Lloyd C. Stearman (1898-1975)
Lloyd Stearman was born in Wellsford, Kansas on 26 october 1898. As a child, he sees his first airplane, flown by Clyde Cessna. Lloyd was certainly not aware that he would once start a aircraft company with the same Clyde Cessna. It would show to be one of those typical coincidences that marked Lloyd Stearman’s career. Great names from the aviation industry worked with him and they all shared one passion: Airplanes.

First World War After Lloyd Stearman graduated from school, World War One broke out. While he served in the military, he learns to fly on a Curtiss N-9 Seaplane. After the war ended, he finds work as a mechanic with E.M. Baird Co., the first company for commercial airplanes in Wichita, Kansas. He soon makes it to chief engineer. Another employee teaches him the finesse of flying airplanes. He marries his high school love, Ethyl Trusty and they get a son, William and a daughter, Marylin. In 1924, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman both leave the company and together with Clyde Cessna, they start their own company, Travel Air Manufacturing Co.

Lloyd Stearman

The Stearman factories in Wichita

An own company Lloyd Stearman leaves the company in 1926 in order to create his own compnay: “Stearman Aircraft Co.”. In 1927 the company takes residence in Wichita, Kansas. The company produces a number of airplanes before it is being sold to “United Aircraft and Transport Corporation”. United Airlines, Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton-Standard Propellers, Boeing, Sikorskt and Vought Aircraft are already part of it. Lloyd Stearman remains in charge as manager and designer.

Boeing Stearman LLoyd Stearman can not cope with the upcoming anti-trust laws of 1934 and decides to leave the company. The laws force a split of the holding and Boeing takes over the Stearman factories. The Stearman biplanes are now officially Boeing planes. Boeing sells lots of training aircraft to the American government; the Boeing Model 75 military trainer. This aircraft was based upon an earlier design of Lloyd Stearman, The American Forces call the plane the Boeing Kaydet, but as it was designed and produced by the former Stearman factories, the name Boeing Stearman prevailed.

An American kaydet and instructor near a Boeing Stearman.

Lockheed
Lloyd Stearman, together with Robert Cross and Walter Varney, to which he sold his first Stearman mail plane, founded in 1930 the Stearman-Varney Co. When they just started with a new design, Lloyd Stearman gets an offer to buy the Lockheed Aircraft Company, which is in an almost bankrupt state, for US $ 40,000.00. Lloyd becomes the new president and makes the company into a profitable business. He resigns in 1935 and takes up a position in the “Bureau of Aviation Administration” (the present FAA, Federal Aviation Administration). While doing an inspection of the Hammond Aircraft Co. in Ypsilant, Michigan, he gets so exited about their latest design that he decides to leave his present job and to start a new company with Dean Hammond; the Stearman-Hammond Aircraft Corp.
Between 1938 and 1939 Lloyd Stearman was also vice-president of Transair Co. in San Fransisco and in 1941 he becomes the manager of the aircraft department of Harvey Aluminium Co.

Surplus Stearmans Hill Airforce Base, Utah A Stearman cropduster

Crop dusters After World War Two, Stearman recognizes the growing need of the agricultural industry for crop dusting aircraft. He starts once more a company to make such planes. The name is Stearman Engineering Co. He soon finds out that there are truckloads of planes available to meet the specifications of a crop duster. They are sold by the thousands by the US government as surplus aircraft. Among those are many trainer planes, the Boeing Kaydet; an airplane designed by him and better know as the Boeing Stearman! From 1945 till 1946 Lloyd Stearman, together with George Willet, forms the Inland Aviation Co. They convert Boeing Stearmans to crop spraying airplanes. In 1946 Lloyd works at the National Aircraft Company in Van Nuys, California to redesign and improve his Stearman.

Job application at an old acquaintance
In 1955 Lloyd Stearman wants to get going with a company that he saved from bankruptcy 25 years earlier; Lockheed. The personal affairs manager does not believe the story and assumes he is dealing with a retarded man. Hall Hibbart, the vice-president steps in and says: “He was president here and he’s one of the best engineers you’ll ever see come in the door”.
Lloyd Stearman takes up a position as Senior Design Specialist and works until his retirement in 1968 at the Lockheed Constellation, a Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) plane, a re-entry space vehicle and other projects.
After his retirement, Lloyd just can not stop and starts another company; the Stearman Aircraft Corp. It is here that he designs he last airplane, the Stearman MP> Before production can start, Lloyd Stearman gets ill and on april 3rd 1975 the world looses one of her greatest aircraft designers; Lloyd C. Stearman.