1930 Stearman - YPT-9

Lloyd C. Stearman formed Stearman Aircraft in Venice, Cal., in 1926. Here, he designed and built the first Stearman airplane, the C-1. This was followed quickly by the C-2. Aware of these fine designs, friends and investors invited him to Kansas to reestablish his company in Wichita on September 27, 1927.

The first Wichita product was the C-3MB Mailplane delivered to Varney Airlines. On August 15, 1929, Stearman Aircraft became part of United Aircraft and Transport Corp which controlled sevral businesses, such as United Airlines, Pratt & Whitney, Hamilton-Standard Propellers, Boeing, Sikorsky and Vought Aircraft.

Lloyd Stearman left the company he founded at this time to become assoccaated with Walter Varney in his airline ventures. In 1932, Stearman became president of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation of California.

In September 1934, a government trust-busting suit separated United Aircraft's airline and manufacturing activities. Boeing Aircraft Co., renamed from Boeing Airplane Co. and a separate entity from Boeing Air Transport, pulled out of United and took Stearman with it as wholly-owned subsidiary airplanes in production and those subsequently produced to the end of WW II were Boeings by their paperwork and nameplates. In realty they were stubbornly called Stearmans by evryone associated with them.

The museum's Stearman YPT-9 was manufactured on July 20, 1930, as a Model 6. This series was designed primarily for military training, but a number were sold as commercial trainers and became known as Cloudboy.