Boeing Model 203

The Boeing Model 203 was a three-seat biplane trainer built by Boeing in the late 1920s and used in the company training school. It was a low-power biplane designed to compete with other standard training aircraft; the front cockpit held two passengers side by side or one student with a second set of controls, the fuselage was welded steel tubing, the last Boeing aircraft built that way, and the wings had solid wood spars and plywood ribs. It resembled a combination of the Model 95 and the P-12. Five were built at first, the first flying on 1 July 1929, and the second, flying on 29 August 1929 with a 165 hp Wright J-6-5, became the Model 203A. All went to the Boeing School of Aeronautics in Oakland, California, two more were built there in 1935 and 1936, and several became 203Bs with a 220 hp Lycoming radial before the school closed in the Second World War.