WINSTEAD Special: UNIQUE SURVIVOR OF THE ROARING TWENTIES

Air Classics, Dec 2004 by Auliard, Gilles

At the beginning of the 1920s, numerous small airplane companies were created. By the beginning of the following decade, more than 90 percent were history - some having built only one airframe, others none. One such company, the Winstead Brothers Airplane Co., was formed in 1926 and dissolved the same year, with a total production run of only one airplane! Thanks to Paul Dougherty, president of the Golden Age Air Museum of Bethel, Pennsylvania, this historic machine is still alive and it graces the skies of central Pennsylvania on all-too-rare occasions.

During a bustling period in the 1920s, Wichita, Kansas, became one of the premier centers for airplane design and production, starting with the famous Swallow Airplane Manufacturing Co. created by Matty Laird in 1919 as the E.M. Laird Co. Under Laird's guidance, Swallow became one of the first successful post-war airplane manufacturers with the Laird Limousine and, later, the Swallow. By 1924, Matty Laird had left the company and Jacob "Jake" Moellendick was presiding over its destiny. In his team were two brilliant young engineers with advanced - for the time - ideas: Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman. In their after-work hours, they were building their own vision of the future: An airframe with a steel tube structure fuselage. After all, the idea was not new and was put to good use by the Germans during WWI, specifically with the Fokker D.VII, which gave Allied pilots a tough time. It is important to remember that the destruction of all D.VIIs in German hands was required by the Versailles Treaty, emphasizing its importance as an advanced weapon.

After completing their project, Beech and Stearman presented the fruit of their labor to Jake Moellendick, who did not really appreciate their efforts, and commented thusly: "No way. Our customers trust wood and that's what they will get."

At that point, the two friends decided to part with such a short-sighted company and create their own. Late in 1924, Beech and Stearman visited an older fellow to ask him to participate in this new and risky endeavor. After a lot of convincing, Clyde Cessna agreed to put his expertise (and his money) in the Travel Air venture. With the new company incorporated on 4 February 1925, the trio was writing a new page in aviation history.

The first product of the newly created Travel Air Manufacturing Co. was the Travel Air 1000, swiftly amended into the Travel Air 2000 and finally, by installing a radial engine, the Model 4000. All of those designs had more than a family resemblance to the Swallow project and were reminiscent of the Fokker D.VII, specially the models with "Elephant Ear" ailerons.

Left with the fuselage of the now moribund Swallow project, Jake Moellendick decided to get rid of it and sold it to one of his employees, a fellow named Carl Winstead. A pilot and a mechanic, Winstead, along with his brother Guy, was working to create yet another airplane company. Leaving Swallow, he embarked on making a creation his own. The fuselage was used as it was designed and built, while the wings were of typical Swallow design with an atypical shorter wingspan. They were attached to the fuselage with four bolts running through the spars and standard Swallow fittings. The engine mount was of Swallow design, sporting an example of the ubiquitous Curtiss OX-5 engine.

Paul Dougherty comments: "We figured that they loaded their pockets with as much Swallow stuff as they could before leaving The tail is Winstead's design: It has an aluminum tube for the horizontal stabilizer, the rest was steel tubing. In early photographs, the tail was braced with only one set of wires. We think it wobbled quite a bit since they added a second set soon after the initial flight. The landing gear was purchased from Nicholas Beasley Co., of Marshal, Missouri. According to the Winstead family, the plane had a radial engine before the OX-5, hut we could not find any photographic evidence."

Looking somewhat like a clipped-wing Travel Air 2000, the resulting flying machine was called the Winstead Special. With their finances sunk in the airplane and no hope of selling it, Guy and Carl dissolved the company and went their separate ways.

Carl and the Special stayed on the aviation scene joining the Flying Aces Air Circus in the late 1920s with Jessie Woods walking on the wings, as well as barnstorming. "Anything for a buck," as Paul puts it. The Special was sold to Marvin Mara in 1930 who employed it to barnstorm around the Midwest and, believe it or not, in air racing. After changing hands multiple times, the Winstead was deemed unairworthy in 1937. The owner of the time, J.J. Davis of Ayre, Nebraska, took it apart and put the components in storage. Resurfacing in the 1980s, the Special was traded with the Airpower Museum of Ottumwa, Iowa, where Paul and his father, Paul Sr., found it in 1995.

After the "Special" episode of his life, Carl went on with his aviation career, becoming one of the first Cessna Aircraft employees where he helped build the A series. He later became Cessna's chief test pilot, taking the Model 190 into the air on 7 December 1945. Shortly after, however, Carl died while testing the Cessna 195. Guy Winstead joined Travel Air in 1925, helping with the design and construction of the Model 5000 which was built on Cessna and Winstead's own time, in the same manner as Beech and Stearman proceeded with the Special. However the outcome was very different, Travel Air endorsing the new design.