The Travel Air Manufacturing Company was an aircraft manufacturer established in Wichita, Kansas, United States in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman. An early leader in single-engine, light-aircraft manufacturing, from 1925 to 1931, Travel Air was the largest-volume aircraft manufacturer in the United States in 1928 -- the principal contributor to Wichita becoming named the "Air Capital City" by the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce. Travel Air produced the trend-setting Travel Air Mystery Ship racer, which forced radical changes in U.S. military aircraft. Travel Air also developed early small airliners, including Delta Airlines' first, and the first civilian plane to reach Hawaii by air. With Walter Beech as its last President, the company was acquired by Curtiss-Wright Corporation, and moved to St. Louis, Missouri, before production ceased in the Great Depression. However, Beech returned to Wichita in 1932, acquired the abandoned Travel Air factory, and resumed production under his own name, with the Beech Aircraft Corporation — producing what would have been the 17th Travel Air model, but as the Beech Model 17 "Staggerwing." History Early biplanes The company initially built a series of sporting and training open-cockpit biplanes, including the Model A, Model B, Model BH, and Model BW (These were subsequently renumbered.) Other types included the 5000 and 6000 high wing cabin monoplanes and the CW / 7000 mailplane. The A differed in some minor details such as lacking the overhanging Fokker style ailerons that gave the rest of the series the nickname Wichita Fokker (not present on all of the later models though), while the B, BH and BW differed only in the engine installed – the A and B had a Curtiss OX-5, the BH had a Hispano-Suiza V-8, the BW had a Wright radial (of various types) though other radials would be installed later (especially after it became the 4000). Aside from the Wichita Fokkers seen in such movies as Howard Hughes' Hell's Angels, likely the most famous of the open cockpit biplanes was N434N, a D4D (the ultimate derivative of the BW) painted in Pepsi colors for airshow and skywriting use which survives in the National Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy annex. A second, backup D4D, N434P, used by Pepsi in later years to supplement and fill-in for the original aircraft, is housed in the Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, California. Cabin monoplanes The Travel Air 5000 was a Cessna