Aero Commander 500 family
1948 executive aircraft family by Aero Design and Engineering Company
The Aero Commander 500 family is a series of light twin piston-engined and turboprop aircraft originally built by the Aero Design and Engineering Company in the late 1940s, renamed the Aero Commander company in 1950, and later a division of Rockwell International in 1965. Final production occurred in 1986 under the Gulfstream Aerospace name. The initial production version was the 200 mph (320 km/h; 170 kn), seven-seat Aero Commander 520. An improved version, the 500S, manufactured after 1967, is known as the Shrike Commander. Larger variants are known by numerous model names and designations, ranging up to the 330 mph (530 km/h; 290 kn), 11-seat Model 695B/Jetprop 1000B turboprop.
As of recent, the Aero Commander is known as the Twin Commander.
Design and development
The idea for the Commander light business twin was conceived by Ted Smith, a project engineer at the Douglas Aircraft Company. Working part-time after hours throughout 1944, a group of A-20 engineers formed the Aero Design and Engineering Company to design and build the proposed aircraft with a layout similar to their A-20 bomber. Originally, the new company was going to build three pre-production aircraft, but as the first aircraft was being built, they decided to build just one prototype. The final configuration was completed in July 1946 and was designated the Model L3805.
The public source identifies “Aero Commander 500 family” as 1948 executive aircraft family by Aero Design and Engineering Company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Aero, Commander and family.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q381283. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1965, 1986 and 1967.
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This entry incorporates text from “Aero Commander 500 family” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.