufacturing Company at Wichita, Kansas, and he included flying lessons with her employment. Beech asked her to go to Oakland as an employee of Douglas C. Warren, the new Travel Air dealer for the western region of the United States. He included flying lessons with her employment. (Warren owned the airplanes used by Mrs. Thaden to set her altitude and endurance records.) She received her pilot’s license from the National Aeronautic Association, signed by Orville Wright, 16 May 1928.

Once in California, Miss McPhetridge met an aeronautical engineer, Herbert von Thaden,³ and they were married on 21 July 1928.

The Travel Air 3000 had a cruise speed of 105 miles per hour (169 kilometers per hour), and a maximum speed of 119 miles per hour (192 kilometers per hour). Its service ceiling was 17,000 feet (5,182 meters), and the maximum range was 400 miles (644 kilometers).

The Travel Air Manufacturing Company built approximately 50 of the “Hisso-powered” Travel Air 3000 variant.

¹ FAI Record File Number 12221

² FAI Record File Number 12212

³ Herbert von Thaden had founded the Thaden Metal Aircraft Company, builder of the all-metal Thaden T-1, T-2, and the T-4 Argonaut. Thaden went on to design molded plywood furniture for the Thaden-Jordan Furniture Corporation. His designs are considered to be works of art, and individual pieces sell for as much as $30,000 today.

© 2019, Bryan R. Swopes

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About the Travel Air 2000

Designed by Lloyd Stearman and manufactured by Curtiss-Wright and the Travel Air Manufacturing Company, the Travel Air 2000 was known for its quality in construction, reliability, efficiency, and capacity (two passengers in the front with a pilot in the back). Additionally, the open-cockpit biplane was noted for its comfort and easy flying. Because of this, Travel Air sold more aircraft than any other American manufacturer from 1924-1929, including 1 ,300 of these biplanes. PTAM’s Travel Air 2000 was donated in 2003 and underwent a complete restoration with the help of numerous volunteers. It was completed in 2017 and designed to look like a mail carrier for Pacific Air Transport, which many Travel Air 2000s were.

Gift of John Desmond.

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AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE

The barnstormer.

It’s one of the oldest professions in aviation, and it requires more than flying skill.

John Fleischman

At about 75 mph and 2,000 feet above the northern Virginia countryside, the purpose of an old, open-cockpit biplane is immediately obvious. You look down on newly plowed fields and old woods. The Rappahannock River rolls and unrolls beneath you. Much of the American Civil War was fought down there, armies churning up dust clouds or sinking in mud as they marched to and fro, maneuvering to cross the twisty river. Now you can see why rivers matter in war.

Earlier that morning at Culpeper Regional Airport, a small general‑aviation airport some 70 miles outside the metroplex of Washington, D.C., pilot Andrew King had laid out the flight plan. “I thought maybe we’d hop over to Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg for lunch,” he said. King is the owner and restorer of the bright-blue 1928 Travel Air biplane now swooping low over backyard swimming pools, metal barn roofs, and wetlands—glinting in the sunlight. Traffic is light on the interstate hauling commuters to and from the city. The Travel Air can barely keep up with the lane weavers and thundering 18-wheelers, but they are earthbound. You are not. When King obliges with a wing-over turn, you find yourself nearly screaming in delight, like a small child thrown into midair by a friendly giant. This is what old airplanes are for. They are for flying.

Sadly, Andrew King can’t fly you to lunch and back unless you’re a friend, a business client, or a visiting journalist, although he’d be delighted to take you and a companion as paying passengers on a short trip around Culpeper. The Federal Aviation Administration limits his commercial passenger business—Bald Eagle Biplane Rides—to a 25-mile radius from point of origin. These days, taking passengers for short rides in old biplanes is usually called “barnstorming,” although purists will tell you it is no such thing. Perhaps they’ll let you call it “ride hopping,” or maybe a (very) short charter flight. King just thinks of it as another chance to take someone flying, and he rarely passes up the chance.

If you move in antique airplane circles, you know of Andrew King. In the tight-knit community of aviators, collectors, and curators obsessed with the Golden Age—early 20th century aircraft from the Wright brothers to the start of World War II—King is an expert, and something of a celebrity. He has probably flown more varieties of Golden Age aircraft—125 pre-1950 types so far—than anyone else flying today. His latest addition was the 1930 Bird BK that Charles Lindbergh taught his wife to fly in.

Barnstorming is at the heart of the Golden Age appeal, possibly because the airplanes are so much fun to ride in. The practice is tangled up with real aviation history, dubious tall tales, nostalgia, and old movies such as The Great Waldo Pepper , but today’s barnstormers don’t necessarily engage in wing-walking, suicidal aerobatics, and wandering flying circuses. They sell rides. In addition to selling rides from his fixed base in northern Virginia, King has set up operations with barnstorming partner Dewey Davenport in Ohio. “Dewey and I just like giving rides and, of course, if people will pay you to take a ride, that’s even better. But you know, if I was independently wealthy, I might do it for free.”

Being far from independently wealthy, King makes his living restoring airplanes at his shop in Warrenton, Virginia. He also ferries other people’s antique airplanes around the country, and is a regular fixture at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual extravaganza in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, delivering obscure vintage aircraft that their owners prefer to arrive there unscratched. Getting to Oshkosh in one piece requires more than a GPS and a check book, especially for restored odd-duck aircraft that haven’t flown in decades. King’s process is to read whatever he can find of the aircraft’s original paperwork or first-hand flight reports, study drawings and specs, and seek out anyone who ever flew one or knew someone who flew one. In this role as historical test pilot, he has developed a reputation as an airplane whisperer.

That’s why Jim Hammond wanted no one else to deliver a 1932 Pitcairn PA-18 Autogiro to Oshkosh, where it won Reserve Grand Champion in 2009. The Autogiro, an early hybrid of an unpowered rotor copter and a small monoplane, was the masterwork of restorers Jack and Kate Tiffany of Spring Valley, Ohio, who worked for almost nine years to restore it. The type hadn’t been flown anywhere since the 1990s; the airplane, since the 1950s. Hammond, who was a financial supporter of the project, knew King from the One Dollar Pietenpol confederacy. King, Hammond, and other aficionados of Bernard Pietenpol’s 1930s build-your-own backyard flier, powered by a Ford Model A engine, restored the oldest example to flying condition in 1993. In 2000, they decided to rotate official ownership of the Pietenpol Air Camper among themselves for a nominal dollar. (King, the current “owner,” paid in pennies at the last transfer and claims to have overpaid by one cent.)

To prepare to fly the Autogiro, King interviewed the last two original Pitcairn pilots. The first was Stephen Pitcairn, son of the American manufacturer of the original rotorcraft. The second was Johnny Miller, the legendary barnstormer and test pilot who flew a Pitcairn PC-1 coast-to-coast in 1931. Miller was the real deal. In the late 1920s, he barnstormed up and down New York’s Hudson Valley in his Standard J-1 and New Standard D-24. But he deviated from the fly-by-night Waldo Pepper stereotype by earning a mechanical engineering degree from the Pratt Institute of Technology and a string of FAA qualifications and licenses, and by establishing his own full-service aviation shop at the Poughkeepsie airport, which he eventually managed. He lost interest in barnstorming in 1931 when he took delivery on his first Pitcairn Autogiro.

In 2007, when King went to see him in Poughkeepsie, Miller was 101 and had only surrendered his pilot’s license the year before. They talked about barnstorming and flying Autogiros. (Both Pitcairn and Miller died in 2008, shortly before the restored PA-18 was ready for testing.) The interviews were immensely helpful, King recalls, but flying the Autogiro raised questions that could only be answered the hard way—in the air. It was a unique flying experience, King recalls: “There was this crazy flapping stuff going on over your head, but once you got about 10 feet above the ground, everything was fine.” Once aloft, the unpowered rotor wing made the PA-18 virtually stall-proof. Once he got used to the incredibly short takeoff and steep landing approach, King was in love. “That was the only magic airplane I’ve ever flown,” he says.

Hammond was on hand with the whole restoration crew at the tiny Clark County, Ohio airport to witness the flight trials. The first three flights went beautifully. “Nobody was nervous,” Hammond says. “We’d all kind of learned along with Andrew about how everything was going to happen.” On the fourth flight, the engine quit. “It got real quiet,” says Hammond.

The watchers on the ground knew that the Autogiro landed in a peculiar stair-step fashion. “Instead of trying to glide it down to land, you could just pull the nose up and it’ll settle straight down and then you drop the nose a little bit and it’ll start moving forward,” says Hammond. “Andrew came in a little bit high over the end of the runway and he just pulled the nose up and let it sink, which is what it said in the book that it would do. And it did. It just sank straight down and then he dropped the nose again. And it went forward about 50 feet and he did a nice landing, like he’d been doing it forever.

“If this were a spot landing contest, he’d have nailed it,” says Hammond.

But what was King’s expression as he climbed out of the Autogiro after the dead stick landing? Was he ruffled? Hammond pauses for a moment before answering. “You know, I just can’t imagine Andrew being ruffled,” he says.

Flying antique airplanes is risky, but pilots like King don’t fly them for the adrenaline rush or even to indulge in nostalgia. They fly them to keep alive the knowledge of how to fly antique airplanes.

Andrew King caught that fever early in life. He practically grew up at the legendary Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in the Hudson Valley. He was five in 1967 when his father got his pilot’s license, bought an old Piper Cub, and plunged his family into the antique aviation scene at Rhinebeck. Andrew, his uncle Dick, and his younger brother David were swept along. King can scarcely remember a time when he wasn’t washing airplanes, listening to hangar yarns, and running errands behind the scenes at Rhinebeck’s weekend Great War aerial melodramas. He soloed at 16 before he learned to drive. At 20, he joined the Rhinebeck rotating flying cast, sometimes piloting a replica of the fabled Red Baron’s Fokker Dr.1—a triplane that King considers the most difficult aircraft he’s ever flown. On the ground, you couldn’t see where you were going. In the air, you couldn’t relax a moment because of the Fokker’s hair-trigger instability. Still, he enjoyed his five seasons of Rhinebeck aerial theatrics and came away with the odd idea that antique aviation was a career path.

For his formal aviation education, King went to Parks Air College in St. Louis for two years to qualify as an FAA-certified aviation maintenance technician. But he also earned a bachelor’s degree in English from a small college in his hometown of Nyack, New York. Between English classes and Rhinebeck dogfights, he qualified for commercial and multi-engine commercial ratings.

After college, King took a series of jobs in restoration shops, aviation museums, and private collections. His time working on Kermit Weeks’ historic aircraft collection in Miami was cut short by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which destroyed the Weeks hangars and King’s apartment. The Miami wipe-out sent him north to Ken Hyde’s The Wright Experience shop in Warrenton, Virginia, where Hyde was pursuing his ambitious plan to reproduce flying versions of all the early Wright brothers aircraft. The move brought King to rural Virginia. Dotted with private strips and small airports like Culpeper Regional, it was good country for old airplanes.

King has his hangars at Culpeper but keeps his restoration shop in Warrenton. Being off the airport grounds, you get more done without people wandering in to gawk and talk, he says. He lives in the greater Washington suburbs with his partner Julie Appleby. They share a passion for travel, but when they go on vacation, says King, they fly commercial. The shop work pays the bills, but more flying work—ferrying aircraft, hopping biplane rides, testing rebuilds—is what he craves.

Flying old airplanes has taken him to strange places. In 2003, he competed on the “Junkyard Wars” series—“my contribution to reality TV,” he says—as part of a team building a replica of a 1911 Walden IX monoplane, a spindly affair designed by dentist and inventor Henry Walden. The only unmarried team member, King was nominated as test pilot. The Walden IX came in last. In 2006, he was a movie stunt pilot, flying a replica Nieuport 17 in a big-budget World War I air war epic, Flyboys. But his most unexpected and longest running engagement was a private barnstorming fly-in that began with an unannounced landing on a family farm in eastern Indiana. The backstory is almost a fairy tale and the subject of a 2009 documentary, Barnstorming , directed by Bryan Reichhardt.

In 1999, King was flying in a flock of antique Pietenpols across Indiana on the return trip from Oshkosh. King has always loved flying over Midwestern farm country—so pretty, so flat, so many places to land. Near Winchester, Indiana, he spotted a photogenic alfalfa field and landed for a closer look. A second Pietenpol followed him down.

The field belonged to Matt Dirksen, who came running to help the seemingly distressed aircraft. King had a cover story ready—his Model A engine was overheating—but Dirksen’s friendliness was so disarming that King confessed they’d landed to take pictures. Dirksen was unfazed. Meantime his wife Paula and their children had come pouring out of the house to see what had dropped out of the sky. Soon the Dirksens were climbing aboard for short hops around the world’s prettiest alfalfa field.

Dirksen invited King and his flying friends back the following summer for a fly-in barbecue. For the next 19 years, the Dirksens invited neighbors, and King picked aviator friends heading for Oshkosh to stop with him for the free, one-day, fly-in barbecue. “I make it clear,” King says of his flier friends, “the only way you go is if I invite you.”

Even during the locked-down summer of 2020, King dropped by to give the youngest Dirksen daughter, Allie, her annual airplane ride.

Curious about King’s other barnstorming gigs, I met him at the Dewey Drome, the private airstrip and operations base for Dewey Davenport’s “Goodfolk & O’Tymes Biplane Rides” near Xenia, Ohio. Davenport’s day job is flying chartered business jets, but his dream is to do “real” barnstorming, traveling from county fairs to small-town airports in a big antique biplane, drumming up business with posters, low-level buzzes, and, this being the 21st century, a ton of social media. King and Davenport share the barnstorming dream, and the two have gone on short Midwestern tours in recent summers, that is, until summer 2020 disappeared. In April, King was at the Dewey Drome to plot the revival of the annual barnstorming carnival that Davenport had started in 2014 at the Springfield, Ohio municipal airport. Davenport says he is America’s only Black barnstormer working today. King agrees but points out there aren’t that many working barnstormers of any kind today.

We walked out to the Drome’s hangar to get a look at Davenport’s barnstorming pride and joy. It’s a New Standard D-25, an airplane with a big front cockpit that in 1930 could hold four. (It’s the same model that Johnny Miller flew in 1931.) In 2021, Americans come in larger sizes but the New Standard has significantly raised Davenport’s barnstorming capacity from the two-in-front 1929 Travel Air he started with.

Davenport figures that with himself working the credit card reader, a “scooter” handling passengers, and King flying the New Standard, they can easily hop 100 passengers a day at the Springfield Carnival—weather, virus, and customers permitting. We circled round the hangar, admiring the New Standard; the One Dollar Pietenpol, which is parked in back and ready in case the Pietenpol Fly-in at Brodhead, Wisconsin, restarts this summer; and Davenport’s orange and white Travel Air.

That brings us a month later to Virginia and my lunchtime ride in King’s pretty blue Travel Air. After lunch at Shannon Airport in Fredericksburg, we hopped back to Culpeper and pushed the airplane back into its hangar, popping the engine cowling to let it cool. Then we climbed into King’s old Honda to visit his backup hangar.

On the way, we talked about the future of antique aviation. King was not optimistic. It’s a generational thing, he says. At 59, he is actually at the back edge of the demographic that is fascinated by antiques. Although he’s cheered by younger pilot-entrepreneurs like Davenport, King sees less and less interest each year in pre-war airplanes, or for that matter pre-war cars, steam trains, and even World War II warbirds. “All of those things are old people’s games, and young people nowadays don’t care about steam trains or biplanes or that kind of thing,” he says. Resale values are dropping. He adds, “It’s definitely a one-way road.”

This belief leads to another thought, which sets King apart from many who are interested in historic aviation. His interest in old airplanes is in flying them. “That’s one of the things that irks me,” he says. “I often hear people say, ‘Oh, that’s a one-of-a-kind. It shouldn’t be flown any more. It’s too valuable. And we need to save it for future generations.’ I think future generations may not care a whit about this stuff. You put this in a museum, and 50 years from now nobody might come look at it. We might as well fly it now and take the risk. And if it crashes, oh well, but you know that people saw it fly and heard it make noise.”

I ask King why he enjoys giving 15-minute rides all day at an Ohio airfield or an Indiana alfalfa farm. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answers. “I mean, I like flying and I kind of like sharing it. It’s another reason for flying, I guess.”

At his Warrenton hangar sits yet another reason for flying: a 1954 gray Bücker Jungmann biplane with snappy blue trim that he’d recently bought and flown home from Kalispell, Montana. He says he had always wanted a Bücker, the best flier of all the pre-war trainers, designed for the German Luftwaffe. Restored in 1988, it has a 180-horsepower horizontal Lycoming instead of its original 150-horsepower in-line Tigre engine. In the update, it also gained disc brakes. But King points out that it still has most of its original fine touches, such as real leather crash padding around the cockpit. It also retains its superlative pre-1950 flying characteristics, he says. In the hangar where he keeps the Bücker, pushed in with his faithful 1939 Taylorcraft, is a replica British SE5 World War I fighter that he’s working on for a client, and an original World War I Rhone rotary radial on an engine test stand. He ran the Rhone a couple of weeks ago, he says. It must have been deafening.

But why did he buy the Bücker? It’s too small for barnstorming. He’s tall, and it takes him a few careful minutes to insert himself into the compact rear cockpit. It’s a trainer, but King doesn’t teach.

“As far as biplanes go, it’s about the top of the line for fun,” he says. “It’s really agile, but it’s pleasant to fly. Some of the fancy aerobatic airplanes are unstable because the more unstable they are, the more aerobatic they are. They are great fun because you can do so much, but they’re not pleasant. The Jungmann is agile enough so you can do loops and rolls and stuff, but it’s also pleasant to fly.”

He bought it because that’s what old airplanes are for. For fun. For flying.

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John Fleischman | READ MORE

John Fleischman is a frequent contributor to Air & Space .

Travel Air Manufacturing Company

Cessna provided the woodworking tools, although most of the construction was steel tubing. Stearman contributed designs; Beech ran the assembly line and demonstrated the models in air races. Olive Ann Mellor was the bookkeeper and secretary who handled all correspondence, maintained records, and conducted transactions, eventually becoming officer manager and then personal secretary to Beech.

With orders increasing, Travel Air signed a five-year lease that included a storefront at 535-537 West Douglas in November 1925 and vacated the properties on Waco and West First. The front of the building housed the woodworking; the back was for metal work, and a section to paint the blue and silver logo. The board of directors was encouraged by their success in the first year and purchased 11 acres for $200 per acre, east of town on Central Avenue and began construction on a new facility. Cessna became president, contributing $25,000 of his own money for the operations; and the company had 30 employees. The company expanded to 471 West First Street along the Arkansas River.

The Model A, a biplane, was the company's first effort, which had a high, semi-cantilever wing, and carried five passengers. Designated Model 5000, it became popular with one of the nation’s first airline companies, National Air Transport, which ordered eight at a price tag of $128,676. The following year the plane, named the Woolaroc , won the Dole Race from California to Hawaii.

Cessna continued to pushed for monoplane designs, believing they were the direction for the future. He rented space in downtown Wichita and worked on his monoplane, which was introduced in the summer of 1926. By late 1926 the company purchased six acres of a landing field near East Central and Webb road, and began design and construction of a new facility. The nearby land was used for test flights and demonstrations.

Travel Air filled the need for the growing individual and business airplane. Its planes, both biplanes and monoplanes, were used by airlines—mail and passenger routes—and private business use. In January 1927 Cessna left Travel Air to form another company to produce his monoplane cantilever wing model. He sold his 179 shares of stock for $90, and left under amicable terms. Beech and Stearman continued with the primary production of biplanes. In 1927 the city acquired a flying field adjacent to Travel Air's land, which it used as an airstrip on the air mail route from Chicago to Dallas. By that time the city was thriving with aviation production, with seven aircraft companies, and Wichita’s Chamber of Commerce began to use the phrase, “Air Capital.”

In September 1927 the company acquired land for a second factory building to the east of the first. During the next two years the company was producing 25 aircraft each week. Model 6000 monoplane was known as the “Limousine of the Air, popular with celebrities like Wallace Beery.

Beech developed his concept for the Model R monoplane. He believed in the value of publicity and entered planes in national competitions. The design of this low wing racing plane was kept secret during production, creating much anticipation. The actual designers were Ted Wells, Walt Burnham, and Herb Rawdon, who joined Travel Air after Cessna’s departure. Beech kept the Model R secret until time to end the National Air Races in Cleveland. Two models were built: one with a new Chevrolair inline engine and one with a Wright radial engine. The inline engine did not perform as hoped but both were flown to Cleveland. Walter helped deliver one of the planes. As soon they arrived in Cleveland, he rolled them into the hangar and closed the doors and covered the windows. The plane with the radial engine, piloted by Doug Davis, easily won the free-for-all speed contest, the Thompson Cup. Another Travel Air plane finished sixth, and the Mystery Ship with inline engine finished seventh. At the same event Louise Thaden finished first in the Women’s Air Derby, flying a new Travel Air. Oil companies like Texaco and Shell purchased sponsorships. In the first Women's Air Derby of 1929, seven of the competitors flew Travel Air planes. Pilot Louise Thaden placed first in the race in her Travel Air.

Travel Air factory had units A, B, C, D, and E, in order of construction. A, a hangar structure with curved roof, and B were completed by 1928. In A fuselages were assembled and painted. In B wings were assembled. In C, built in 1929, experimental work was done including that of the Mystery Ships. D was a hangar structure with curved roof completed in 1929. E, completed in summer 1929, tied the other four together and was identified by its rows of clerestory windows. An administration building was located north of A. The complex became known as Travel Air City.

By 1929 there were 650 employees working two shifts in the state-of-the art aircraft production facility. They had built about 1,800 aircraft in fewer than five years, mostly biplanes using 16 basic designs. The Travel Air E-4000 was designed to compete with World War I surplus. The two-seater biplane featured a forward open cockpit, powered with a Wright “Whirlwind” J-6 five-cylinder engine producing 16 horsepower. Yet in summer 1929 sales began to slow along with the economy. In August Curtiss and Wright merged with Travel Air. The new corporation was made of Wright Aeronautical, Keystone/Loening, Curtiss Flying Service, and Travel Air. Curtiss-Wright Corporation eventually became the largest air manufacturer in the U.S. Beech and Stearman went on to formed other aircraft companies in Wichita.

Entry: Travel Air Manufacturing Company

Author: Kansas Historical Society

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Date Created: January 2012

Date Modified: January 2019

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From 1931 to 1953, Andy Stinis performed skywriting in this airplane for Pepsi-Cola. During those years, skywriting with smoke was a premier form of advertising, and Pepsi-Cola used it more than any other company. Pepsi-Cola acquired the airplane in 1973 and used it for air show and advertising duty until retiring it in 2000. Peggy Davies and Suzanne Oliver, the world's only active female skywriters since 1977, performed in it.

The Pepsi Skywriter is one of more than 1,200 Travel Air open-cockpit biplanes built between 1925 and 1930. Popular and rugged, Travel Airs earned their keep as utility workhorses and record breakers. The design was the first success for three giants of the general aviation industry, Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, and Clyde Cessna, who in 1925 established the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in Wichita, Kansas.

The Pepsi Skywriter is one of more than 1,200 Travel Air open-cockpit biplanes built between 1925 and 1930. Travel Airs were popular and rugged aircraft that earned their keep as utility and record-breaking workhorses and saw service around the country as crop dusters, barnstormers, and as private planes for the sportsman pilot. For 40 years, pilots flew the Pepsi Skywriter across the United States for the Pepsi-Cola Company delivering a unique form of advertising known as skywriting.

Three future giants in the aircraft industry, Lloyd Stearman, Walter Beech, and Clyde Cessna, came together as young aviation enthusiasts in Wichita, Kansas, to build the Travel Air. During 1923 and 1924, Stearman and Beech worked at the Swallow Aeroplane Manufacturing Company as chief designer and vice president/test pilot respectively. The Swallow aircraft met with success, but Stearman and Beech lobbied to try a design with a steel tube, instead of wood, framework. When management declined, Stearman, Beech, and William Snook left Swallow to start their own company, and brought in Clyde Cessna, a successful farmer who liked to build airplanes. They incorporated the Travel Air Manufacturing Company in January 1925 and immediately designed a three-place, open-cockpit, fabric-covered biplane with a Curtiss OX-5 90 hp engine. Stearman had the steel for the tubing tested to his satisfaction at the Agronomy Department at Kansas State Agricultural College, as there were no aviation standards yet in place. Steel tubing braced the cockpit and steel wires braced the fabric-covered spruce spar wings and ribs. Steel was also used for the rudder and elevator leading and trailing edges, and the horizontal stabilizer leading edge, while the vertical stabilizer was spruce. Spruce strips were used to fair the outside of the fuselage and the turtledeck was spruce. Beech wanted redundant control cables running from the cockpit back to two elevators control horns. The landing gear was a standard duralumin speader bar between vees with bungee shockcords.

Travel Air #1 had a striking look with its fully enclosed cowling for the OX-5 engine, balanced ailerons on the upper wing that overlapped around the edge of the wing, and a blue fuselage with silver wings. Ira Beach made the first test flight on March 13, 1925. Travel Airs performed well in the 1925 Ford Reliability Tour and National Air Transport purchased a Model B for its airmail contract work. OX-5 A and B models became Model 2000s in March 1928 with ATC number 30. The Wright J-4 and J-5, significant radial engines that dramatically improved the performance and reliability of aircraft, were then offered on the airframe and, after 1928, those aircraft became the Model 4000. The 4000 found popularity with better performance and versatility through a wide variety of engine, wing, passenger seat, and landing gear combinations. The Speed wing, for example, was a shorter wing with a new airfoil that made the aircraft faster and required a recertification of the airplane to a D-4000. Ted Wells, later the designer of Beech's Staggerwing, owned the first D-4000 that also sported the first NACA cowl built by Travel Air. By early 1927, both Stearman and Cessna had left Travel Air, leaving Walter Beech in charge, and the newest Travel Air was a cabin monoplane. In 1929, Beech allowed the large Curtiss-Wright Company to absorb the company as a division, but it could not survive the depression, and closed in September 1932.

In 1929, NC434N, serial number 1340, was built as an E-4000, meaning it had a J-6-5 engine and most likely B wings (not the original "elephant ear wing). The D4D model officially arrived in February 1930 with a Wright J-6-7 (Wright R-760-ET) 240 hp engine (the second "D" in D4D) that improved the cruising speed to 110 mph with a range of 520 miles, and the aircraft's ceiling rose to 14,000 feet. N434N received the Speed wings and J-6-7 engine in 1930 and was recertificated as a D4D. Andy Stinis, of the Skywriting Corporation of America, purchased the aircraft in 1931 and flew it out of Floyd Bennett Field, Long Island, New York.

Skywriting, defined as the process of writing a name or message with smoke from an aircraft against a blue sky, began in England after World War I, the brainchild of Major John C. Savage, RAF. His first successful demonstration was at the Derby at Epsom Downs, in May 1922, when Captain Cyril Turner wrote "Daily Mail" above the track. Turner then came to the United States in October 1922 and wrote "Hello U.S.A." above New York City. Allan J. Cameron, along with Leroy Van Patten established the Skywriting Corporation of America at Curtiss Field, an American branch of the Savage's original company. They acquired the patents for mixing the writing gas the United States, and, although it was nothing more than light oil fed through the exhaust system, they controlled the market for years. In 1923, using the Skywriting Corporation, the American Tobacco Company launched the first and very successful skywriting advertising campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes. Pepsi-Cola Corporation became one of the longest-running contractors of skywriting; in the late 1930s and mid 1940s, it contracted or owned a total of 14 aircraft. In 1940 alone, it contracted for 2,225 writings over 48 states. Andy Stinis flew for Pepsi-Cola from 1931 to 1953.

In 1973 Alan Pottasch and Jack Strayer of Pepsi began a search for old skywriters and found N434N still with Andy Stinis. They intended to display it at the Pepsi corporate headquarters in Purchase, New York, however, Strayer, a former skywriter, soon persuaded Pepsi to install navigation and communications equipment and tour it once again. In 1977, Strayer hired Peggy Davies as a second pilot and then, in 1980, when Davies became a Pepsi corporate pilot, Strayer hired Suzanne Asbury. Pepsi also gave the aircraft a bright red, white, and blue paint scheme. Strayer died in 1981 and, in 1982, Steve Oliver joined Asbury as a second pilot for the Pepsi aircraft fleet that included N434P, another 1929 Travel Air. In 2000, Suzanne and Steve Oliver suggested that the aircraft should be retired for safety's sake, and Pepsi-Cola Company donated it to the National Air and Space Museum. The Pepsi Skywriter is currently displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport.

This object is on display in Aerobatic Flight at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA .

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Port Townsend Aero Museum

by Lisa-Ann | Aug 2, 2021 | Museums, Galleries & Libraries | 0 comments

The Port Townsend Aero Museum displays roughly 19 vintage aircraft (dated from the 1920s to the 1940s), all fully restored and in flying condition.  Some of the airplanes are rotated in and out of the museum, so it’s never quite the same from visit to visit.

Founded by experienced aircraft restorers Jerry and Peggy Thuotte in 2001, the museum opened a $3.5 million facility in the summer of 2008. The museum also offers a teen-youth on-the-job skills training mentorship.

Our volunteers learn technical skills, management techniques, aviation history, and other related subjects. For those who show capability, dedication, and interest, we also have a flight training program. As any of our volunteers will attest, this is not a “free flight training” program, as a considerable investment of time, energy, and character will be spent by the volunteer before the flight lessons begin.

The museum is located at the Jefferson County International Airport.

You can watch small planes land and takeoff on the runway just behind the museum.

The upper gallery windows let in plenty of light to beautifully showcase the displayed airplanes.

1928 Travel Air 2000 biplane. More than 1,300 of these were sold between 1924-1929, more than any other American manufacturer. Many of them were used as mail carriers, and this one has been restored to reflect that.

1930 Rose Parakeet, designed and produced as a single seat sport biplane. If you look closely at the logo by the exhaust tube, you’ll see why it’s called the Rose Parakeet!

1940 Fairchild M62 PT-19. My father trained in one of these when he was in the Army Air Corps at Brooks Field, Texas during World War II. Nicknamed the “Cradle of Heroes,” it was one of the first steps to becoming a fighter pilot.

The last surving Fairchild 22-C7B (1933) has found a home at the Port Townsend Aero Museum.

The Aero Museum doesn’t just have loving restored vintage planes. There’s a large collection of memorabilia,  aviation artwork, model planes, and a library.

One of the many display cases lining the walls of both floors of the museum.

Baggage / aircraft tugs haven’t changed much since this 1932 model, powered by a 1930 Ford Model A engine.

Airplane models  — lots and lots of models!

The museum is currently adding an expansion to the museum, and work should be complete in a couple of months.

The Spruce Goose Cafe is on the other side of the museum’s parking lot. Stop in for a bite to eat (pro tip – try a slice of one of their homemade pies) and watch the planes take off and land at the Jefferson County Airport.

Things to keep in mind:

• Open Wednesday – Sunday, 9am – 4pm
• Admission discounts for seniors and military
• Children under 6 are free admission

Links of Interest:

• Port Townsend Aero Museum website
• Spruce Goose Cafe website

105 Airport Road Port Townsend, WA 98368

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Eagle River couple plans vast adventure in wooden plane

A lot of people wouldn’t be all that excited about hopping in a WOODEN plane and flying thousands of miles, but in November, an Eagle River couple will do just that. They’ll be part of a vintage air rally, flying an antique plane from Crete to Capetown on a journey that will take more than a month. Alaska Public Media’s Graelyn Brashear met them to learn more about the adventure.

The story of Lita and Nick Oppegard’s relationship starts in the air.

Lita was born and raised in Alaska, the daughter of a bush pilot. She grew up flying everywhere with her dad.

“In fact growing up the first family vehicle that I have a memory of was our Stinson Station Wagon, a four-place single engine aircraft,” she said.

Nick came to Alaska in 1973 as a young pilot just looking to get some multi-engine turbine time, so he could—as he would have said then—go back to America and “fly for a real airline.” But flying for Wein Air turned out to be a life-changing job, and he stayed.

“I could spend three lifetimes here and not see it all,” he said.

And one day, he got up the courage to ask out a beautiful young flight attendant named Lita.

“I was never going to date flight attendants,” said Nick. “And I can tell you this, I’ve dated one now and I’ll never date another one.”

They got married a little over a year later. That was nearly forty years ago. They’ve been flying together ever since.

They’re telling this story, appropriately, in seats pulled from a retired commercial jet in the corner of an old airplane hangar at the Alaska Air Museum in Anchorage, surrounded by beautiful old planes that tell the story of flight on the last frontier. And the couple is about to embark on their own journey into aviation’s past. They will make up one of two American teams on a historic air rally in November that will see two dozen vintage aircraft fly nearly 7,000 miles across the African continent.

When Nick first read about the Crete2Cape rally , he was entranced. He said to relive those glory days of early flight is something aviators dream about.

“We all have a romantic side of us when it comes to flying,” he said, “the days of barnstorming and flying in open cockpit airplanes over fields and pastures and waving at children whose eyes are as big as saucers looking up at these grand machines. So I went home and ran this one up the flagpole with she who must be obeyed.”

Lita thought it sounded like their kind of adventure.

“Of course then we got on the mission of finding just the right airplane for us to do this in,” she said.

The plane they found is a 1928 Travel Air 4000, a radial-engine biplane born during the golden age of aviation. It was built by a company whose three founders—Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman—all went on to give their names to other companies and other planes.

It looks like a piece of history, and it is. It was owned and flown by a couple of aviation greats: The famed racer Matty Laird, and aerobatic pioneer Frank Price. But Nick’s favorite story from its illustrious history comes from its days with the Newark Flying Service.

“It was rented out to pilots and the airplane was confiscated and sold at public auction because one of the pilots was using it to smuggle booze during Prohibition,” he said. “Now that’s character and I think a lot of Alaskans can relate to that.”

Nick says 1,400 of these Travel Air Four Thousands were built, and only 40 are still flying. Three will join the rally, and, as it happens, two will hold Oppegards. Nick and Lita’s son Colin is joining the only other American team on the historic flight.

Getting the biplane across the Atlantic is itself a logistical feat. It will be broken down in Florida and packed into a shipping container with special padding and cradles. Then it will be shipped by sea to England’s southern shore.

Not far from Southampton, a fleet of vintage planes will take off at the end of October. They’ll fly across France, over the Alps, Italy, and the Balkans to Greece. Nick will make the 300-mile flight across the Mediterranean alone, swaddled in a survival suit. Lita will join him when he lands in Egypt.

“Imagine flying in an open cockpit biplane down the Nile River,” said Nick, “by the pyramids over the antiquities of Khartoum, by Kilimanjaro, over Victoria Falls and flying out to the fascinating spice island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean right on the coast, and then landing in the Great Serengeti Plain, ending the trip at Table Mountain in Capetown South Africa.”

Along the way, they’ll sleep in safari camps and attend Roaring Twenties-themed galas—their packing list includes a sleeping bag and black-tie attire. But what they’re looking forward to the most is meeting people—locals and their fellow adventurers.

“As we get to know the other people in the rally and the people that we meet on the ground and in the various place we stop it will be with great pride that we tell them that we are from Alaska,” Lita said.

The trip will take five weeks from the time they leave Crete on November 11 , and it is not without risks. But they’re OK with that. They’re pilots, after all. And Alaskans.

“Well hey, it’s part of being alive,” said Nick. “Mitigate the risks as best you can, enjoy life, enjoy the beauty of this magnificent planet, its people, and these wonderful flying machines.”

You can follow their progress come November on the Crete2Cape Facebook page .

Graelyn Brashear, Alaska Public Media

Related articles more from author, anchorage assembly leaders aim to postpone police chief confirmation until mayor lafrance takes office, a new lawsuit over alaska’s medicaid backlog asks a judge to order faster processing, 8 young alaskans reignite a court fight over climate change and fossil fuel development.

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Vintage Air Travel Images Through The Years

Posted: March 13, 2024 | Last updated: May 15, 2024

Air travel milestones through the decades

From the early days of flight and the "golden age of travel," to contemporary budget airlines and COVID restrictions and regulations, air travel has transformed dramatically over the past century.

Click or scroll through this gallery and join us as we take a journey through time to bring you the biggest milestones in commercial aviation history, including plans for air travel to become net zero by 2050 recently announced.

1920s: passengers wait to board a plane in 1929

The story of commercial air travel begins before the 1920s, in 1914, when the world's first scheduled passenger service set off between Tampa and St Petersburg, piloted by Tony Jannus. Though commercial aviation did not take off quickly, more and more companies tried to build on this milestone through the 1920s, with varying degrees of success. Here, passengers wait at Croydon Airport, UK to board a Handley Page W.9 aircraft, a model used by early airlines Imperial Airways and Sabena.

1920s: a Western Air Express airliner in 1928

1920s: Lady Heath pilots a plane for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

1920s: passengers are served drinks on a French Air Union plane in 1929

1920s: an early in-flight movie in 1925

In-flight entertainment systems looked rather different too. Today airplane entertainment is a solitary, hi-tech affair but, in the early days of flight, passengers would typically gather around a single screen if they wanted to catch a movie. One of the earliest films to be shown up high was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World in 1925 with Imperial Airways. Here, passengers on a German airliner also enjoy a movie in the year 1925.

1930s: a woman hands over an airmail parcel to Western Air Express staff circa 1930

The early 1930s continued in a similar fashion to the 1920s, with airlines offering airmail delivery services and also carrying passengers. Flying was still extremely expensive and fairly uncomfortable but, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum , the number of airline passengers grew from 6,000 in 1930 to 450,000 in 1934. Here, a woman passes on her mail to the crew of a Fokker F-10 monoplane operated by Western Air Express.

1930s: passengers listen to a broadcast aboard a flight in 1931

1930s: an early Anglo-Australian airliner in 1934

1930s: Eastern Air Lines stewards in the 1930s

In the 1920s and into the early 1930s, the role of flight attendant was one mostly reserved for men, who were usually referred to as "cabin boys." This was soon flipped on its head, though. The first female flight attendant, a nurse named Ellen Church, was employed in 1930 and by the middle of the decade most of these jobs went to women. The women were often trained nurses and there were also strict rules as to their age, height and weight. Before this change, this photo shows an all-male team of air stewards posing before an Eastern Air Lines plane in the early 1930s.

1930s: an Imperial Airways cabin in 1935

1930s: a Douglas DC-3 in flight

1930s: Pan American Airways flies across the Atlantic in 1939

1940s: Pan American World Airways' 'Flying Cloud' clipper

The onset of the Second World War meant developments in commercial aviation were put on the back burner, and all resources were plunged into the war effort. However, by the end of the decade, the industry was recovering, especially since the war had given rise to new runways and military aircraft were able to be converted and put to commercial use. This 1949 shot shows Pan Am's 'Flying Cloud' clipper, the first of a group of planes to begin a service between New York and London in the 1940s. 

1940s: passengers aboard a Pan Am Boeing 307 aircraft circa 1945

1940s: poster advertising TWA

As competition increased towards the end of this decade, the major airlines ramped up their advertising. This TWA poster advertises the Boeing 307 Stratoliner, and promises a smooth ride as the aircraft glides above the clouds. The 1940s was ultimately the decade that preceded the so-called "golden age of travel."

1950s: crowds wave off the world's first jet airliner service

1950s: a passenger enjoying lunch on the world's first commercial jet airliner service

1950s: a test flight for the Boeing 707 jet airliner with Pan Am

1950s: the Queen arrives in Bermuda on a BOAC flight in 1953

1950s: an air hostess attends to passengers on a National Airways Corporation flight in 1959

1950s: a movie projector on a United Airlines flight circa 1950

1960s: lunch service on a Lufthansa flight in 1967

The golden age of travel reigned on through the 1960s and, partly since there wasn't much else to do, dinner was a grand affair. Menus often included multiple courses, bread baskets and dishes such as steak or even lobster. In this 1967 snap, passengers are being served food onboard a Lufthansa flight. 

1960s: dinner aboard a SAS aircraft in 1969

1960s: The Beatles arrive in London on a Pan Am flight in 1964

1960s: flight attendants line up before a model of Concorde in the 1960s

1970s: the first Concorde flight from London Heathrow to Bahrain in 1976

1970s: the Queen on a Concorde aircraft in 1977

Concorde got the royal seal of approval (the Queen is pictured here onboard a Concorde aircraft in 1977), with its ability to cross the Atlantic in just 3.5 hours. But only a privileged few could afford to ride aboard the Concorde and it ultimately didn't shake up commercial air travel in the way it had been hoped. Cancelled routes, economic setbacks and a devastating crash meant the Concorde was out of service by 2003. 

1970s: Laker Airways founder Freddie Laker celebrates the airline's success

1970s: Laker and passengers aboard Laker Airways' Skytrain

Laker Airways' Skytrain offered a lower fare service between London Gatwick and New York's JFK, which began on 26 September 1977. Like many budget airlines today, the "no frills" service meant passengers had to purchase meals onboard and weren't subject to the usual luxuries of air travel in the era. Laker also came up with ways to reduce fuel consumption and engine wear to enable the lower costs. He's pictured here celebrating with passengers aboard the Skytrain in 1979. 

1970s: the first scheduled Pan Am Boeing 747 flight

1970s: passengers in the cabin of a Boeing 747

This was the first time that air travel was truly opening up to the masses. Since planes were larger, airlines were able to hold more passengers and therefore sell more tickets at a reduced price. Though flying still wasn't cheap, it was no longer only reserved for the super-rich. This 1970s shot shows the spacious cabin of a BOAC Boeing 747, filled with families, couples and other holidaymakers. 

1970s: passengers are served Champagne on a Pan Am 747 flight

1970s: lunch is served aboard a Boeing 747

1970s: a lounge on SAS's Boeing 747-B "Huge Viking"

1980s: Laker celebrates further fare cuts in 1980

1980s: passengers are stranded as Laker Airways collapses in 1982

Laker Airways collapsed in 1982, saddling debts amounting to $374 million. More than 6,000 passengers were left stranded in airports around the world. Here, exasperated travelers and dismayed Laker staff feel the brunt of the collapse on 5 February 1982. 

1980s: a Ryanair aircraft in 1988

1980s: Richard Branson celebrates the launch of his new airline, Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984

1980s: a flight attendant serves dinner on a SAS flight circa 1980s

1980s: ashtrays on a commercial flight

1990s: easyJet boss Stelios Haji-Ioannou in 1995

1990s: Ryanair's chief executive promotes low-fare flights

The introduction of Ryanair and easyJet (and also Norwegian in 1993) meant pressure was put on traditional carriers, fares were pushed down and air travel became increasingly more accessible. As travelers also began booking holidays online, competitive pricing became more important than ever.

1990s: a Pan Am aircraft in 1991

2000s: security at Salt Lake City International Airport in 2001

2000s: the door to an aircraft cockpit in 2001

2000s: an easyJet aircraft flying in 2009

Travelers eschewed air travel in the years following 9/11 and, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics , it took until 2004 for air-passenger numbers to reach their pre-9/11 peak. Commercial air travel was recovering by the end of the decade, though, with US air passengers numbering 769.6 million in 2007 – a record high. During this time, it was low-cost carriers that saw the most growth. 

2000s: a traveler books flights online

Another significant change during this decade was the way travelers were choosing to book their flights. According to PhoCusWright , a tourism research company, 2009 was the first year that more than half of all travel-related bookings were made online. This placed even more pressure on airlines to be competitive and offer the best value for money.

2010s: a man works on his laptop during a flight

The internet hasn't just infiltrated the booking process. Nowadays it's commonplace for carriers to offer in-flight Wi-Fi, either as part of the package, or for an extra premium. In a major shift from the golden age of travel, this means that flying today is no longer just about pleasure and relaxation – it's also about catching up with work and keeping in touch with people on the ground. Online check-in and smartphone boarding passes have also revolutionized the airport experience over the years.

2010s: a sign for premium economy class in Hong Kong International Airport

2010s: an American Airlines flight in 2017

The main change in the last decade was the sheer volume of travelers: more and more people were flying than ever before, and the sky-high numbers had previously shown little sign of tailing off. In fact, in 2017, the International Air Transport Association had projected that there could be 7.2 billion air travel passengers by 2035 .

2020s: grounded planes at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport, Germany

The COVID-19 pandemic rocked the travel and aviation industry and both passengers and staff had to adjust to a new (and unpredictable) ‘normal’. Ever-changing international travel restrictions left airlines up in the air (figuratively, not literally), and major players including easyJet, American Airlines and British Airways suffered severe financial losses, resulting in job cuts. This photo from 1 June 2020 shows out-of-service planes at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport.

2020s: a passenger undergoes a temperature check at Heathrow Airport

Towards the end of 2020, civil aviation began to resume at a crawling pace, with the announcement of some 'air bridges' or 'travel corridors'. For passengers choosing to fly, airport experiences looked rather different around the world. Protocols and restrictions varied from airport to airport, and from airline to airline, but typically involved mandatory face coverings, contactless check-ins and fewer open airport facilities. A passenger is seen here in July 2020 receiving a temperature check at a BA desk at London’s Heathrow Airport.

2020s: a masked flight attendant on a Brussels Airlines plane

Passengers had to get used to new onboard experiences too. Depending on the airline – and in efforts to reduce touch points and contact between staff and passengers – changes were extended to a lack of inflight meals or trolley services, and the reduction of little luxuries like in-flight magazines, blankets and the like. Masks were mandatory on most flights too, while some carriers blocked the middle seats to allow passengers more space.

2020s: international air travel gets a slow lift off

The aviation industry continued to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic into 2021, though the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicted  a 50.4% uptick in demand for flights from 2020 . With vaccine programs being rolled out around the world, international borders finally opened. 

2020s: a passenger holds up an EU 'vaccine passport'

Around the world, testing and vaccines built bridges between destinations in staggered phases. For example, Canada’s borders first opened to double-jabbed Americans, before being unlocked for vaccinated travelers from around the world too. Double-jabbed UK travelers initially could fly to 'amber' European hotspots including France, Spain and Portugal without quarantining on return (though they had to take PCR tests). New Zealand and Australia also formed a 'quarantine-free travel bubble'. EU citizens could download  a vaccine 'passport'  (pictured) allowing them to cross EU borders with minimal restrictions.

2020s: world's first all-electric plane takes to the skies

In late September 2022, the world's first all-electric plane jetted off for an eight-minute flight above the skies of Washington, USA. Alice, the project name that stuck during planning in 2016, is the brainchild of American-based company Eviation , and will be fit for both passenger and cargo use by 2027. The successful maiden flight reached an altitude of 3,500 feet and the zero-emissions plane was powered by two 640-kilowatt electric motors. It is hoped Alice will operate flights ranging from 150 to 250 miles, and will come in three different configurations: a nine-passenger commuter, a six-seater executive cabin and an eCargo version.

2020s: relaxed uniform policies are welcomed

Cabin crew requirements have changed over the decades; as we've seen already, the 1930s followed strict rules regarding age, height and weight, and since then tailored uniforms and specific hairstyles became the norm. But the 2020s have welcomed a more relaxed approach and in September 2022 Virgin Atlantic ditched gender-specific uniforms allowing crew, pilots and ground staff to choose whichever they feel most comfortable in. Earlier in the year staff were also permitted to keep their tattoos visible, marking the first UK airline to do so.

2050: air travel industry set to become carbon neutral

We don't know for sure what the future holds for air travel. But the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO)  recently announced its support for a net zero goal for the aviation industry by 2050 . However, environmental campaigners say the plans don't go far enough, believing more measures were needed to ensure the 193 member countries of the ICAO meet the goal and hold airlines accountable. 

Now check out the mesmerizing photos from the Drone Photography Awards

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Order of Lenin Moscow Air Defence District

Ордена Ленина Московский округ ПВО

Military Unit: 64178

Commanders:

• Marshal of the Soviet Union Kirill Semenovich Moskalenko, 1948 - 1953
• Colonel-General Nikolay Nikiforovich Nagornyy, 1953 - 1954
• Marshal of the Soviet Union Pavel Fedorovich Batitskiy, 1954 - 7.66
• Colonel-General Vasiliy Vasilevich Okunev, 7.66 - 8.70
• Marshal of Aviation Aleksandr Ivanovich Koldunov, 8.70 - 1975
• Colonel-General Boris Viktorovich Bochkov, 1975 - 1980
• Marshal of Aviation Anatoliy Ustinovich Konstantinov, 1980 - 1987
• Colonel-General Vladimir Georgievich Tsarkov, 1987 - 1989
• General of the Army Viktor Alekseevich Prudnikov, 1989 - 8.91
• General of the Army Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Kornukov, 8.91 - 1998
• Colonel-General G.B. Vasilev, 1998 - 2002
• Colonel-General Yuriy V. Solovev, from 2002

Activated 1948 in Moscow, Moscow Oblast, as the Moscow Air Defence Region , from the North-Western Air Defence District.

1950 renamed Moscow Air Defence District .

Organisation 1955:

• 37th Fighter Aviation Corps PVO (Morsansk, Tambov Oblast)
• 56th Fighter Aviation Corps PVO (Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl Oblast)
• 78th Guards Fighter Aviation Corps PVO (Bryansk, Bryansk Oblast)
• 88th Fighter Aviation Corps PVO (Rzhev, Kalinin Oblast)
• 151st Guards Fighter Aviation Division PVO (Klin, Moscow Oblast)
• 38th independent Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron (Rzhev, Kalinin Oblast)
• 182nd independent Reconnaissance Aviation Squadron
• 90th independent Transport Aviation Squadron (Stupino, Moscow Oblast)
• 1st Guards Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Maryino-Znamenskoye, Moscow Oblast)
• 52nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Biryulevo, Moscow Oblast)
• 74th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast)
• 76th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Skolkovo, Moscow Oblast)
• 78th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Gorkiy, Gorkiy Oblast)
• 80th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Moscow (Lenin Hills), Moscow Oblast)
• 96th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division (Panki, Moscow Oblast)
• 48th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl Oblast)
• 80th Guards Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Tula, Tula Oblast)
• 108th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast)
• 387th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Sarov, Gorkiy Oblast)
• 389th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Bezhitsa, Bryansk Oblast)
• 393th Guards Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast)
• 532nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Smolensk, Smolensk Oblast)
• 1225th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Gorkiy, Gorkiy Oblast)
• 1287th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Regiment (Shcherbaki, Kalinin Oblast)
• 92nd independent Regiment for Radar Countermeasures (Moscow, Moscow Oblast)

Organisation 1962:

• 118th Communications Center (Moscow, Moscow Oblast)
• 6th independent Radio-Technical Regiment (Klin, Moscow Oblast)
• 436th independent Transport Aviation Regiment (Stupino, Moscow Oblast)
• 103rd independent Communications and Radio-Technical Support Company (Stupino, Moscow Oblast)
• 2367th independent Radio-Relay Battalion (Nemchinovka, Moscow Oblast)
• 52nd independent Airfield Engineer Battalion (Kosterevo, Moscow Oblast)
• 1470th independent Engineer Battalion (Elektrostal, Moscow Oblast)
• 193rd independent Transport Battalion (Moscow, Moscow Oblast)
• 1st Air Defence Army for Special Use (Balashikha, Moscow Oblast)
• 2nd Air Defence Corps (Rzhev, Rzhev Oblast)
• 3rd Air Defence Corps (Yaroslavl, Yaroslavl Oblast)
• 7th Air Defence Corps (Bryansk, Bryansk Oblast)
• 18th Air Defence Division (Gorkiy, Gorkiy Oblast)

Awarded the Order of Lenin 22.6.68.

Organisation 1970:

• 16th Air Defence Corps (Gorkiy, Gorkiy Oblast)

Organisation 1980:

• 712th Data Center (Moscow, Moscow Oblast)

Organisation 1988:

1998 renamed Moscow Air Force and Air Defence District.

2002 renamed Special Purpose Troop Command.

• Moscow, Moscow Oblast, 1948 - today [55 45 59N, 37 38 22E]

Subordination:

• GK PVO, 1948 - 7.98
• GK VVS and PVO, 7.98 - today

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• Moscow Oblast

Elektrostal

Elektrostal Localisation : Country Russia , Oblast Moscow Oblast . Available Information : Geographical coordinates , Population, Altitude, Area, Weather and Hotel . Nearby cities and villages : Noginsk , Pavlovsky Posad and Staraya Kupavna .

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Elektrostal Demography

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• Information /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#info
• Demography /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#demo
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• Distance /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#dist1
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• Nearby cities and villages /Russian-Federation--Moscow-Oblast--Elektrostal#dist2
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