Reliable Reliants Stinson's SR-5 Straight Wing

The 1930s had more than its share of dichotomies that, from this end ofhistorys telescope, make little sense. The stock-market crash of 1929 seta record depression in motion that numbed America for most of the nextdecade. To make matters worse, nature decided to make mid-America intoa dust bowl, where real estate in one state often found its way to another.

- Budd Davisson

The nation was struggling to get up off its knees, yet an industry that was little more than a decade old seemed to be flourishing: aviation. Entrepreneurs who had the nerve and high rollers who had escaped being ruined by the stock market came together to make the 1930s a golden era in which aircraft developed into something the country couldn’t do without. Names like Cessna, Beechcraft, Stinson, WACO, and many others became commonplace as they produced flying limousines for those who could make money with them or could afford them as personal transportation. Among the entrepreneurs was Edward “Eddie” Stinson who had established a company to build aircraft in 1920. By the 1930s, he had introduced the public to a long, and varied, line of aircraft aimed at providing transportation in many forms. The most successful was his Reliant line: SR-1 to SR-10.