The Spartan Aircraft Company of Tulsa, Oklahoma, produced a number of different types, but none in such quantity as the 7W Executive - and even then it only built 34. As the name suggests, this was a luxury executive transport, the 450hp Pratt & Whitney R-985 Wasp Junior radial engine giving it excellent performance, while the interior could seat four to five in comfort. Period owners included Howard Hughes and Jean Paul Getty; a few were impressed into military service, not least with the US Army Air Corps and the Royal Air Force. Several survive in airworthy condition, but just two in Europe - both are owned by Nigel Pickard, who keeps them at Little Gransden in Cambridgeshire, and it is one of these that will attend RIAT 2014.
Photo credit: Ben Dunnell
