Ryan Airline Company

Spirit of St. Louis

Ryan Airline Company was an airline company founded by T. Claude Ryan and Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Mahoney at San Diego, California on April 19, 1925.^[1] They had earlier established a scheduled service between San Diego and Los Angeles with a fare of $14.50 one-way and $22.50 round-trip. Service was provided by a Standard J-1, a World War I training aircraft (not widely liked by pilots) which they modified with a four-passenger closed cabin in the forward front cockpit area. The company also bought and modified a Cloudster (a portmanteau of cloud duster) from Donald Douglas. They designed the Ryan M-1 for mail and passenger service, building the first of these in the fall of 1925 and 22 more within a year. When orders fell Ryan and Mahoney ended the partnership, in November 1926. Mahoney bought out Ryan's interest but kept using the name for several months.

Some of their plane building was done behind the name Ryan Aeronautical Company, which under Mahoney built the NYP monoplane for Charles Lindbergh, but this was not the business which later became Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical. In July 1927, shortly after Lindbergh's successful flight, the name of this business was changed to B. F. Mahoney Aircraft Corporation.

References