The Swallow Airplane Company was an early manufacturer of airplanes.

History

In January 1920, the E.M. Laird Aviation Company Ltd. was started with the purchase of the six-month-old Wichita Aircraft Company, its aircraft and the factory of the Watkins Manufacturing Company. Oilman Jacob Mollendick and Buick-Franklin salesman William A. Burke each contributed $15,000. The first Swallow designed by Buck Weaver and was test flown in April 1920. Later, in 1921, the company moved into a new factory building on North Hillside Street. Laird hired several aviators that became prominent in the business later, Buck Weaver who would co-found Waco Aircraft, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman who would develop the Swallow New Swallow. Following the departure of

Emil Matthew Laird Emil Matthew Laird (November 29, 1895 – December 18, 1982) was a pioneering American aircraft designer, builder, pilot, and businessman. He put the first commercial aircraft into production at his E. M. Laird Aviation Company. Biography C ...

in 1923 and his formation of the E. M. Laird Airplane Company, on 22 January 1924 the company was renamed as the Swallow Airplane Manufacturing Company. Swallow was notable for producing the

Swallow TP The Swallow TP was a trainer aircraft produced by the Swallow Airplane Company in the United States from 1928. Design and construction The TP was a simple and rugged biplane design with room for an instructor and student in tandem open cockpit ...

in quite large numbers, for its day. A large proportion of pilots trained in the late 1920s and early '30s did so on the TP. In late 1927, owner Mollendick bet most of the company fortune on a record setting aircraft flown by noted aviator William Portwood Erwin, the

Dallas Spirit ''Dallas Spirit'', (aka Swallow Monoplane or Swallow Dole Racer), was a custom-built aircraft designed to compete in the ill-fated Dole Air Race, Dole Air Derby between California and Hawaii. Development ''Dallas Spirit'' was built to attempt t ...

, which was lost on a record attempt to Asia concurrent with the

Dole Air Race The Dole Air Race, also known as the Dole Derby, was a deadly air race across the Pacific Ocean from Oakland, California to Honolulu in the Territory of Hawaii held in August 1927. There were eighteen official and unofficial entrants; fifteen of ...

. In December of the following year the company was purchased by the General Aero Corporation of America – a holding company that also counted the Cessna Aircraft Company among its assets. Swallow was sold again in 1933 to E. B. Christopher – who would be killed in the crash of one of the company's airplanes in 1937. Sam Bloomfield, the company's chief engineer, eventually took over as company president. No longer manufacturing complete aircraft, it existed as an aircraft mechanic school and subcontractor for the B-29 and B-47 until 1956.

Aircraft

Swallow_Super_Swallow_Aero_Digest_July_1926

References

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

{{commons category, Swallow Airplane Company
Tihen Notes
– A listing of newspaper articles that mention, among other Wichita aircraft manufacturers, the Swallow Airplane Company Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United States