The Immortal Twin Beech [signed] [first edition]

The venerable Twin Beech has always been the airplane someone was going to write a book about. Its long production run of 32 years easily justified the effort but of even greater significance has been its much longer and greatly varied useful life. The only other twin engine, piston powered airplane to enjoy a comparable long and varied existence is, of course, the famed Douglas DC-3, already the subject of several good books. Larry A. Ball, a 39 year Beechcrafter, decided the task of writing the saga of the world famous Twin Beech was his and must be done soon while memories and records were still available, reliable, and intact. Interesting and unusual user stories have purposely been held to a bare minimum this book could easily have grown to well over 500 pages had they been included. The author's purpose was to tell the ongoing history of a unique airplane one that not only "built" a company but served equally well in peace, war, and then peace again. To that end, the many different environments, other aircraft manufacturers, and other airplanes of that time are included to provide the context in which the development of the Twin Beech its early production and sales wartime production and use and postwar success can be more easily understood and appreciated. Welcome to the history of Walter Beech's finest creation the Model 18 Twin Beech!