The local Wichita newspaper, Wichita Eagle, picked up on the secret program, with one reporter even going so far as to scale a ladder to try to peek into the vents in the factory roof. The newspaper dubbed it the "Mystery Ship", and the name stuck.

Mystery Ship book presents history of each Travel Air Type R monoplane and their colorful pilots including Jimmy Doolittle, Frank Hawks and Pancho Barnes.

The Travel Air Type R "Mystery Ships" were a series of wire-braced, low-wing racing airplanes built by the Travel Air company in the late 1920s and early 1930s.