Alexander Aircraft Company

In 1919 the brothers J.Don Alexander (1885-1955) and Don Mr. Alexander (1893-1972) constituted with Spokane, Washington, the company Alexander Film Company, specialized in advertizing films. In 1923 the company moves to settle with Englewood, Colorado. To move Gift Mr. Alexander, acquired of a Laird Swallow. J.Don Alexander had then the idea to buy forty airplanes intended to facilitate displacements of its commercial, but no manufacturer was then able to face such an order. Just could it find 4 biplanes Longren AK. Golds Longren Aircraft Co, installed with Topeka, Kansas, was at the edge of the bankruptcy. J.Don Alexander repurchased the rights and the tools and transferred Alexander-Longren Aircraft from it to the 3385 South Broadway, with the southern limit of Denver, Colorado.

The group Alexander Industries was created, then Alexander Flying School, and Alexander Aircraft Company was born in 1925. Drawn by Daniel Noonan, improved by Albert Mooney, the biplane Alexander Eaglerock was going to be an extraordinary, constant success by a network of 33 distributers and 143 retailers. Used for postal transport like the agricultural work, extremely popular near the Barnstormers, Eaglerock was chosen by Charles Lindbergh for his history crossed from the Atlantic. Alexander Aircraft declined the order because of an important delay of the deliveries. A hundred biplanes had left the factory of South Broadway when, on April 20th, 1928, an explosion kills 11 employees and causes the fire of the workshop painting. Fortunately, to face its fast development, the company had bought little before with Colorado Springs a ground of 105 ha and undertaken to build there a factory, the Chamber of commerce having acquired on its side the 36 close ha to create an aerodrome there. The factory of Englewood being closed for investigation into the reasons of the explosion, the Alexander brothers immediately decided the transfer of the company and its 300 employees towards Colorado Springs. 24 hours later, thanks to a noria of 75 trucks, the removal towards provisional installations dispersed in the city was completed.

During a few months, Alexander Aircraft produced daily to 8 planes per day, absolute records for the time! But the economic crisis of 1929 benefitted the cinematographic activity, the orders of plane crumbled. To protect Alexander Film Company, which from now on financially supported the construction of planes which were not sold any more, the companies were separated and Alexander Aircraft Company was declared in bankruptcy in 1932. The material in stock in the factory was employed to carry out a sailplane, the Alexander B-1, was built with approximately 500 specimens which were past with the unit price of 375 dollars. While with the beginning of the year 50 Alexander Film Company produced 2 to 3000 advertizing films annually, Aircraft Mechanics Inc (FRIENDLY) repurchased in 1934 the capital of Alexander Aircraft Company and will continue in 1935 the production of the Alexander Flyabout. FRIEND is today a division of BF Goodrich manufacturer of the ejector seats.

External bonds

Biography of J. Gift Alexander

References

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