Mechanical engineering classes were held in the old School of Science with a makeshift laboratory in a boiler house.
Neither he nor his classmate had pilot's licenses, so they came up with a scheme to buy the plane and rent it out for rides and flying lessons.
They had learned that Princeton had a policy that students whose parents had difficulty raising tuition could postpone payment until the end of the semester.
During spring break, Wells found himself alone at the Hadley airfield more than 20 miles away from the college with no money and no ride back to school.
Fortunately, that stunt did not get him suspended, but the incident was noted by the New York Times as a box story on its front page.
"[4] By the end of the semester, the pair of students had not raised sufficient funds to pay for tuition, so they were forced to sell the Jenny for the $600 they had paid for it.
This was a cross country race from Portland to Cleveland, which involved navigation skills, as well as maximizing aircraft speed.
[5] Wells was hired by Travel Air, a division of Curtiss-Wright as a part-time demonstration pilot in 1928, during the summer of his junior year at Princeton.
Ted managed to bail out and deploy his parachute just in time, suffering only a broken ankle when he landed in mud.
[1] Then president of Travel Air, Walter Beech, was impressed with Wells' Model 17 "Staggerwing" drawings and presented them to the Curtiss-Wright management to persuade them to build it.
Shaul, General Manager at Travel Air and Comptroller before relocating to St. Louis, was named Treasurer.
Wells left the regatta, attended the meeting during which Olive Ann Beech told him, "I think that you ought to have all the free time you need for your interests.
[8] After leaving Beech, Wells did some contract work for Cessna Aircraft, then changed careers and bought the controlling stock of the Union National Bank.
[1] He continued to race Snipes including his last competition, the 1986 National Master's regatta hosted by the Atlanta Yacht Club, when he was 79 years old.
[1] During retirement, Wells and his wife Marge flew from New York to a Paris vacation on the Concorde at Mach 2.