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By PETER M. BOWERS
One of the lesser known but still popular lines of personal aircraft that were built from the late 1920s until shortly after World War II is the Rearwin. The memory of these planes is dimmed further by the fact that the firm changed its name to Commonwealth in 1943.
Rearwin Airplanes, Inc., was established in Salina, Kansas, in June 1928. Rae A. Rearwin was a successful Salina businessman who was encouraged to get into aviation and cash in on the prevailing "Lindbergh Boom." He hired Fred Langraf, formerly of Travel Air, as his chief engineer and the first Rearwin airplane, the Model 2000-C was flying by the end of the year.
In addition to Model No. 2000-C, which identified the 170-horsepower Curtiss Challenger radial engine, the new biplane, a thoroughly conventional three-seater, also had a name, the Ken-Royce, a combination of the names of Rearwin's two sons, Kenneth and Royce.
Approved Type Certificate (ATC) A-232 was awarded on Sept. 18, 1929, after the firm had relocated to Fairfax Airport in Kansas City, Kansas. Only three 2000-Cs were built; the unique six-cylinder twin-row Curtiss Challenger engine was rough-running and not well suited to the Ken-Royce type of airplane. Gross weight was 2,380 pounds, high speed was 130 mph and the initial price was $8,000, soon reduced to $6,500 because of the onset of the Depression.
The 2000-C was followed by the 2000-CO, which replaced the Challenger with a 165-horsepower Continental A-70 single-row radial. The ATC A-314 was awarded on April 16, 1930, but only two were built. The Depression was beginning to wipe out the market for the big three-seat traditional biplane.
Although the biplanes were not selling, Rearwin hung on, and like several other manufacturers who had not folded, he decided to build a low-cost bare-minimum sport trainer. He hired designers Douglas Webber, recently laid off by American Eagle on the same Fairfax Airport, and Noel Hockaday. The fact that the new Rearwin Model 3000 Junior looked like the American Eagle Eaglet was no coincidence - Webber had designed the Eaglet and only revised it slightly for Rearwin.
The Junior, with a 45-horsepower Szekely (pronounced Say-Kai) SR-3-0 three-cylinder engine received ATC A-434 on July 9, 1931. Target price was $1,500, but it missed by $300, selling for $1,800. Still, despite the Depression, it sold well for the times, and some 17 were built.
The cantankerous SR-3 engine was not very reliable. It had a habit of blowing off its cast-iron cylinders in flight, which brought a government directive to put a restraining cable assembly around the cylinders to hold broken ones in the plane. The 999-pound Model 3000 clanked along at a top speed of 85 mph.
As a replacement for the Szekely, Rearwin tried the similar 40- to 50-horsepower Aeromarine AR-3 in an improved 3000, the Model 4000. ATC A-419 was awarded on March 25, 1932. The price crept up to $1,880, and only eight Model 4000s were sold.
The next Rearwin, the Model 6000 Speedster, was a really slick big step forward into higher performance, but it was a financial and technical disaster. A tandem-seater with an inverted 95-horsepower American Cirrus air-cooled in-line engine, the Speedster looked fast even when it was sitting still. First flown on July 11, 1934, it could not pass the rigid government test for spin recovery. After many fixes, it finally passed and received ATC A-653 on Sept. 28, 1937. By this time, the competition had passed it up, and only two Model 6000s were sold at $3,295. Gross weight was 1,700 pounds and its high speed was 144 mph.
With the spin problems finally licked and the Cirrus engine out of production, Rearwin brought out the Model 6000M Speedster with a 125-horsepower inverted Menasco C-4 engine. It received ATC A-661 on Oct. 31, 1937, but sales again were few: only six. Gross weight was the same 1,700 pounds, but the top speed increased to 150 mph.
Long before the Speedsters were certified, Rearwin came out with a series of lower performance, and less costly, tandem two-seat Sportsters: models 7000, 8500 and 9000. These were basically the same airframes with different engines.
The 7000 had the 70-horsepower LeBlond 5DE five-cylinder radial engine and received ATC A-574 on June 6, 1935. With the Depression nearly over, the 7000 caught on and some 70 were sold. Gross weight was 1,350 pounds, top speed was 110 mph, and the price was $2,095 (soon upped to $2,468).
In 1938 Rearwin bought the LeBlond engine rights, so the 85- to 90-horsepower LeBlond 5DF became the Ken-Royce 5F. In the meantime, putting the 85-horsepower LeBlond in the 7000 airframe made it the Model 8500, which received ATC A-591 on Dec. 7, 1935. When the LeBlond 5F was boosted to 90 horsepower and installed in the Model 8500, the airplane became the Model 9000L. When the engines became Ken-Royce, the airplane designation became 9000-KR. Both 9000s were covered by the Model 8500 ATC. At prices of $2,760 to $2,895, 34 8500/9000s were sold.
A change to the five-cylinder 90-horsepower Warner Scarab Jr. engine resulted in a new ATC (A-624) issued to the Model 9000-W in January 1937. Only nine 9000-Ws were sold, but overall Sportster production reached 260 by 1941.
A major revision to the Model 9000-KR resulted in the Model 8090 Cloudster. The major difference was side-by-side seating. The engine was the 90-horsepower Ken-Royce 5F under a full NACA cowling, and ATC A-711 was issued Oct. 17, 1939. Demand for more performance resulted in the 120-horsepower seven-cylinder Ken-Royce 7F being installed in what became models 8125 and 8135. The added power allowed three seats at a gross weight of 1,800 pounds, still on the same ATC.
Pan American Airways bought several tandem-seat instrument trainers as 8135-T models, and at least 20 were built out of a total of 125 Cloudsters. Gross weight of the 8135-T was 1,900 pounds, top speed was 130 mph, and the price was $4,295.
The final Rearwin airplane was the Model 175 Skyranger, a side-by-side two-seater that received ATC A-729 on Aug. 16, 1940. The Skyranger had the 75-horsepower Continental A-75 engine, hence the 75 in the designation. Because of stall problems with the prototype, all the production "Skyrangers" had slots built into their wingtips.
The usual cry for more performance via more power resulted in the Model 180 with the Continental A-80, the 180F with the 80-horsepower Franklin and the 190F with the 90-horsepower Franklin. It was a rare example of different makes of engine being allowed on the same ATC. There was also a Model 185 with the 85-horsepower Continental C-85. Gross weight for the Model 185 was 1,450 pounds, and the high speed was 115 mph. Prices for all prewar Skyrangers were $1,795 to $3,000.
Eighty-two Skyrangers were built before Rearwin switched to war work in 1942 and started on Army contract for 1,500 Waco CG-4A troop gliders. Rearwin sold his interest in the company, which was reorganized as Commonwealth Aircraft Corp., in January 1943. After V-J Day, Commonwealth built a few more Model 185 Skyrangers in Kansas City before moving to Valley Stream, Long Island, where the rest were built. Competition from the Cessna 120/140 was stiff, and the collapse of the postwar light-plane boom ended the line of Rearwin and Commonwealth airplanes.
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