THE ULTIMATE PISTON BIZPLANE

Some date the beginning of business aviation to the first hardware store owner who painted his logo on a Jenny’s fuselage. Others cite the appearance of sophisticated cabin singles such as the Spartan Executive and Beech Staggerwing in the early 1930s, though most of those airplanes were owner-flown, not professionally driven. Still others jump straight to the advent of the original Grumman Gulfstream I turboprop and the ubiquitous Learjet in the 1960s.

Often overlooked is that glorious postwar period when corporate warriors rode into battle aboard civilianized bombers, sitting in kangaroo-skinned armchairs and bracketed by World War II radials with straight