aviators
14 AH july 2016
aviators
W
hen Emil Matthew Laird left his hometown of
Chicago and relocated to Wichita, Kan., in 1919, he
helped initiate the city’s transformation from “Wheat
Capital” to “Air Capital of the World.” A self-taught
pilot and designer, “Matty” Laird had already been
building airplanes for eight years by then. His latest design—a
three-place, open-cockpit biplane powered by the ubiquitous
war-surplus Curtiss OX-5 engine—possessed one important
feature: room for two passengers in the front cockpit.
Kansas oil tycoon Jacob Melvin Moellendick had lured
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ing to resist—funding and a place to build his airplanes.
Moellendick be lieved there was a potential market for com-
mercial aircraft, and that Wichita was the ideal location forin Wichita, more than 40
Swallows were built. But
while his planes were selling
well, Laird’s business rela-
tionship with Moellendick
was eroding, and by the
summer of 1923 the situation
had become intolerable. That
October Laird returned to
Chicago, where he reestab-
lished himself as a custom
airplane manufacturer.
Early in 1924, the E.M.
Laird Airplane Company
was doing business in rented
facilities near Ashburn Field,
where Matty had spent his
early years as a pilot and
builder. Knowing that the
Swallow could no longer
compete in an increasingly
crowded marketplace, Laird
responded with a new design,
the Commercial, a three-
place, open-cockpit biplane
powered by an OX-5 engine
enclosed in a streamlined,
all-metal cowling. Though
the Commercial was well
received, demand for the new
plane remained low, and onlyan airplane company. Laird
set up shop in an abandoned
building in the heart of the
city, while he and Moellen-
dick secured land to build
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new airplane, dubbed the
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in April 1920. It performed
well, resulting in orders from
air taxi operators through out
the Midwest.
There was a growing
demand for a new commer-
cial airplane in the U.S. at
that point. Though World
War I Curtiss JN-4s and
other surplus trainers were
relatively inexpensive and
plentiful, they were clearly
obsolete. Small, homegrown
companies across the country
had begun building new air-
craft or modifying war-weary
planes for commercial sale.
The Laird Swallow, however,
represented a bold step in the
right direction, despite its rela-
tively high price of $6,500.
During Matty’s three yearsfeeding
the need
for speed
MATTY LAIRD’S CAREER DESIGNING
CUSTOM BIPLANES EARNED HIM A
PLACE OF HONOR IN THE ANNALS
OF AMERICAN AERONAUTICSBY EDWARD H. PHILLIPSfast fleet Laird’s sleek
LC-DW-300 Solution (center)
is flanked by an LC-RW-
Speedwing (left) and an
LC-1B-300 outside his factory
at Ashburn Field near Chicago.