Travel Air 2000 \"Wichita Fokker\" Real WWI Movie Stand-In Photo 8x10 c.1927 For Sale

Travel Air 2000 \"Wichita Fokker\" Real WWI Movie Stand-In Photo 8x10 c.1927
Beech Aircraft Corp factory print of Travel Air\'s \"elephant ear\" OX-5 biplane
--- DESCRIPTION ---This is an original vintage 8x10 photographic print from the Beech Aircraft Corp archive.Beech Aircraft Corp was founded in Wichita in 1932 by Walter Beech, a co-founder of the original Travel Air Manufacturing Company, and this print carries over Travel Air era material from that shared Wichita history. It shows a Travel Air Model 2000 biplane marked \"THE TRAVEL AIR 1897\" on the wings and tail.Built between 1927 and 1928, the Model 2000 was a 3 place, open cockpit biplane powered by a 90 hp Curtiss OX-5 V-8 engine, good for roughly 110 mph per the factory\'s own period specifications.Its oversized aileron and rudder balances, nicknamed \"elephant ears\" at the time, gave the plane a passing resemblance to the German Fokker D.VII fighter of WWI.Hollywood noticed too... Travel Air 2000s were dressed up as German fighters for early aviation war epics of the silent and early sound era, which is how the type picked up its lasting nickname, the \"Wichita Fokker.\"Roughly 1,300 Travel Air 2000s were built between 1925 and 1930, making it one of the most numerous American biplanes of the era, but a clean, identifiable factory photo like this one, carrying its own fleet number and an archive stamp, doesn\'t turn up often.The print shows the aircraft parked in a grass airfield, most likely at or near the Travel Air/Beech factory grounds in Wichita, Kansas, with a period handwritten photo number (\"#1135\") in the lower corner and a printed archive credit (\"11698, Beech Aircraft Corp.\") along the bottom border.A strong piece for a Golden Age aviation collection, a Travel Air or Beechcraft enthusiast, or anyone drawn to the overlap between real 1920s aircraft and early Hollywood aviation films.CONDITIONVintage gelatin silver photographic print. Sheet size approximately 10 x 8 in, with a printed image area of approximately 9.25 x 7.25 in inside a narrow white border and a printed caption strip along the bottom edge. Visible in the scans: a faint horizontal crease or handling line running across the upper sky area, light corner and edge wear consistent with age, and a small spot of surface loss near the lower left of the tail section. The image itself remains bright, sharp, and fully legible, including the \"THE TRAVEL AIR 1897\" lettering and the printed archive credit line. Please see all photos for full condition detail before purchasing.