Staggerwing present of flight

Last Sunday, a group of us in Tucson were treated to a flight in the rarest of Beechcraft Staggerwings. The plane is owned and operated by Dave Pascananni out of Chino airport. It is a one of a kind version with serial number 38 and was first built in March of 1935.

Hi Lucky; And I do mean Lucky. That is one great machine. I have seen a few of them at airshows, and I don't think they built any two alike. Really a class machine. Jim Kraft

IMHO, the Staggerwing is the most beautiful aircraft ever built, bar none.

Bill "OTS Rulz" Hodges

I agree, best looking plane period!

The airplane is actually owned by Dave Passannante, nice try though Lucky!

The Beech 17 series did have many differences and the pre-war airplanes were built to order, however the wartime UC-43/GB-2 were an equivalent to the D-17S and were very standard. The G-17s was built post war and also were standardized to a high degree.

The letter pre-fix means the airframe model; A,B,C,D,E,F,G-17
The 17 was of course the basic negative staggered biplane design.
The subsequent letter is the engine installation. R,S,F,A,B,etc.
R is for Wright Whirlwnd R-975, Sis for Pratt and Whitney Wasp JR. R-985, A is for Wright Cyclone R-1820!!! Only two were built with that engine.

Hope this is interesting to anyone except me.

Merry Christmas,
Chris McMillin

>A is for Wright Cyclone R-1820!!! Only two
>were built with that engine.

Man, oh man.

A G-17A with inverted fuel and oil, smoke and a black and gold paint scheme--art deco scallops on the top and checkerboards on the bottom.

That is an airshow act just waiting for bookings.

I wonder if one could take an airframe and retrofit the R-1820 and get it certified?

Cyber (former airshow) Flyer

Sorry I am very tired and made a mistake. The F engine is the R-1820 the A was a Wright Whirlwind of 350 hp.

The A-17F airplane was certified but there are no data plates, remains or paper work known to use as the basis of a rebuild in the FAA's eyes. I have been trying for a while to find this type of info on either of the two airplanes. A conversion would have to be registered in the experimental category. As would a replica, unless you wanted to go through the certification process again!

Thanks Chris...

I knew you would fix things for me. I have a CD with 50 or so images of that day in Tucson. Some of the images are a bit artsy fartsy but, that is what you get with me as the photographer.

Really nice pictures Lucky. The Staggerwing always lends itself to artsy pictures anyway so I'd love to see them, of course.

LAST EDITED ON Dec-25-03 AT 09:17 PM (CDT)
 
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Surely the early models had fixed gear. I find the combination of spats and radial engines irresistable, so the beautiful machine you have pictured is second best.

Serial 1 and 2, 17R's and serial 5 and 11, A-17F's were semi fixed gear biplanes with huge pants that enclosed the wheels which retracted up into the pants a few inches.

Beauty is, of course, in the eye of the beholder, but since I have had the pleasure of operating Daves B-17R serial 38, my Dad's D-17S serial 4867 and given hours of dual instruction in Bud Fuchs D-17S serial 6911, I have to say so far the retractables are my favorite.