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.
 | |
 Bellanca 14-13-2 | |
| Formerly | Bellanca Aircraft Company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Aerospace |
| Founded | 1927 |
| Founders | Giuseppe Mario Bellanca |
| Headquarters | |
| Website | bellancaaircraft |
In 2021 the company was reformed as Bellanca Aircraft, Inc and located in Sulphur, Oklahoma. The new company supplies maintenance and aircraft parts, for the legacy Cruisemaster and Viking aircraft.[2]
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History
editAfter 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
edit| Model name | First flight | No. built | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wright-Bellanca WB-1 | 1925 | 1 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| Wright-Bellanca WB-2 | 1926 | 1 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| CH-200 Pacemaker | 1928 | 2 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| Model K | 1928 | 1 | Single engine transport monoplane |
| Model P series, C-27 Airbus | 1928 | 25-30 | Single engine transport monoplane |
| Model J | 1929 | 4 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| CH-300 Pacemaker | 1929 | ~35 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| TES Tandem Blue Streak | 1929 | 1 | Twin-engine endurance record sesquiplane |
| CH-400 Skyrocket | 1930 | 32 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| 66-67 Aircruiser family | 1930 | 23 | Single engine utility monoplane |
| J-300/J-3-500 | 1931 | 5 | Single engine endurance monoplane |
| XSE-1 & XSE-2 | 1932 | 1 | Single engine carrier scout monoplane |
| Model D Skyrocket/XRE-3 | 1932 | 7 | Single engine utility monoplane |
| Model E Pacemaker | 1932 | 7 | Single engine utility monoplane |
| Model F-1, F-2 Skyrocket | 1933 | 2 | Single engine utility monoplane |
| 28-70 Irish Swoop | 1934 | 1 | Single engine MacRobertson Air Race monoplane |
| Model F Skyrocket | 1934 | 3 | Single engine utility monoplane |
| 77-140 | 1934 | 1 | Twin engine bomber |
| 77-320 Junior | 1934 | 4 | Twin engine bomber |
| 31-40 Senior Pacemaker family | 1935 | 10 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| 31-50 Senior Skyrocket family | 1935 | 10~ | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| XSOE-1 | 1936 | 1 | Single engine scout biplane floatplane |
| 28-90 Flash | 1937 | 43 | Single engine military monoplane |
| 14-7 Cruisair Junior | 1937 | 1 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| 17-20[a] | 1937 | monoplane | |
| 28-92 | 1938 | 1 | Trimotor racing monoplane |
| 14-9 Cruisair | 1939 | 44 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| 14-14/T14-14 | 1940 | 1 | Trainer based on Cruisair |
| YO-50 | 1940 | 3 | Prototype single engine observation monoplane |
| 14-13 Cruisair Senior | 1945 | ~600 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| 14-19 Cruisemaster | 1949 | 203 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| Citabria | 1964 | Single engine cabin monoplane | |
| 17-30 Viking | 1967 | 1,356 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| Decathlon | 1970 | Single engine cabin monoplane | |
| Champ | 1971 | Single engine cabin monoplane | |
| T-250 Aries | 1973 | 5 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| Scout | 1974 | 500+ | Single engine cabin monoplane |
| 19-25 Skyrocket II | 1975 | 1 | Single engine cabin monoplane |
Famous individual aircraft
editSee also
editReferences
editFootnotes
edit- ^ 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
edit- ^ Wragg, David W. (1973). A Dictionary of Aviation (first ed.). Osprey. p. 60. ISBN 9780850451634.
- ^ Bellanca Aircraft, Inc (March 1, 2022). "News". bellancaaircraft.com. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
- ^ Mondey 1978, p. 96.
- ^ "The Giuseppe M. Bellanca Collection". National Air and Space Museum, Archives Division. Archived from the original on June 18, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
- ^ Palmer 2001, p. 51.
- ^ a b "Newest Bellanca"
- ^ Grey & Bridgman 1937, p.275.
- ^ Grey & Bridgman 1938, pp.248–51.
- ^ Taylor 1993, p.150
Bibliography
edit- Grey, C.G.; Bridgman, Leonard, eds. (1937). Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1937. London: Sampson Low, Marston & company, ltd.
- Grey, C.G.; Bridgman, Leonard, eds. (1938). Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1938. London: Sampson Low, Marston & company, ltd.
- Mondey, David. The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Aircraft. Secaucus, NJ: Chartwell Books Inc, 1978. ISBN 0-89009-771-2.
- "Newest Bellanca". Aviation. New York: McGraw-Hill. June 1, 1937. p. 54.
- Palmer, Trisha, ed. "Bellanca Viking Series". Encyclopedia of the World's Commercial and Private Aircraft. New York: Crescent Books, 2001. ISBN 0-517-36285-6.
- Taylor, Michael J. H. (1993). Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. London: Studio Editions.
External links
edit
- Official website
- AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation website archives[usurped] on Archive.org
- Friends of Bellanca Field
- The main focus of the George J. Frebert collection on Delaware aviation Archived 2014-10-30 at the Wayback Machine and the George J. Frebert photograph collection on Delaware aviation — both about Giuseppe Bellanca & his Bellanca Aircraft Corporation; in the Hagley Museum and Library.
- The Story of Bellanca Planes – Popular Aviation