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LAIRD, continued

trick; how it was accomplished remains a ,mystery. Horchem had no difficulty taking off and in five minutes the pair were circling the field at 1500 feet. Afterward Horchem remarked that his Swallows frequently carried loads of far excess of the manufacturer's recommended limit. 
 Swallow biplanes continue to excel in competition, although the new Bellanca from Omaha took the spotlight at the Monmouth, Ill., meet in June and again at Tariko, Mo., in July. Beech won an On-To-Detroit race in October and Charles Dickinson, 62 and reputed to be the oldest licensed pilot in the U.S., made a newsworthy cross-country flight from Chicago to Florida and return. Beech also made a long tour in December, all of which provided the E.M. Laird Company with valuable publicity.
 Moellendick continued to direct the organization with an iron hand and an open purse. By this time he had sunk an estimated $300,000 into the business. After the St. Louis races in September, Laird told Moellendick he was getting out. About 43 Swallows had been built; Matty was given two of them, plus $1500 for his share of the business.
 Before the year was out, Matty was back in Illinois, once again doing business as the E.M. Laird Company of Chicago. On January 9th, 1924, Moellendick reorganized as the Swallow Airplane Company, with himself, Beech, the Stearmans (Lloyd and Waverly), Walter Strobel, Bill Snook and Charles Laird as the principals. Stearman revised the Swallow and production commenced early in 1924.
 It did not take Matty long to come up with a new plane. Working with a small crew of craftsmen, he built a three-place bipe featuring a dural tube fuselage employing steel-sleeve fittings instead of welded joints. Although there was nothing new in the use of metal tubing, Laird was apparently the first to employ this type of construction in the U.S. on a production basis. Powered by a 90-hp Curtiss OX-5, the new model, known as the Laird Commercial, was taken aloft for the first time early in the spring 1924.
 Laird concentrated on quality rather than quantity so no production records were set in his shop on Archer Avenue. In fact, it is doubtful if more than one or two airplanes were built during his first year. 
 A Laird Commercial appeared at the National Air Races in Dayton in October; its pilot, Perry Hutton, placed in several events. One week later Hutton turned up at the Wichita National Air Congress where he flew against the new Swallow entries of Beech and Stearman. These Swallows were a shade faster, but Hutton did a find job of flying and the handsomely finished Laird was the sensation of the civilian races.
 During 1925, Lairs introduced Curtiss C6 and Wright Whirlwind variants, with 160 and 200-hp respectively. In October, Hy Etten flew a C6 version in the Ford Tour, completing the event in the second-place category. That month the E.M. Laird Company announced that it had delivered LC's to the Ford Motor Company and the Indemnity Company of America. Shortly thereafter Matty moved his operation to a hangar on Ashburn field.
 When [[strikethrough]] Col. [[strikethrough]] "Pop" Dickinson bid successfully, on January 11, 1926, for the contract to carry mail between Chicago and the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, he placed an order for three LC's. These were the first planes of a commercial air service that was to become Northwest Airlines. The bearded Dickinson, self-styled Santa Claus of the air mail, always had been a champion of the Laird name and his mailplanes, in the hands of E.E. Ballough and Charles (Speed) Holman were destined to make front-page headlines in the years to come.

SPIRITS
(continued from page 18)
loads.
 The "Spirit of St. Louis", designated NYP for New York-Paris by Ryan, was based on the open-cockpit M-series mailplanes and a cabin adaptation that Ryan had names the "Bluebird". However, so any changed were made in the NYP in the interest of increased load range that only the tail surfaces and wing ribs of the previous Ryan model could be used. Except for the cabin arrangement, the NYP was generally similar to the Bellanca Columbia and the new Travel Air 5000 that had just appeared. To give better ground stability under the heavy takeoff load, the NYP landing gear was considerably wider than on the earlier Ryans and the Bellance, with the shock struts in the manner of the 1925 Fokker Universal.
 The NYP was completed in two months and was an immediate success on its test flight, April 28, 1927. On its hop to New York it set a new transcontinental speed record stopping at St. Louis only long enough to refuel and be shown to its sponsors. The plane slipped unobtrusively into New York and was kept out of sight as much as possible in a rented hangar at Curtiss Field, Mineola. All the publicity was being generated by the other transatlantic contestants; Lindbergh

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