Ted A. Wells

Wells died on September 25, 1991, at the age of 84.

After leaving Beech, Wells did some contract work for Cessna Aircraft, then changed careers and bought the controlling stock of the Union National Bank. He continued to race Snipes including his last competition, the 1986 National Master's regatta hosted by the Atlanta Yacht Club, when he was 79 years old.

After Walter Beech's death in 1950, Olive Ann Beech became the President of Beech Aircraft. There were tensions between Wells and Olive Ann Beech. Publicly, Olive Ann Beech said she did not like Wells spending time sailing and thought he needed to spend more time focused on the company. In 1953, she sent an aircraft down to bring Wells back from the Snipe National Championships in Ardmore, Oklahoma for an "emergency meeting" back at Beechcraft headquarters in Wichita, Kansas. Wells left the regatta, attended the meeting during which Olive Ann Beech told him, "I think that you ought to have all the free time you need for your interests. We accept your resignation." Wells signed the resignation letter and immediately returned to the regatta.

Wells won many regattas including the 1947, 1949 and 1952 United States Snipe National Championships, as well as the 1947 and 1949 Snipe World Championships. Wells also authored the book "Scientific Sailboat Racing" which was widely read in the sailing racing community.

Wells joined the Wichita Sailing Club in 1938 and started racing Snipe sailboats. He bought his first boat for $100. It had bed sheets for sails. Wells decided to race sailboats, rather than airplanes, as it was becoming difficult to find the time for racing airplanes. Wells quickly became proficient at racing on Santa Fe Lake. He was instrumental in organizing the club's first invitational regatta and began trailering his Snipe around the country to participate in other regattas.

Walter Beech, Olive Ann Beech, Ted Wells, K.K. Shaul and C.G. Yankey become the principle founders of Beech Aircraft in April 1932. Walter Beech was named President and Wells became Vice President of Engineering and Chief Designer. C.G. Yankey was a friend of the Beech's and a prime investor, so he was named Vice President. K.K. Shaul, General Manager at Travel Air and Comptroller before relocating to St. Louis, was named Treasurer. Olive Ann Beech was named Secretary.

In 1931, Wells began producing the next design for Travel Air. The Model 17 was a four place enclosed cockpit biplane with an unconventional placement of the top wing aft of the bottom wing. This was done to improve visibility associated with the standard configuration.

Wells was hired by Travel Air, a division of Curtiss-Wright as a part-time demonstration pilot in 1928, during the summer of his junior year at Princeton. He then was hired by the company full-time as a design engineer after he graduated in 1929, filling the engineering void left by Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman. Wells and Herb Rawdon designed the Travel Air models 12 & 16. In his spare time in 1930, Wells designed and built a racing biplane, the Model W4B, also known as the Wells Special. During one of the flight tests, he was flying at 200 mph (322 km/h) only 500 ft (152 m) above the ground, when both ailerons tore off the wings. Ted managed to bail out and deploy his parachute just in time, suffering only a broken ankle when he landed in mud.

Theodore A. Wells was born in Corning, Iowa and was the first aeronautical engineering graduate at Princeton University. The Princeton school of Engineering was founded just a few years prior in 1921, with programs in Chemical, Geological, and Mechanical engineering. It started with fewer than 100 students. Mechanical engineering classes were held in the old School of Science with a makeshift laboratory in a boiler house. Wells specifically wanted a degree in aeronautical engineering and was able to convince the school to allow him to pursue that goal, although he had to tell the school which requirements he needed to satisfy.

Theodore Arthur Wells (March 12, 1907 – September 25, 1991) was an American aircraft engineer, co-founder of the Beech Aircraft Corporation, and the lead designer of the Beechcraft Model 17 Staggerwing. Wells was also an avid Snipe sailboat racer, winning three national championships and two world championships.