Professional Pilot, October 2018
Wichita surviving a recession now back and moving forward F or nearly a century Wichitas international and self image has been rooted in making airplanes It began in the early 1920s when newly rich entrepreneurial Kansas oil prospectors provided capital for penniless ex World War I flyers and others eager to stake a claim in the new game of aviation Within a few years some 2 dozen aircraft manufacturing start ups were dotting the landscape in and around the still young community and in 1929 The Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce dubbed Wichita the Air Capital of the World a title that has stuck However the stock market crash and recession of that same year closed down all but the heartiest operations And Walter Beech Clyde Cessna later his nephew Dwane Wallace and Lloyd Stearman struggled through the depression years of the 1930s World War II brought full assembly lines high employment and relative 104 PROFESSIONAL PILOT October 2018 prosperity to Wichitas Big 3 of aviation Boeing Cessna and Beech After the war each struggled to find its place as Boeing did by building B 47s and later B 52s Cessna with models like the 172 and 310 and Beech with its Bonanza and Super 18 among others And for Beech and Cessna joined in 1963 by Learjet it was a business climate that fostered consecutive years of high sales activity and new model development only to be interrupted occasionally by down economies which led to stalled sales employee layoffs and high local unemployment in the city It was only a bit far fetched that you might be able look up employment roller coaster in the dictionary and find the word Wichita But following a major recession in 1970 71 and a less severe downturn in the early 1980s general and business aviation enjoyed a virtually unbroken run of financial health for more than 2 decades Could the good times go on forever Unfortunately the answer was No The almost totally unexpected economic crash of early 2008 spelled temporary doom for expansion and new model planning going on at each company at the time and ensuing canceled sales sent employment numbers reeling downward That was a decade ago How did the local industry participants and the Wichita community react to yet another crisis of confidence DIVERSITY GROWTH AT ICT Walter and Olive Ann Beech oversaw massive production buildup at their company during World War II when military training and transport aircraft were manufactured For decades Cessna Aircraft owned the training and small personal aircraft market at the company started by Clyde Cessna top left who first flew an aircraft he built in 1911 Clydes nephew Dwane Wallace fresh out of Wichita University became head of the company in 1934 By Al Higdon Former Beech and Learjet Communications Executive Cofounder of the Sullivan Higdon Sink Ad Agency Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons
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