Beechcraft Travel Air

Model 95 Travel Air
1959 Model 95 at AirVenture 2008, Oshkosh, Wisconsin
Role	Light twin aircraft
National origin	United States of America
Manufacturer	Beechcraft
First flight	6 August 1956
Introduction	1958
Status	Out of production, in service
Produced	1958–1968
Number built	720
Unit cost	$49,500 in 1959
Developed from	Beechcraft Bonanza
Variants	Beechcraft Baron

The Beechcraft Travel Air was a twin-engine development of the Beechcraft Bonanza. It was designed to fill the gap between the single engine Model 35 Bonanza and the much larger Model 50 Twin Bonanza, and ultimately served as the basis for its replacement, the Baron.

Designed as a competitor to the Cessna 310 and the Piper Apache, the Travel Air (developed as the Badger) took many design features from previous Beechcraft airplanes. It took its basic design from the Model 35 Bonanza, fitted with the vertical stabilizer from the T-34 Mentor, and two four-cylinder engines. Its wing spar was borrowed from the large Model 50 Twin Bonanza, along with thicker gauge aluminum on the leading edge; landing gear systems had been taken from the United States Navy Mentor, which was a stronger structure built for training pilots for later aircraft carrier landings. Power came from, in the 1958 model year, two Lycoming O-360-A1A at 180 horsepower (130 kW) at 2700rpm each. With 75% power, the Travel Air was capable of 200mph at 7,500ft.

Although developed and initially marketed as the Badger, a 1956 letter from the United States Air Force notified Beechcraft that the name had been previously chosen as a reporting name for the Soviet Tupolev Tu-16 bomber; therefore, Beechcraft elected to reuse the Travel Air name, which came from the predecessor company to Beechcraft, the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. Beechcraft set in initial pricing of the Travel Air at $49,500; $10,450 below Cessna's 310 price, yet still $13,510 higher than Piper's Apache pricing.

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