VintageAirRally

TEAM 11: TEAM ALASKA. Each biplane on the #VintageAirRally has it's own fascinating story.
Nick and Lita's "Team Alaska'"s biplane was a 1928 Travel Air 4000, a radial-engine biplane born during the golden age of aviation and a "Smugler" with a felony conviction ;-).

Travel Airs were built by a company whose 3 founders — Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman — all went on to give their names to other companies and other planes.
This particular plane was owned and flown by a couple of aviation greats: the famed racer Matty Laird and aerobatic pioneer Frank Price. When with the Newark Flying Service, she was impounded in 1931 after a guy who rented her, was caught smuggling booze from Canada into the US during Prohibition. According to Nick, “Now that’s character and I think a lot of Alaskans can relate to that.”

In total, 1,400 of these Travel Air 4000 were built and only 40 are still flying. Three where on the Crete2Cape rally, and, as it happens, two were holding members of the same family: Nick and Lita, Winners of the Puma Energy Spirit of the Rally Award and their son, Colin with Keith, on the only other American team, "Team Barnstormers". The third Travel Air, "Team Socal", was flown under the Canadian flag and its pilot, Pedro, was the overal winner of the #VintageAirRally @Randolph Engineering (RE) @aguycalledwordz