Aero Commander 500 family

The Aero Commander 500 family, also called the Twin Commander, is a series of light twin-engined business and utility aircraft with a high wing and retractable undercarriage, powered by piston engines in the earlier models and by turboprops in the larger later ones. Ted Smith and a group of Douglas Aircraft engineers formed the Aero Design and Engineering Company to build it. The prototype first flew on 23 April 1948, and the first production Commander 520 was rolled out of the Bethany factory near Oklahoma City in August 1951. Aero Commander became a division of Rockwell International in 1965, and the 500S Shrike Commander followed in 1967, with larger variants running up to the eleven-seat 695B Jetprop 1000B. The family also flew with the United States Air Force and Army as the L-26, later U-4 and U-9, and one served as a presidential transport for Dwight D. Eisenhower. Final production came in 1986 under the Gulfstream Aerospace name.