Bellanca 31-40

what is it?

The Bellanca 31-40 Senior Pacemaker and its derivatives were a family of a six- and eight-seat utility aircraft built in the United States in the late 1930s. They were the final revision of the original late 1920s Wright-Bellanca WB-2 design. The model numbers used by Bellanca in this period reflected the wing area (in this case, 310 square feet) and engine horsepower (400 and up in this series), each divided by ten.

🔎How to recognise it: 1 piston engine with propeller · 15.4 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 306 km/htop speed
• seats 5passengers
• size 2,540 kgmax take-off weight
• built 20made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 91 years ago, in 1935.
• 🏎️Top speed is 2.4× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 15.4 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.

piston: A car-like piston engine turning a propeller: simple and cheap, the classic small plane.

spec sheet

first flight

1935

number built

20

role

civil utility aircraft

makers

AviaBellanca Aircraft

engines

1× Pratt & Whitney Wasp

crew

1

passengers

5

length

8.5 m

wingspan

15.4 m

height

2.6 m

max take-off weight

2,540 kg

top speed

306 km/h

cruise speed

290 km/h

range

—

ceiling

7,620 m

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.