06/30/2024. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "Evaluation competitions were held by the USAAC in November 1938 to select single-engine aircraft for use by military and naval attaches stationed at the American legations at London, Rome, Paris, and Mexico City, and in March 1939 to select twin-engine planes for top-ranking personnel transport. The first of these competitions was won by the Beech Dl7S biplane, and the second by the Beech 18S monoplane.
Work was started in 1939 on the Government contracts, which totaled more than a million dollars altogether. These were Beechcraft's first orders from the armed services of the USA, the only previous Government business having been for biplanes ordered by the Civil Aeronautics Authority. Walter H. Beech had never sought to enter the field of specialized military aircraft design, preferring to build commercial aircraft offering optimum performance. The results of the evaluation competitions were excellent evidence of his success, and the fact that the Beech models delivered to the USAAC were standard commercial planes, with only slight modifications in some details, was further corroboration.
Also ordered by the USAAC were fourteen Beechcraft 18S' modified for high altitude aerial photography. Ordered in 1940 and designated F-2, these aircraft were fitted with two multiple-lens mapping cameras mounted in tandem in the cabin. The F-2 was required to operate for several hours at altitudes of 25,000 ft (7,620 m) and above, hence a piped oxygen system was fitted for the crew.
