Wichita! The Air Capital of the World! Is it true? There have been 86 different aircraft companies in Kansas and 51 of them have been in Wichita. Some of them built only one aircraft while companies such as Beechcraft/Hawker Beech, Cessna, Boeing and Lear Jet/Bombardier Learjet have built thousands. At one time Wichita built 70% of all civilian aircraft built. They still build a large percentage of all civilian aircraft built. Yes!! It is true!!
Beech Aircraft Corporation is located at the southeast courner of East Central and North Webb Road. The building is still there and has been expanded to 4 seperate plants within the same area. They have been in existance at this location since 1932 to present. They have built over 50,000 aircraft and are still building them. The different models have various names such as: Model 18, Bonanza, Starship, King Air and several model of Beech Jets. The company has had several names such as: Beech (Orginal), Raython, Hawker-Beech and now Beechcraft. The Kansas Aviation Museum has several Beech aircraft on display such as: KSARNG Queen Air, Beech Jet and Starship.
I have had an idea for a series of caches to honor those aircraft companies and some of their suppliers. It has taken awhile to gather all of the information so I have been working on it awhile!! The caches are all located as near as I could get them to one of their locations, best as I know. Please note that some of the buildings are still there, so look for them and take a picture because they are part of Wichita’s aviation history!! There are no codes to find a final as this series may never end, as new aircraft companies are still being formed!! I hope that you will enjoy this series of caches!!
The cache is a cammo pill bottle. Please return it to it's hidding place as good or better than you found it!!
Congratulations to BSCC and KSgirl85 for being FTF.