Ted A. Wells
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Theodore (Ted) A. Wells | |
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| Born | March 12, 1907 |
| Died | September 25, 1991 (aged 84) Wichita, Kansas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Engineer |
| Spouse | Marge (Adair) Wells |
Ted A. Wells (March 12, 1907 – September, 1991) was an American aviation pioneer, Co-Founder of Beech Aircraft, Designer of the Model 17 (Staggerwing)).[1][2] Ted was also an avid Snipe sailboat racer winning three national championships and two world championships.[1]
Birth and education
Ted A. Wells was born in Corning, Iowa and was the first Aeronautical Engineering graduate at Princeton University.[1] The Princeton school of Engineering was founded just a few years prior in 1921 with programs in Chemical, Geological, and Mechanical engineering. It started with fewer than 100 students. Mechanical Engineering classes were held in the old School of Science with a makeshift laboratory in a boiler house.[3] Ted specifically wanted a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and was able to convince the school to allow him to pursue it. He had to tell the school what requirements he needed to satisfy for a degree in aeronautical engineering.[4]
Ted's first airplane
While a sophomore, Ted and a fellow classmate friend got a chance to buy an old World War I Jenny for $600. Neither he nor his classmate had pilot’s licenses, so they came up with a scheme to buy it and rent it for rides and flying lessons to pay for it and fund their own flying lessons. Both of their parents had previously refused to pay for flying lessons. They had learned that Princeton had a policy that students whose parents had difficulty raising tuition could postpone payment until the end of the semester. So Ted and his friend informed the school that their parents were struggling financially and used the tuition money their parents gave them up front to buy the plane.[1]
They would offer their plane for lessons and rides, charging $25/hr. Paying an instructor $10 of that and keeping $15 profit to pay off the airplane (and tuition!). Customers were drawn from a “sucker list” of upperclassmen that they also used for bumming rides to the air field. During spring break, Ted found himself abandoned at the Hadley airfield more than 20 miles away from the college with no money and no ride back to school. He waited until dusk, but no potential ride showed up. He was determined not to walk the distance back to campus. With only four hours and 20 minutes of flying instruction he decided it was time to solo without an endorsement from the instructor. He cranked up the plane, flew to Princeton and landed in a field frequently used by barnstormers.[4][1]
According to Ted, “The Dean got excited because Princeton sophomores were not supposed to have motor vehicles”. Fortunately, that stunt did not get him kicked out. This incident, however, was apparently picked up by the New York Times as a box story on the front page. This is where Ted’s father learned that he had purchased the Jenny. Ted said his parents did not force him to sell the airplane. “They were resigned to the fact that if I was going to be in the airplane business, I should learn to fly. But they didn’t exactly like the way I was doing it.” [4]By the end of the semester, they had not raised enough to pay for tuition, so they were forced to sell the Jenny for the $600 they paid for it in order to pay the college.[1]
Aviation Career
Ted Purchased a Travel Air D4000 in 1928 and used it for air racing including the 1929 Portland Derby which was part of the National Air Races. This was a cross country race from Portland to Cleveland which involved navigation skills as well as aircraft speed. Ted won this race receiving $10,000 in prize money.[5]
Ted joined Travel Air part time in 1928 as a demonstration pilot during the summer of his junior year at Princeton. Ted then was hired by Travel Air full time as a design engineer after he graduated in 1929 filling the engineering void left by Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman.[1] Ted Wells and Herb Rawdon designed the Travel Air models 12 & 16. In his spare time in 1930, Ted designed and built a racing biplane Model W4B, also known as a Wells Special. During one of the flight tests he was flying at 200 mph only five hundred feet off the ground when both ailerons tore off the wings. Ted managed to bail out and pull his parachute just in time suffering only a broken ankle when he landed in mud.[2]
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In 1931 Ted began producing the next design for Travel Air. The model 17 was a four place enclosed cockpit biplane with an unconventional placement of the top wing aft of the bottom wing. This was done to improve visibility associated with the standard configuration.[1]
Then President of Travel Air, Walter Beech, was impressed with Ted’s Model 17 “staggerwing” drawings and presented them to Curtiss-Wright management to persuade them to build it. Curtis-Wright directors declined to pursue the program due to financial reasons. Desiring to continue Ted’s Model 17 design, Walter Beech, Olive Ann Beech, K.K. Shaul, and Ted Wells resigned from Curtis-Wright’s Aircraft division to start up a new company, Beech Aircraft to produce the Model 17.[2]
Walter Beech, Olive Ann Beech, Ted Wells, K.K. Shaul, and C.G. Yankey become the principle founders of Beech Aircraft in April 1932. Walter was named President and Ted Wells was named Vice President of Engineering and Chief Designer. C.G. Yankey was a friend of the Beech’s and a prime investor so he was named Vice President. K. K. Shaul, general manager at Travel Air and comptroller before relocating to St. Louis, was named Treasurer. Olive Ann Beech was named Secretary.[2]
In his position as Engineering Vice President, Ted's engineering team designed the Model 18, Model 33 Bonanza, T-34, Model 34 Twin-Quad, and Model 50 among others.[1]
Sailing
Ted joined the Wichita Sailing Club in 1938 and started racing Snipe sailboats. He bought his first boat for $100. It had bed sheets for sails.[6] Ted decided to race sailboats rather than airplanes as it was becoming difficult to find the time for racing airplanes. Ted quickly got proficient at racing on Santa Fe Lake in no time. He was instrumental in organizing the club’s first invitational regatta and began trailering his boat (15 ½ foot Snipe) around the country to participate in other regattas. Ted raced on several boats before he purchased 6025 from Varalyay, a professional boat builder in California.[1]
Ted sailing success led him to winning many regattas including the 1947, 1949, & 1952 US National Championship regattas as well as the 1947 and 1949 Snipe World championships. Ted also authored the book "Scientific Sailboat Racing"[7] which was widely popular among the racing communities. Ted’s championship boat ‘Good News III’ (6025) is on display in the small boat collection at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut.
Retirement
After Walter Beech’s death in 1950, Olive Ann Beech became the President of Beech Aircraft. It became apparent that tensions between Ted and Olive Ann were increasing. Publicly, Olive Ann said she did not like Ted spending time sailing and thought he needed to spend more time focused on the company. In 1953, Olive Ann sent a plane down to pick Ted up from the Snipe national regatta in Ardmore Oklahoma for an “emergency meeting” back in Wichita. Ted left the regatta, attended the meeting which amounted to Olive Ann telling him “I think that you ought to have all the free time you need for your interests. We accept your resignation”. Ted signed the resignation letter and immediately returned to the regatta being no longer associated with Beech Aircraft.[8]
After "retiring" from Beech, Ted did some contract work for Cessna Aircraft, then changed careers and bought the controlling stock of Union National Bank.[1] Ted continued to race Snipes. The last regatta he participated in was the 1986 National Master’s regatta hosted by the Atlanta Yacht Club when he was 79.[1]
During retirement, Ted and Marge took a vacation and flew from New York to Paris in a Concorde at Mach 2.[1]
Death
Ted passed away on September 25th of 1991 at the age of 84.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Rix, James. Master of Sky and Sea, the story of Ted Wells. Relentlessly Creative Books. ISBN 9781942790112.
- ^ a b c d Phillips, Edward H. (1996). The staggerwing story : a history of the Beechcraft model 17. Eagan, Minn.: Flying Books International. ISBN 9780911139273.
- ^ Smits, Alexander. "Aerospace Education and Research at Princeton University 1942-1975". Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - Princeton University.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^ a b c Phillips, Ed. "Interview with Ted A. Wells". Wichita State Library - Special Collections.
- ^ McDaniel, William H. (1976). The history of Beech. Wichita, Kan.: McCormick-Armstrong Co. Pub. Division. ISBN 0911978003.
- ^ "Snipe Bulletin" (Spring 2011).
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Wells, Ted (1979). Scientific sailboat racing ([3d ed.] ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. ISBN 0396076904.
- ^ Farney, Dennis (2010). The Barnstormer and the Lady: Aviation Legends Walter and Olive Ann Beech. Rockhill Books. ISBN 9781611690149.
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Ted A. Wells
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