The Stewart M-1 Monoplane was the first of two aircraft designed and built by the

W.F. Stewart Company The W.F. Stewart Company was an American carriage body and automotive body manufacturer founded in 1881 by William Francis Stewart and based in Flint, Michigan. The company specialized in the design and manufacture of wooden carriage bodies f ...

, as their usual work of building custom wooden auto bodies was falling out of favor at that time.

Design

The M-1 was a

conventional landing gear Conventional landing gear, or tailwheel-type landing gear, is an aircraft undercarriage consisting of two main wheels forward of the center of gravity and a small wheel or skid to support the tail.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Term ...

equipped, all-wooden construction,

mid-wing A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

ed monoplane with two

tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

open cockpits, each of which had

side-by-side seating Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

for a total of four people. It was powered by a

Curtiss OX-5 The Curtiss OX-5 was an early V-8 American liquid-cooled aircraft engine built by Curtiss. It was the first American-designed aircraft engine to enter mass production, although it was considered obsolete when it did so in 1917.Smith, 1981, pa ...

engine. The wing

spar SPAR, originally DESPAR, styled as DE SPAR, is a Dutch multinational that provides branding, supplies and support services for independently owned and operated food retail stores. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1932, by Adriaan van Well, ...

was made of

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

with

mahogany Mahogany is a straight-grained, reddish-brown timber of three tropical hardwood species of the genus ''Swietenia'', indigenous to the AmericasBridgewater, Samuel (2012). ''A Natural History of Belize: Inside the Maya Forest''. Austin: Unive ...

veneer.

Operational history

The prototype was test flown from 1928 to 1929. Production was canceled with the onset of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. One owner operated the aircraft from

Flint, Michigan Flint is the largest city and seat of Genesee County, Michigan, United States. Located along the Flint River, northwest of Detroit, it is a principal city within the region known as Mid Michigan. At the 2020 census, Flint had a population of 8 ...

until 1934. The prototype was dismantled in 1937.

Specifications (Stewart M-1)

References

{{W.F. Stewart Company aircraft W.F. Stewart Company aircraft Mid-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1927 Single-engined tractor aircraft