Kansas Aviation Legacy

Each November, the Kansas Aviation Museum hosts the Kansas Aviation Museum Gala, at which one individual is inducted into the Kansas Aviation Hall of Fame and the Kansas Governor’s Aviation Honor Award is bestowed upon two individuals. […]

William (Bill) Powell Lear (June 26, 1902 – May 14, 1978) was an American inventor and businessman. […]

Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., based in Wichita, Kansas, is the world’s largest first-tier aerostructures manufacturer. […]

Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC) is an aerospace manufacturing company that builds the Beechcraft and Hawker business jet lines of aircraft. […]

Robert L. Kanaga is a native Kansan, born in Winfield in 1925. He grew up in a family of three brothers and two sisters in Derby, Kansas, graduating from Derby High School in 1941. Being raised in the shadow of Wichita Aircraft Companies, he would often watch the flights of the BI-winged Stearman and Beech Model 17 Staggerwing, and wished he could be a pilot, too. […]

Milburn G. “Mel” Apt (April 9, 1924 – September 27, 1956) was a US test pilot. He was killed in the destruction of the Bell X-2 during a test flight. […]

The Hawker 4000, originally known as the Hawker Horizon, is a super-midsize business jet developed by the Raytheon Aircraft Company. […]

Cessna Aircraft Company, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, from small two-seat, single-engine aircraft to business jets. […]

Learjet is a manufacturer of business jets for civilian and military use. It was founded in the late 1950s by William Powell Lear Jr. as Swiss American Aviation Corporation. Learjet is now a subsidiary of Bombardier and marketed as the “Bombardier Learjet Family”. […]

The Cessna Citation X is a long-range medium business jet aircraft. The X is the fastest operative civilian jet, with a top speed of Mach 0.92 (527 ktas, 607 mph, 977 km/h at 41,000ft ASL (12,700meters ASL). […]