Purdue Airlines

It was a non-profit corporation dedicated to aeronautical research and education with programs in aviation maintenance, avionics, and the training of professional pilots and aircraft technicians.

[8] Mid-West was one of the smallest of the CAB airlines, flying single-engine aircraft across Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota.

PRF planned to invest $1 million into the airline (over $11mm in 2024 dollars) to upgrade Mid-West to fly Douglas DC-3s, the aircraft then becoming prevalent among most local service carriers, and entered into an agreement to purchase 10 DC-3s from Eastern Air Lines.

However, in April 1952, less than six months after allowing PRF to buy Mid-West, the CAB voted to decline to renew the certificate of the airline, forcing it to liquidate.

A second reason was that upgraded Mid-West service would provide direct competition to United Airlines on some routes, which was held to be undesirable.

However, Mid-West's existing results were even worse than those of Florida Airways, a local service carrier whose certificate the CAB declined to renew in 1949.

[11] In 1968, the CAB approved (including the required signature of President Lyndon B. Johnson) the formation of Purdue Airlines, a for-profit supplemental air carrier - the term the US government uses to denote charter operations.

[15] The airline was famous for operating and maintaining Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's private aircraft, also a DC-9, named "The Big Bunny" - painted black with the Playboy bunny logo on the tail, which was based at Purdue University Airport and available (though apparently rarely used) for charter use by the airline.