Once upon a time in a faraway land—Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, to be precise—a lone aeronautical engineer designed, constructed, and FAA certified an airplane at his own hometown airport.
Long before we needed concepts like MOSAIC (Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification) to break through the bureaucratic aircraft certification process, Jack Gilberti created a viable competitor to the iconic Cessna 172.
The Volaire 1050/Aero Commander 100 was born during one of my favorite periods in the history of general aviation. The 1960s was an amazing aviation sweet spot where modest aircraft certification requirements and individual engineers and dreamers like Al Mooney, John Thorp, and Gilberti designed and certified their own designs.
The market for new single-engine designs grew every year until, sadly, the insurance liability crisis of the 1980s strangled the market. While Mooney M20s and Piper Cherokee became household names, Gilberti’s sturdy design achieved more modest success.
The Aero Commander 100 and its later variants, the Darter and Lark Commander, actually began life at the Aliquippa airport as the Volaircraft Model 10. Gilberti, an aeronautical engineer, decided to design, build, fly, and market his own tricycle-gear training aircraft at this humble grass, and later paved, landing strip.
He arrived at Ellis Island from Italy in 1925 at the age of 5, and his family soon settled in Aliquippa. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley in 1939 with a degree in aeronautical engineering, he went to work for Boeing in Seattle.
A year later, like so many of the “Greatest Generation,” he volunteered and was commissioned into the Naval Air Forces. In 1946, his World War II service behind him, he and his wife, Ruth, returned home and opened the Aliquippa-Hopewell Airport. For the next 10 years, he managed the airport on the weekends and worked for nearby Taylorcraft as an engineer, specializing in composite construction.
In 1957, Gilberti decided to design and build an all-metal trainer. First, he formed Volaircraft Inc. Ruth actually named the company after the Italian word “to fly.” The prototype Volaire Model 10’s first flight was in 1960, and the design was certified a year later. However, the Model 10 was never meant to be a production model. Soon, the three-seat Volaire 1035, powered by the Lycoming O-290, and the four-seat Volaire 1050, upgraded to the Lycoming O-320, followed.
Construction of these sturdy birds is quite similar to the Mooney M20 line with an SAE 4130 Chrome-Moly Tubing cabin structure mated to a semimonocoque tail cone. The vertical stabilizer featured a distinctive vertical leading edge and forward-swept trailing edge, again similar to the Mooney.
Like the Cessna line, the Volaire featured a high-mounted, all-metal, strut-braced wing. Based on Gilberti’s composite work at Taylorcraft, the Volaire 1035/1050 featured fiberglass composites throughout the airframe, cowlings, wing tips, and fairings. A stout laminated fiberglass main gear spring assembly gives the airplane its bulletproof landing gear reputation.
The cabin was set high in the airframe with large windows and a 360-degree unobstructed view. The nosewheel pant featured a large weathervane-style fairing that served to center the nose gear and added control in flight.
The Volaire line was a sturdy, if a bit stodgy, entry into the burgeoning single-engine trainer market. Working out of his Aliquippa hangars, Gilberti constructed six complete Volaire 1035 models and an additional eight Volaire 1050 airframes, when Rockwell Standard came calling with an offer he could not refuse.
The mid-1960s was a period of intense mergers and acquisitions in the aerospace industry. Rockwell Standard (later North American Rockwell) purchased Aero Commander and went shopping for a single-engine travel and trainer line as a step up to its iconic cabin class twins. Along with the purchase of the retractable gear speedster, the Meyers 200, Rockwell bought the rights and construction facilities for the Volaire 1050, swiftly renaming it the Aero Commander 100.
The eight unfinished fuselages were part of the deal and were equipped with data plates that read “Aero Commander Volaircraft 10A.” Soon, production moved to Rockwell’s Albany, Georgia, factory and by 1968 more than 300 Darter Commanders had rolled off the assembly line.
The final version of the Aero Commander line, the Lark Commander, featured a more aerodynamic cowling, stylish swept tail fin, and a Lycoming O-360, 180 hp engine. From a distance, this last model could pass for a later-model Cessna 172 and is far and away the best looking of the line.
The Lark cruised at nearly 115 knots, climbed at 700-750 fpm, stalled at less than 50 knots, and boasted a service ceiling of 13,000 feet. The aviation media of the period reported the Lark Commander’s performance as predictable, comfortable, but not spectacular.
Alas, by 1970, Aero Commander/Rockwell decided to go in a new direction, and construction of the Aero Commander 100 ended after nearly 550 were completed. With neither the Meyers 200 nor the Aero Commander 100 meeting its needs, the company decided to divest both lines and focus on the design and certification of the Rockwell Commander 112/114 series.
Having sold the Volaircraft company to Rockwell, Gilberti moved on. He designed the illumination systems for NASA’s historic Apollo night launches and the control consoles for the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART) in San Francisco. True to his Pennsylvania roots, he designed and built modular homes in the hangars at the Aliquippa Airport, the same ones that gave birth to the Volaire/Aero Commander 100. Gilberti died in 2004 at the age of 84, a proud and much revered resident of his hometown.
And what became of the Aero Commander 100? It appears less than half of the original 545 produced are still on the active list. They are a sturdy and relatively inexpensive four-seat training and transportation machine. A modest online group provides support for the remaining airframes.
Maybe as MOSAIC becomes a reality, we might see another modern day Gilberti take a shot at creating their own airplane. In the meantime, if you happen to see an Aero Commander 100 on a ramp near you, or maybe at EAA AirVenture in July, think of Giberti and his dream that produced this incredible plane.
