A bomber team’s after-hours project

In 1944 Ted Smith was a project engineer at Douglas in California, the lead engineer on the A-20 bomber with 500 people under him. After hours, he and a team of 14 A-20 engineers started work on a light twin-engined transport laid out like a miniature A-20, with a high wing and two engines. They formed the Aero Design and Engineering Company in Culver City, completed the design in July 1946 and flew the prototype, registered NX1946, on 23 April 1948. Walter Beech flew it in 1949 and considered buying the project, but chose to build his own Twin Bonanza instead.

From Culver City to Oklahoma

The money came from a Philadelphia attorney, George Pew, and two Oklahoma City brothers, William and Rufus Travis Amis, and so the company moved to Oklahoma. It leased, at no cost, a new 26,000 square foot factory at what is now Wiley Post Airport near Oklahoma City, and the redesigned Commander 520 was certified on 30 June 1950. The first production aircraft rolled out in August 1951; serial number 1 went to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper in Tokyo. The Commander was the first all-metal small twin-engined business aircraft, aimed squarely at corporate travellers.

Ike’s Commander

In 1955 the US Air Force chose the Commander as a personal transport for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, ordering 15 military versions, two of them for the White House. Ike used his to hop from Washington to his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In 1958 the company introduced the Model 720 Alti-Cruiser, the first pressurised business aircraft. That same year Rockwell-Standard bought the company, and in 1960 it became Aero Commander Inc.

Rockwell, turboprops and a jet sold to Israel

Under Rockwell the Commander grew turbine engines: the 680T in 1964, the 690 series in 1971 and the JetProp line in 1979. The company also bought smaller firms and marketed their aircraft as Commanders, including the Thrush crop-duster. Its business jet, the 1121 Jet Commander, first flew on 27 January 1963. When North American Aviation merged with Rockwell, the group already had the Sabreliner and antitrust rules would not let it keep both jets, so in 1968 the Jet Commander was sold to Israel Aircraft Industries after 150 had been built. IAI developed it into the Westwind; 442 of both had been built by 1987.

Bob Hoover’s dead-stick show

Rockwell sold the Commander division to Gulfstream in February 1981. When Chrysler bought Gulfstream in 1985 the focus turned to business jets, and Twin Commander production ended in 1986, after some 2,902 aircraft of the 500 family. The type’s most famous pilot was Bob Hoover, who flew a Shrike Commander 500S at air shows for decades through a full aerobatic routine on two engines, then one, then none, landing dead stick and rolling to a stop. His aircraft is in the Smithsonian. The support business survives as Twin Commander Aircraft LLC.

Fábricas

• Culver City · Culver City, California — Original design office, 1944–1950
• Bethany factory · Wiley Post Airport, near Oklahoma City — 26,000 sq ft plant leased at no cost from 1950

Pessoas

• Ted R. Smith · founder and designer — 1906–1976; lead engineer on the Douglas A-20; later designed the Aerostar
• George Pew · early financier — Philadelphia attorney
• William and Rufus Travis Amis · early financiers — Oklahoma City brothers
• R. A. “Bob” Hoover · Rockwell demonstration pilot — Shrike Commander energy-management routine

Recordes e pioneirismos

• Commander: first all-metal small twin-engined business aircraft
• Model 720 Alti-Cruiser: first pressurised business aircraft, 1958
• One of the longest-running twin-engined aircraft families, 1951–1986