IT’S 1932, the depths of the Great Depression. Walter Herschel Beech, pioneer aircraft manufacturer latterly based in New York as vice-president of Curtiss Wright, resigns his secure post to start a new venture. Flying in the face of common sense and the opinions of his aviation contemporaries, he heads back to Wichita, Kansas, where he built his first aircraft in 1925. With his wife Olive Ann, and Curtiss engineer Ted Wells, he forms Beech Aircraft.
