After the initial flight of Aero Commander, Ted Smith’s finances weren’t the best. For Christmas he made his son a sled which turned out to be the best present ever from Santa Claus. Pictured, 12-year-old Ron and his red sled with a golden ‘R.’ For his book Stars and Commanders, Dave Duntz conducted years of research, including with Ted Smith’s unpublished memoir. The memoir was published in chapter 8 of Duntz’s book, and will be presented here in three parts. This is the second installment. You can purchase Duntz’s book at www.starsandcommanders.com.
Soon we were being visited by many interested parties. One was Mr. Stanley Draper from Oklahoma City who was top man in the Chamber of Commerce and wanted us to bring the project to Oklahoma for production. Another person, Mr. Rufus Amis, came from the Amis Construction Company in Oklahoma City. Both had read about the project in the news media. Others were from various parts of the country: Texas, Pennsylvania, California and Oklahoma – literally from all parts of the country and letters of inquiry from all over the world.
During this period, we were completely without finance and I personally was flat broke, not really unexpected, but one realizes very suddenly that being broke with a family to care for, house payments to make, utility bills to pay, etc., is a shocking experience. It was the first time since 1933 that I was financially insolvent. So insolvent, that came Christmas in December of 1948, I did not have money to purchase Christmas gifts for my family and especially for Ron, who was then a little over 12 years old.
I mentioned earlier that we loved camping and snow skiing, so the thought came to me I would build a Christmas present for him to use in the snow—a metal sled constructed from aluminum. It would have a tee bar coming up through the forward center part of the sled. Connected to two moveable runners made from some extruded material from the shop, sawing off all but 1/8 inch of the upstanding leg of a T-section extrusion would provide just enough extension into the snow so that direction control could be maintained or turns made to right or left. Behind, the moveable runners were flat sided and smooth rails about 48 inches long. These were riveted to 1/8-inch side plates about six inches in depth and had large oval holes but in their sides to lighten the structure; a bottom diaphragm of .020 sheet aluminum was attached just above the runners leaving about a three-inch clearance to the snow level. The top of the sled also contained an aluminum alloy cover flush riveted to the underneath structure. I painted it bright red and applied a large “R” on the top side in gold paint.
Ron was thrilled with the sled on Christmas day as a gift from Santa Claus and shortly after Christmas we went to the snow country and found it to be very, very fast and maneuverable. There was nothing else that could compare to it, and sometimes I wonder why I did not go ahead and build them for sale because it was a winner.
The boys who still had steady jobs came over Christmas Eve and gave us a turkey plus $100.00 in cash! We were rich again comparatively speaking. It made us feel very humble that others cared and realized our state of finance. Our little family was very grateful. Perhaps this was the turning point in our lives. Perhaps now that I had partially completed my dream the future would bring forth a way to certify the prototype and perhaps someone or a group would come forth with the finance to place the Aero Commander in production.
Early in 1949 I was visited by some of the top-level people from Beechcraft, including Walter Beech himself. I called Johnny Martin over from Douglas and he took the group on a demonstration ride. Upon landing Walter Beech was so impressed that he wanted to buy the program, if our key people would go along with the program. He was so emphatic about it that he pulled out his checkbook and wanted to place a deposit then and there. I told Mr. Beech that I did not feel it proper to make a deal so quickly,ent, thatest equipment, we set up in Pete’e required to run static proof tests to design limit load on all of the structur that I would like to take time to think it over and to talk to my people. In fact, some of his group mentioned to Mr. Beech that he should wait until they returned to Wichita and discuss the project with their engineering people. I realized that in companies who have a large staff of engineering people, that these people are generally very jealous about bringing in an outside project designed by engineers outside of their own company, and I had a feeling that Mr. Beech would encounter opposition from the engineering staff at Beech.
Wiffle tree wing static test on L-3805, Aero Commander prototype)
In a few days I received a very nice letter from Walter Beech saying in effect, their engineering department said that if Beechcraft wanted a small twin they could design one for him. A short time later the Beech Twin Bonanza was announced—the Model B-50.
During the early part of 1949, a Mr. Miller visited us from Wings Field in Ambler, Pennsylvania, and indicated that he knew of some people in Pennsylvania who might be interested in providing some finance to complete certification and place the aircraft in production. His feeling was that the airplane would have a very broad market and could easily be sold when certified by the C.A.A. and placed in production.
About the same time, Rufus Amis paid us another visit and suggested that we bring the prototype to Oklahoma City as he felt that finance could be raised in Oklahoma City to certify and place the airplane in production.
Johnny Martin had taken time off now and then to fly the prototype on demonstration flights for interested people since none of us at that time were multi-engine rated by the C.A.A. We followed the suggestion of Rufus Amis and Johnny Martin took a few days leave from Douglas and he and I took off from Culver City early in the morning of April 13, 1949.
We landed in Oklahoma City at the downtown airpark located about five miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The airpark was owned and built by the Amis Construction Company in partnership with the Kerr-McGee Oil Company. It was a bright, clear day in Oklahoma City with temperatures in the 80s.
There were many interested people standing by for our arrival, and Johnny gave a number of demonstrations that afternoon. All were very interested in the airplane, impressed with design and workmanship and some of these later purchased the Aero Commander when it was placed in production the following year.
On the next day Stanley Draper visited with us and reiterated his desire for us to come to Oklahoma City to manufacture the airplane. He showed us a facility that could be made available, a brand-new metal hangar, located on which was then known as Tulakes Airport, now Wiley Post Airport. The name was derived due to its geographical location between two reasonably large lakes, Lake Hefner and Lake Overholser, just about seven miles northwest of Oklahoma City and almost due north of downtown airpark.
The hangar contained 20,000 square feet including a twenty-foot lean-to on the southwest side. There was another building about 200 feet south that had about 5,000 square feet and as we shall learn later, these facilities became the first production home of the Aero Commander.
After the trip to Oklahoma City, Amis advanced expense money for us to show the airplane around the United States, giving demonstrations to various interested people including Dwane Wallace of Cessna Aircraft. This was at a time when business in the single-engine aircraft was at a very low ebb, and Amis thought possibly that Cessna might be interested in taking on the project but, although interested, he was not a bit optimistic about the future and, therefore, turned us down. Emmett Morris, a pilot working for Amis did the flying demonstrations, but no one was interested in putting up money to complete certification or to place the aircraft in production.
Time went by and early in 1950 Amis called and said he had gotten together a group who would advance up to $25,000 to complete certification of the prototype. This was the best news that we had received for many months! This would be another great step forward, as the C.A.A. certification of an airplane meant a great deal. The worth increased greatly between an uncertified aircraft as against one that is certified, and it would put us in a much better position to obtain production finance. He advised we come to Oklahoma City and work out the details. We drove to Oklahoma City and worked out the details. We then drove home and called the boys together and gave them the details. They all started work again, this time for pay. Finally in early May 1950, we received final engineering approval and a T.I.A. meaning Type Inspection Authorization. This meant that we were now ready for flight test to obtain a type certificate.
Bert Bantle, from the C.A.A., was assigned to the project for flight test. He had been over to the office several times prior to our receiving the T.I.A. He had several times flown the aircraft and was quite impressed with its performance and characteristics so in starting the flight test program, he was somewhat familiar with the aircraft.
Bert had gone to work in the flight test department of the C.A.A. Los Angeles region after the war. His tour of duty during the war was with M.A.T.S., Military Air Transport Service, flying both the Pacific and Atlantic routes. Bert had an aeronautical engineering degree from U. of Alabama but flying was his career then, preferring flying to anything else. In the past he had been C.A.A. project pilot in the certification of the Thorpe Sky Scooter, the first Convair Model 240, and other miscellaneous projects, but now a new challenge – C.A.A. flight test project officer on the Aero Commander – a new and exciting venture.
Ernie Rice was the C.A.A. inspector on the project and had followed the project through the building stage, checking for conformity as the pieces and parts were fabricated and fed into the assemblies.
We did not have a rated pilot to fly with Bert, so we discussed the situation with George Haldeman, Chief of the C.A.A. Engineering branch. We agreed Bert would fly the aircraft for C.A.A. approval, as well as representing the Company. Approval was given on the basis that I would accompany Bert, acting as flight engineer throughout the program and accept responsibility for the airplane. Another flight engineer was also assigned to the project, and between the three of us, we collected and reduced all of the flight test data each evening after the day’s flight.
The official C.A.A. flight tests were started in April 1950. Prior to the first official C.A.A. flight, Ernie Rice conducted a complete conformity check of the aircraft. To meet C.A.A. requirements, we built and installed a quick release for the cabin door to be used in case of emergency.
Certification flights always start out with airspeed calibration and these were done about 50 feet over the water, over measured courses that had been previously set up by the C.A.A.
Minimal instrumentation was installed in the cabin. This consisted primarily of temperature recording equipment and airspeed indication. The temperature recorder was just a Lewis potentiometer carrying calibrated thermocouple leads to measure cylinder head temperatures and base temperatures of the engines. To be continued…
