Steven Craig's Beechcraft G17S The Beech Staggerwing is united of aviation's truly classic aircraft and it is a bit amazing that its ancestry goe all the way back to the early 1930 Walter Beech was thinking about a fresh aircraft that would have a top spe of 200-mph and be able to carry four to five commonalty in comfort.

Steven Craig's Beechcraft G17S

The Beech Staggerwing is united of aviation's truly classic aircraft and it is a bit amazing that its ancestry goe all the way back to the early 1930 Walter Beech was thinking about a fresh aircraft that would have a top spe of 200-mph and be able to carry four to five commonalty in comfort. He also wanted the plane to have in extent range and be easy to maintain. The company had gained experience with the Travel Air type R race plane, so highspeed flight was not a mystery. Designer T Wells went above what Beech wanted and created an unusual appearing biplane with negative stagger wings. This layout gave proper visibility as well as extremely good stall and recovery characteristics. At the time, Beech was working for CurtissWright and one time the project was presented to the board of directors it failed to draw any interest.

When Walter Beech place up his own company in 1932 he complet the design and it became the pattern 17 the first production Beechcraft. The prototype aircraft was powered through a Wright R-975 Whirlwind of 420-hp and the fuselage was erected of steel tubing with timber and metal formers and unplastic stringers. The wings were frameed of wood and connected with I pompous walks The aircraft made its first flight forward 4 November 1932 and it is interesting to note that this plane, and the first scarcely any Staggerwings, had fixed landing gear. The aircraft was presently meeting its performance goals and Walter Beech began incorporating improvements that increased performance.

The addition of retractable landing gear, better streamlining, and more powerful engines made the Staggerwing common of the top performers and the mark went on to set outstanding records in commercial, racing, and military operations. The Staggerwing was built in a variety of different "flavors" that could and have, fill a part but we are concerned with just common particular Staggerwing - the last single in kind built.

Readers of Air Classics are familiar with Steven Craig via his rare Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat (see Air Classics V39/N4) and Bucker Jungmeister, which was the first the same built (see V38/N2). Steve likes finding aircraft with historic significance and his acquisition of the G17 came about in a in the greatest degree interesting manner. "I have always liked the Staggerwing," said Steve "I have been a member of the Staggerwing set since 1982 and had a shoot forward for restoration, but I sold it. In 1991 I fix the last G17S for sale in Florida. The G17 came along in 1946 and was a greatly improved version with a of recent origin engine cowling, redesigned windshield, strange exhaust system, new instrument panel, larger manage surfaces on the tail, and many other refinements. There was individual problem - the G17S was selling for $29000 cot Beech was just starting to build the Bonanza and you could commit to memory one of those for a bit athwart $7000."

Production of the G17 would total just 20 aircraft - 16 of those were built by dint of Beech while the remaining four were assembled from elements from Henry Seal Aviation give in Dallas. The last Staggerwing, c/n 20 N80321 was wheeled out on 17 June 1949 - ending a pioneering period in American aviation. Walter Beech kept c/n 20 and used it as a company aircraft for a while before selling the plane to Willis Hartman, an independent oil and gas husbandman in Kansas. Hartman hired Ivan Behel as a pilot and they flew all around the native land in the plane.

The aircraft went by means of a number of owners through the time Steve found it in Florida. "It was fair tired," said Steve. "It had in no degree been restored and had 1250-hr forward the engine. It had last been cureed in 1970, but on the plus side it had not at any time been damaged. All the log were with the aircraft from day united I made the mistake of doing a handshake deal with the possessor and giving him a $10000 deposit." From that point, the situation casted into a bit of a nightmare. The holder decided he did not want to take a bribe for the plane, but kept the deposit! Steve and the proprietor haggled back and forth and finally Steve obtained the craft in 1994 if it were not that never got all his deposit back. The sale was predicated forward the aircraft receiving an annual. The holder had his mechanic do the annual "it was pleasing without being striking much a 'Parker Pen' annual," said Steve When he inspected the aircraft, Steve build that all the rubber breechess crumbled at his touch. Also, many other items were obviously not airworthy.

After considerable negotiations, well-known aircraft restorer Tom Crevasse was brought in as an arbitrator. After inspecting the craft, Tom had a solid three pages of squawks. Tom worked upon the plane to get it in ferriable shape and then flew it (gear down) to his facility in recently made known Smyrna Beach, Florida, where he advanceed to finish the annual inspection - at a splendor of $35,000. This, of course, terminateed in legal action which Steve won

"After all that excitement, I flew it for about a year adding just 18-20-hr flying time," recalled Steve "I was starting to worry about the engine and support I reasoned that I could just do a small in number things, clean the plane up and detain flying. However, in the back of my mind I knew what I had to do. Tom had done a division of wood repair in the aileron and flap bays in the same manner there were patches of silver dope onward the fabric and it was not really looking in the way that good.