AviaBellanca Aircraft

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AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation
FormerlyBellanca Aircraft Company
Industry Aerospace
Founded1927;98 years ago (1927)
Founders Giuseppe Mario Bellanca
Headquarters
San Luis Obispo, CA
Website bellancaaircraft.com

AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation was an American aircraft design and manufacturing company. Prior to 1983, it was known as the Bellanca Aircraft Company. [1] The company was founded in 1927 by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, although it was preceded by previous businesses and partnerships in which aircraft with the Bellanca name were produced, including Wright-Bellanca, in which he was in partnership with Wright Aeronautical.

Contents

In 2021 the company was reformed as Bellanca Aircraft, Inc and located in San Luis Obispo, CA with a satellite maintenance facility in Oklahoma. The new company supplies maintenance and aircraft parts, for the legacy Cruisemaster and Viking aircraft. [2]

Bellanca WB-2 "Columbia" Bellanca wb 2.jpg
Bellanca WB-2 "Columbia"
Bellanca CH-400 Skyrocket/XRE-3 Bellanca XRE-3 Skyrocket USMC c1933 (cropped).jpeg
Bellanca CH-400 Skyrocket/XRE-3
Bellanca C-27C Airbus Bellanca C-27C Airbus (cropped).jpg
Bellanca C-27C Airbus
Bellanca 31-42 Senior Pacemaker Bellanca 31-42 Senior Pacemaker CF-ANX.jpg
Bellanca 31-42 Senior Pacemaker
Bellanca Citabria 7ECA Bellanca.citabria.arp.jpg
Bellanca Citabria 7ECA
Bellanca 17-30A Super Viking Viking 30456.jpg
Bellanca 17-30A Super Viking

History

After Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, the designer and builder of Italy's first aircraft, moved to the United States in 1911, he began to design aircraft for a number of firms, including the Maryland Pressed Steel Company, Wright Aeronautical Corporation and the Columbia Aircraft Corporation. Bellanca founded his own company, Bellanca Aircraft Corporation of America, in 1927, sited first in Richmond Hill, New York and moving in 1928 to New Castle (Wilmington), Delaware. In the 1920s and 1930s, Bellanca's aircraft of his own design were known for their efficiency and low operating cost, gaining fame for world record endurance and distance flights. Lindbergh's first choice for his New York to Paris flight was a Bellanca WB-2. The company's insistence on selecting the crew drove Lindbergh to Ryan. [3]

Bellanca remained president and chairman of the board from the corporation's inception on the last day of 1927 until he sold the company to L. Albert and Sons in 1954. [4] From that time on, the Bellanca line was part of a succession of companies that maintained the lineage of the original aircraft produced by Bellanca. [5]

In 2022, the company moved from Alexandria, Minnesota to Sulphur, Oklahoma. While as of 2024 the company website states "Bellanca recently opened a new aircraft factory and maintenance facility in Sulphur, Oklahoma," no new aircraft have been recently produced.

Aircraft

Model nameFirst flightNo. builtType
Wright-Bellanca WB-1 19251Single engine cabin monoplane
Wright-Bellanca WB-2 19261Single engine cabin monoplane
CH-200 Pacemaker 19282Single engine cabin monoplane
Model K 19281Single engine transport monoplane
Model P series, C-27 Airbus 192825-30Single engine transport monoplane
Model J 19294Single engine cabin monoplane
CH-300 Pacemaker 1929~35Single engine cabin monoplane
TES Tandem Blue Streak 19291Twin-engine endurance record sesquiplane
CH-400 Skyrocket 193032Single engine cabin monoplane
66-67 Aircruiser family 193023Single engine utility monoplane
J-300/J-3-500 19315Single engine endurance monoplane
XSE-1 & XSE-2 19321Single engine carrier scout monoplane
Model D Skyrocket/XRE-3 19327Single engine utility monoplane
Model E Pacemaker 19327Single engine utility monoplane
Model F-1, F-2 Skyrocket 19332Single engine utility monoplane
28-70 Irish Swoop 19341Single engine MacRobertson Air Race monoplane
Model F Skyrocket 19343Single engine utility monoplane
77-140 19341Twin engine bomber
77-320 Junior 19344Twin engine bomber
31-40 Senior Pacemaker family 193510Single engine cabin monoplane
31-50 Senior Skyrocket family 193510~Single engine cabin monoplane
XSOE-1 19361Single engine scout biplane floatplane
28-90 Flash 193743Single engine military monoplane
14-7 Cruisair Junior 19371Single engine cabin monoplane
17-20 [a] 1937monoplane
28-92 19381Trimotor racing monoplane
14-9 Cruisair 193944Single engine cabin monoplane
14-14/T14-14 19401Trainer based on Cruisair
YO-50 19403Prototype single engine observation monoplane
14-13 Cruisair Senior 1945~600Single engine cabin monoplane
14-19 Cruisemaster 1949203Single engine cabin monoplane
Citabria 1964Single engine cabin monoplane
17-30 Viking 19671,356Single engine cabin monoplane
Decathlon 1970Single engine cabin monoplane
Champ 194610,000+Single engine cabin monoplane
T-250 Aries 19735Single engine cabin monoplane
Scout 1974500+Single engine cabin monoplane
19-25 Skyrocket II 19751Single engine cabin monoplane

Famous individual aircraft

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The June 1, 1937 edition of Aviation (today, Aviation Week & Space Technology ) describes the Bellanca 17-20 as a five-place, low wing monoplane designed for the medium-priced private market, and notes that the fuselage will have a stressed-skin, monocoque structure without compound curves. [6] The short note also quotes an unidentified source to say that the aircraft will be powered by a "well-known American inline motor", which the anonymous Aviation writer assumes to be a Menasco. [6] The 1937 edition of Jane's All the World's Aircraft adds nothing more than this, simply noting that "Only very brief details were available at the time of going to press". [7] The 1938 edition no longer mentions it in its list of current Bellanca designs, [8] and Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation, published in 1980 and revised in 1989 and 1993 adds nothing more than was announced in Aviation in 1937. [9]

Citations

  1. ↑ Wragg, David W. (1973). A Dictionary of Aviation (first ed.). Osprey. p. 60. ISBN   9780850451634.
  2. ↑ Bellanca Aircraft, Inc (March 1, 2022). "News". bellancaaircraft.com. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  3. ↑ Mondey 1978, p. 96.
  4. ↑ "The Giuseppe M. Bellanca Collection". National Air and Space Museum, Archives Division. Archived from the original on June 18, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
  5. ↑ Palmer 2001, p. 51.
  6. 1 2 "Newest Bellanca"
  7. ↑ Grey & Bridgman 1937, p.275.
  8. ↑ Grey & Bridgman 1938, pp.248–51.
  9. ↑ Taylor 1993, p.150

Bibliography

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