Lloyd Stearman

Lloyd Carlton Stearman (October 26, 1898 – April 3, 1975) was an American aviator and aircraft designer.

Biography

Stearman was born in Wellsville, Kansas. From 1917 – 1918, he attended Kansas State College (later renamed Kansas State University) in Manhattan, Kansas, where he studied engineering and architecture. In 1918, he left school to enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserve in San Diego, California; while there he learned to fly Curtiss N-9 seaplanes.

During the mid-1920s Matty Laird, designer of the Laird Swallow aircraft, hired Stearman as a mechanic, giving him his first exposure to fixed-wing aircraft manufacturing. On February 4, 1925, Stearman and Walter Beech teamed up with Clyde Cessna to form the Travel Air Manufacturing Company. On 27 September 1927, he left to form his own manufacturing company, the Stearman Aircraft Corporation. It was there that he built the Stearman C2 and Stearman C3, and designed other biplanes for mail and cargo delivery, observation and training. After WWII, many Stearman PT-13 primary trainers were converted to agricultural aircraft; In 1948 more than 4,345 Stearman aircraft were used in agricultural flying.