AviaBellanca Aircraft

Bellanca 14-13-2, manufactured in 1947

Bellanca Citabria 7ECA, manufactured in 1980

AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation is an American aircraft design and manufacturing company. Prior to 1983 it was known as the Bellanca Aircraft Company. The company was founded in 1927 by Giuseppe Mario Bellanca.

History

After Giuseppe Mario Bellanca, the designer and builder of Italy's first aircraft, came to the United States in 1911, he began to design aircraft for a number of firms, including the Maryland Pressed Steel Company, Wright Aeronautical Corporation and the Columbia Aircraft Corporation. Bellanca founded his own company, Bellanca Aircraft Corporation of America, in 1927, sited first in Richmond Hill, New York and moving in 1928 to New Castle (Wilmington), Delaware. In the 1920s and 1930s, Bellanca's aircraft of his own design were known for their efficiency and low operating cost, gaining fame for world record endurance and distance flights. Lindbergh's first choice for his New York to Paris flight was a Bellanca WB-2. The company's insistence on selecting the crew drove Lindbergh to Ryan.^[1]

Bellanca remained President and Chairman of the Board from the corporation's inception on the last day of 1927 until he sold the company to L. Albert and Sons in 1954.^[2] From that time on, the Bellanca line was part of a succession of companies that maintained the lineage of the original aircraft produced by Bellanca.^[3]

Aircraft

First Flight - Model / Military number - Name

• 1926 Wright-Bellanca WB-2
• 1928 Bellanca CH-200 Pacemaker
• 1929 Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker
• 1929 Bellanca TES (Bellanca TES Tandem "Blue Streak", X/NR855E)
• 1930 Bellanca CH-400
• 1930 Bellanca Aircruiser, P, C-27 Aircruiser
• 1932 Bellanca SE
• 1934 Bellanca 28-70
• 1934 Bellanca 77-140
• 1935 Bellanca 31-40
• 1936 Bellanca XSOE
• 1937 Bellanca 28-90
• 1937 Bellanca 28-92
• 1937 Bellanca 14-7
• 1937 Bellanca 14-7 Cruisair
• 1937 Bellanca 17-20 - five-seat cabin monoplane, not built
• 1940 Bellanca YO-50
• 1945 Bellanca 14-13 Cruisair Senior
  • 1949 Bellanca Cruisemaster
• 1964 American Champion Citabria
  • 1964 7ECA Citabria (by Champion, prior to Bellanca acquisition)
  • 1965 7GCAA Citabria (by Champion, prior to Bellanca acquisition)
  • 1965 7GCBC Citabria (by Champion, prior to Bellanca acquisition)
• 1967 Bellanca 17-30 Viking
• 1968 7KCAB Citabria (by Champion, prior to Bellanca acquisition)
• 1970 8KCAB Decathlon (by Champion, prior to Bellanca acquisition)
• 1971 7ACA Champ
• 1973 Bellanca T-250 Aries
• 1974 8GCBC Scout (by Champion, prior to Bellanca acquisition)
• 1975 Bellanca 19-25 Skyrocket II

Famous individual aircraft

• Lituanica
• Miss Veedol
• The American Nurse (aircraft)

See also

• American Champion

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation.

• AviaBellanca Aircraft Corporation website
• Friends of Bellanca Field
• The main focus of the George J. Frebert collection on Delaware aviation and the George J. Frebert photograph collection on Delaware aviation — both about Giuseppe Bellanca & his Bellanca Aircraft Corporation; in the Hagley Museum and Library.