tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54705454236507541782024-03-16T11:52:25.870-07:00Vintage AirAlan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.comBlogger217125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-25307492276953490562016-07-30T11:10:00.002-07:002016-07-30T11:43:58.547-07:00Stearman Star: Before She Was FamousBy and large, the planes featured in our vintage photos haven't survived into the 21st century. So when my brother, Eric Radecki of Vonrad Vintage in Fresno, discovered this old 8x10 glossy print and donated it to the archive, I made the assumption that the Stearman's hazardous line of work probably meant it hadn't survived, either. Was I wrong! Boeing Stearmans, to be sure, a durable and hardy lot, and N68405, built as a PT-17 in 1943 (c/n 75-7759), is one of those happy exceptions, and this is yet another example of a random, lost photo uncovering a fun story! <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsA5uplbUFbii6ZbYYOSLrbgY22pHSkE1wGAjPGV4Zgc3H8bF1jD84j8ilATAosP_iHQBlhUo3aeqE2rdOJuiouxOnrPH_eSqV6EENcs3kYrJxCxOlMeTmEuhUtQtTk_4wmaD8TT4-IfQ/s1600/va-stearman-N68405.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsA5uplbUFbii6ZbYYOSLrbgY22pHSkE1wGAjPGV4Zgc3H8bF1jD84j8ilATAosP_iHQBlhUo3aeqE2rdOJuiouxOnrPH_eSqV6EENcs3kYrJxCxOlMeTmEuhUtQtTk_4wmaD8TT4-IfQ/s640/va-stearman-N68405.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">N68405 at Hawke Field, Merced CA on September 19, 1977.<br />
Photo courtesy of Geoff Goodall, used with permission</td></tr>
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The Steaman was a mere 20-something years young when an unknown photographer took this photo of the beginning of a crop dusting pass - <i>under the wires!</i> - in the mid-1960s. Today, N68405 is a movie and TV veteran owned and flown by Michael Samuel Mason, she graces the skies above Sequim, Washington (more about that in a minute!).<br />
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After serving (and surviving) as an Army Air Corps trainer in World War II, the Stearman was surplussed into the crop dusting world (an old duster I once knew told me "If you want to be a crop duster and live to 50, start at 49." I presume that goes for the planes, too!). In the above right photo by Geoff Goodall (from <a href="http://www.goodall.com.au/photographs/aerial-ag-usa70/70saerialag.html" target="_blank">his website</a>), our girl is seen still hard at work in September, 1977 at the Flying M Ranch's Hawke Field near Merced, California.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/wings-on-film/images/7/75/Airwolf_1.11_Boeing_Stearman.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140814150517" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/wings-on-film/images/7/75/Airwolf_1.11_Boeing_Stearman.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140814150517" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Production still from <i>Airwolf</i> as found on the "Wings-on-Film" Wikia</td></tr>
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Like so many dreaming of stardom, the Stearman eventually left the farm and headed for Southern California and the world of movie and TV flying. When <i>Airwolf</i> debuted as a mid-season replacement show in the spring of 1984, N68405 made a guest appearance in the 11th episode, <i>To Catch a Wolf </i>(this same episode also features an appeance of the C-133s in the Mojave boneyard!). While owned by Mike Dewey, the Stearman was also flown in the Bruce Willis/James Garner comedy western <i>Sunset. </i><br />
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Before Mason bought it, the old gal was owned by Eric Newman and was used in <i>Independence Day. </i>The original ending envisioned for the movie included a suicide mission inwhich the Stearman (instead of the F/A-18 used) was flown up into the evil alien ship (you can see that version <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls2CwZjQ9es" target="_blank">in this YouTube excerpt</a>).<br />
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Our Stearman has also appeared in several music videos, including Aerosmith's "Amazing" (she shows up at 5:33 in<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSmOvYzSeaQ" target="_blank"> this version on YouTube</a>), and there's some gorgeous footage of the bright red Stearman doing aerobatics in the official music video for Mark Wills' "High, Low and In Between" (you can <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MHWuk1eUWA" target="_blank">see it here on YouTube</a>).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.air-and-space.com/20050806%20Santa%20Paula/DSC_2513%20A75N1%20N68405%20cn75-7759%20left%20front%20m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.air-and-space.com/20050806%20Santa%20Paula/DSC_2513%20A75N1%20N68405%20cn75-7759%20left%20front%20m.jpg" height="140" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Brian Lockett, linked by permission</td></tr>
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In August, 2005, aviation photographer Brian Lockett caught up with N68405 on display at the <a href="http://www.air-and-space.com/20050806%20Santa%20Paula/DSC_2513%20A75N1%20N68405%20cn75-7759%20left%20front%20l.jpg" target="_blank">Santa Paula Airfair</a> (right). Current owner Mike Mason grew up in Santa Paula, and his uncle still has two other Stearmans based there. Now in Sequim, Washington, Mike and and his wife Marilyn use the plane as a training platform in their unique <a href="http://masonwingwalking.com/" target="_blank">Mason Wing Walking Academy</a>, the only such school in the world! (They still do a bit of movie and TV work with it as well.)<br />
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Just as the name suggests, anyone with the $850 fee and an adventurous spirit can spend a day or two learning how to wing walk on top of this bright red Steaman. Mike does the flying, and Marilyn does the instructing. The world-wide population of wing-walkers is relatively small, as one might guess, and over 90% of them have been trained by Marilyn. One recent Academy student was Boston Marathon bombing survivor Megan Williams, and her experiences learning to wingwalk, profiled in an article in this <a href="http://www.sequimgazette.com/community/388448911.html" target="_blank">great <i>Sequim Gazette</i> article</a>, helped in her recovery journey.<br />
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It's wonderful to see this beauty still going strong a half-century after our feature photo was taken. One presumes that these days, Mason and crew keep a safer distance from power lines!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy of Mike Mason, Mason Wing Walking Academy</td></tr>
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<i>(Huge thanks to Eric for the print and Mike Mason for taking the time to share the past of his Stearman!)</i><br />
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-29128390314635090522015-09-02T05:00:00.000-07:002015-09-02T05:00:05.506-07:00From Glendale to London with Peace, Pingpong Balls, and the RitzMeet <i>Lady Peace</i>, a grand dame of a plane with some incredible stories that have all but been forgotten about. Seventy-nine years ago today, she left on a flight that was intended to set a new round-trip trans-Atlantic speed record.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;">GLENDALE, CALIF. - Heading for New [York] and their round-trip flight to London within a few days, Harry Richman, night-club singer and aviator, and Dick Merrill, transport pilot, this afternoon took off from Grand Central Air Terminal in their Vultee monoplane, "Lady Peace". The two flyers plan to fly to London over the Great Circle course by way of Newfoundland. They hope to complete the round trip in 32 hours. Just before taking off they accepted their course charts from Lieut. Commander Clarence Williams, mapmaker for Amelia Earhart and Clyde Pangborn. Their low-wing all-metal plane has a cruising speed of 235-miles per hour, and is powered by a 1000-horsepower motor. Fully loaded with 1002 gallons of gasoline the plane weighs 13,300 pounds, Richman said, and has a cruising radius of 4000 miles. Innovations include a buoyant wing and tail space lining of 30,000 table tennis balls to float the craft in the event they are forced down in mid-ocean. PHOTO SHOWS: Vultee transport plane bearing Harry Richman and Dick Merrill to New York, for the start of their projected round-trip flight to London. The plane is shown as it took off from Glendale, California today. 8-17-36 (photo from Wide World Photos, Los Angeles Bureau)</span></td></tr>
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Back in January, 2013, we ran a post featuring a couple photos of<a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2013/01/retro-american-airlines-and-their-vultee.html" target="_blank"> American Airlines's Vultee V1-As</a>, and told the story about how the plane came to be, and pretty much left off with American dumping the planes when the Bureau of Air Commerce banned single-engine airliners. The forced early retirement was only the beginning of the story for NC-13770, which was the eighth V1-A off of Vultee's Glendale assembly line. (And yes, it's properly "V1-A", not V-1A like may sources mis-write it).<br />
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American Airlines had been attracted to the Vultees because they were fast and, for their time, had long legs. Retirement didn't slow them down. Enter <a href="http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1934/1934%20-%201020.PDF" target="_blank">Col. (H) George. R. Hutchinson</a>, who had a dream of establishing the first trans-Atlantic freight operation which he named the New York, London, Moscow Airlines (and yes, that was the proposed route). The new company "nominated", or sponsored Hutchinson and NR-13770 as an entry in the speed portion of one of the biggest air races of all time, the MacRobertson Race from Mildenhall, England, to Melbourne, Australia, which started on October 29, 1934. Hutchinson was to be the pilot, with Peter Redpath as navigator and co-pilot and Donald H. Vance as radio operator. Unfortunately, the Vultee is listed as "<a href="http://www.airrace.com/ResultsMacrobertson.htm" target="_blank">Failed to Start</a>" - and that outcome pretty much also describes what happened to the proposed airline. (A second V1-A, Race 64, had also been entered in the MacRobertson, to be flown by H. W. G. Penny, but it too failed to start.)<br />
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Our Vultee next found a home as a corporate transport for Shell Oil, where she was piloted by Jimmy Doolittle. On January 15, 1935, Doolittle, along with his wife Josephine and Shell Oil executive Robert Adams, took off from Burbank and headed for Floyd Bennett Field in New York, with three California oranges on board. The flight set a transcontinental record of 11 hours, 59 minutes, and Doolittle flew most of the portion from Colorado to Virginia on instruments (they were also forced off course by 300 miles by the inclement weather). The oranges were delivered to Newark Mayor Meyer C. Ellenstein.<br />
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Not to be outdone, Doolittle's brother-in-law Leland Andrews took the controls of NR-13770 on February 21st and flew the same route, shaving 25 minutes off of the time, which included a stop in Washington D.C. where he delivered some orchids to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Andrews later set another record, Los Angeles to Mexico City in 8:08.<br />
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Meanwhile, singer and night-club owner Harry Richman had found that aviation was a great hobby to spend his excess cash on. Richman had hit the big time by singing the previously unknown Irving Berlin showtune "Putin' on the Ritz" in the 1930 movie of the same name (Clark Gable and Fred Astaire would also sing it in later movies). Richman had learned to fly and then began to seek a way to fulfill his dream of becoming the first person to fly the Atlantic round-trip. Along the way, he purchased a Sikorsky and set several records in it.<br />
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Henry T. "Dick" Merrill had the same dream, but as the chief pilot for Eastern Airways, he didn't have the financial resources to make it happen. The two met while Merrill was on an Eastern Airlines layover in New York, and visited Richman's club. Of course the conversation turned to flying, and the idea of not just an Atlantic crossing, but a trans-Atlantic round-trip, to be accomplished, ideally, within a total of 48 hours.It was later famously reported that Richman told Merrill, "take the plane to Europe...gas her up and fly her back. It’s never been done."<br />
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Richman agreed to purchase Shell's Vultee and sponsor the modifications needed, as well as other expenses of the flight, the total bill being in the neighborhood of $360,000. The 700-horse Pratt & Whitney was removed and replaced with a 1,000-horse Wright Cyclone giving a 215 mph cruising speed. Extra fuel tanks were fitted, and Richman had insisted that, as a safety measure, empty spaces throughout the plane be filled with the thousands of ping pong balls (the RAF had tested this little trick, with some success; the number of balls is uncertain - contemporary sources such as the caption for our photo list 30,000, while different modern websites have numbers approaching 41,000; following the flight, Richman for years sold autographed balls as a way of raising money for charity; if you watch, you can sometimes see signed balls show up on eBay).<br />
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The plane was ferried from Glendale, California to New York on August 17, 1936, and then after some final preparations and a lot of media coverage, the pair left for the Atlantic crossing on September 2nd.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The original caption pasted to the back of this Acme press photo reads: "BOUND FOR EUROPE: Dick Merrill, veteran air line pilot, and Harry Richman, nightclub entertainer, roared away from Floyd Bennett Field, New York City, September 2, in a 1,000 hp monoplane on a projected round-trip flight to London. Their plane, the "Lady Peace", is pictured passion over Long Island a few minutes after takeoff."</td></tr>
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Flying a Great Circle route, all went quite well until about 600 miles from their destination, when the <i>Lady Peace</i> encountered some rather nasty weather. After battling the elements for a good four hours, Merrill and Richman finally found themselves over the UK, but short on fuel. The decision was made to land at Llandila, in South Wales, about 175 miles shy of London. Even so, at 18 hours, 36 minutes, they'd set a record for the fastest Atlantic crossing to that date. The overnighted at Llandila and then flew on to London the following morning, September 4th.<br />
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Their goal of a 48 hour total round-trip was out the window, unfortunately, and with that pressure off, they took their time getting ready to head back west. Finally on September 14th, the left, taking off from the beach near Southport Pier, England. Again, all was going relatively well, until they encountered some very stiff headwinds. What happened next is a bit controversial, and the story varies depending on what source you read.<br />
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One story is that Richman was at the controls, and panicked in the face of the headwinds, and, dumped about 500 gallons of gas in order to lighten the plane. Another version is that Merrill was flying and had no idea why there was less gas onboard than there was supposed to be, and that it was only after Eddie Rickenbacker, a close friend of Merrill's, joined them at the scene that it was noticed that the emergency fuel dump valve was stuck partially open. So was this an intentional rookie-mistake dumping, or an accident of a stuck valve?<br />
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In any case, the bottom line was there wasn't enough gas to make it to New York. Merrill picked what looked like an open field near Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland, but when they touched down, it turned out to be a fairly soft bog, and the Vultee ended up on its nose and suffered some minor damage. The relationship between the pilots also suffered a fair bit of damage. [<i>Editorial commentary: I find the reference below to the helpful local Newfoundlanders as "surrounded by natives" - as if they were some exotic tribesmen - to be quite amusing.</i>]<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The caption for this Acme press photo reads: "ROUND TRIP COMPLETED: Surrounded by natives, the "Lady Peace", which bore Harry Richman and Dick Merrill safely across the Atlantic twice, is shown where it cracked up in a bog at Musgrave Harbor, Newfoundland. While Captain Eddie Rickenbacker speeds to the spot, relations between Richman and Merrill are strained because of differences which arose while they were winging westward across the Atlantic. 9/16/36."</td></tr>
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After several days of repairs, just enough fuel was loaded on to make the short hop to Harbor Grace, since the ground was so soft and they didn't want to risk making the plane any heavier. More waiting was needed to overcome strong winds, and finally <i>Lady Peace,</i> escorted by Eddie Rickenbacker in a DC-2, finally returned to New York City on September 21st. But their problems weren't over yet. Merrill happened to get the wheels off the edge of the runway at Floyd Bennett, where they sank in soft mud. The plane had to be then towed to the ramp.<br />
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A trip that had been originally envisioned to take only 48 hours ended up consuming 19 days. And there's a possible explanation for why, if like some pilots of that era, you're superstitious (Merrill, as a devout Christian, wasn't, it must be noted). Merrill and Eddie Rickenbacker were close family friends, and ten-year-old William Rickenbacker looked up to Merrill as to a bigger-than-life hero. But, the boy was ill and thus unable to see the <i>Lady Peace </i>off on her trans-Atlantic journey. So instead, William, in a bedside farewell, gave Merrill something that he thought would bring them luck: his favorite Ace of Spades playing card, completely unaware that most pilots of that era considered that to be a strong omen of bad luck. Eddie's wife Adelaide was terribly upset by what her son had done, however. When the fliers finally returned, Merrill greeted William with a jubilant bear hug, but Adelaide began making vocal and profuse apologies for the gift her son had given him, to the point that poor young William was mortally embarrassed and the event was reportedly ruined for him, creating a long-lasting emotional scar.<br />
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In a very odd twist of irony, the <i>Lady Peace </i>next went to war. With hostilities breaking out in Spain, American planes were bought up in record number and shipped to Europe to join in the fighting. Vultee V1-As, with their speed and durability, were thought to make idea light bombers and ground attack aircraft, and most of the ex-American Airlines planes saw combat. <i>Lady Peace</i> was included, being sold with the other Vultees by an aircraft broker to the Republicans, in what became known in the press as the "Vimalert Affair", which led to President Roosevelt demanding that Congress to impose an embargo against shipments to Spain.<br />
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However, the ship that the Vultee and the other planes were on, the <i>Mar Cantabrinco</i>, left before the embargo was imposed, and was instead intercepted by Franco's navy in the Bay of Biscay, and thus the planes were taken over by the Nationalists. <i>Lady Peace</i> was re-christened <i>Capitan Haya</i>, after Captain Carlos de Haya González de Ubieta, one of their hero pilots who had been killed in action. Unlike the Vultee's namesake, the plane survived the war, and continued in the service of the Spanish Air Force, until being unceremoniously scrapped in 1953.<br />
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In 1937, a Hollywood film about the flight of the <i>Lady Peace </i>was produced and released under the name <i>Atlantic Flight</i>...and it starred none other than Dick Merrill as himself. Merrill went on to set a number of aviation records, including logging one of the highest totals of flight hours of any pilot in history (a nice <a href="http://www.aerofiles.com/bio_m.html#merrill" target="_blank">mini-bio can be found here)</a>.<br />
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Only one Vultee V1-A survives, a special custom version built for William Randolf Hearst. Eventually, it was acquired by the Virgina Aviation Museum, of which Dick Merrill was a co-curator. The plane was restored and rechristened <i>Lady Peace II</i>, and for a time was flown at airshows by Merrill.<br />
<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-70793004909820190932015-08-16T05:00:00.000-07:002015-08-16T05:00:05.815-07:00The Tragedy and Triumph of the DoleEighty-eight years ago today, on August 16th 1927, one of the most tragic events of the Golden Age of Aviation began, an air race from California to Hawaii which, in the weeks before and after, dominated the American press.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">8x10 press photo of the start of the Dole Air Race in Oakland, California on August 16, 1927. Caption pasted on the back reads, "General view of flying field where four planes took off for Honolulu in the Dole $35,000 prize air derby. The <i>Oklahoma</i> is seen on the starting line, with other planes in rear awaiting their turn. Underwood photo."</td></tr>
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With the Atlantic Ocean conquered by Charles Lindbergh only three month earlier, the next biggest prize was the next biggest ocean, the Pacific. James D. Dole, the American entrepreneur who, with his Hawaiian Pineapple Company, had taken a South American fruit and turned it into a major plantation crop on the Hawaiian Islands. Dole was, however, at the mercy of the shipping lines, especially Matson, to get his crop to the mainland, and when Lindbergh won the Orteig Prize by demonstrating that aviation could conquer oceans, Dole realized that aviation could also, one day, delivery pineapples, and so should be encouraged. Thus, he posted a purse of $35,000 ($25,000 for first place, $10,000 for second place) for the first two planes which successfully flew from Oakland to Honolulu, a distance of about 2,400 miles, and which met a number of very specific criteria.
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The irony is that the Army had already been planning such a flight, and utilized a large Fokker C-2 Trimotor known as the <i>Bird of Paradise</i>, flown by Lt. Albert F. Hegenberger and Lt. Lester J. Maitland. The pair successfully completed the flight in a time of 25 hours, 50 minutes, flying from Oakland to Wheeler Army Air Field. Because they didn’t land at Honolulu, they were disqualified from winning the Dole prize, but did secure the 1927 Macay Trophy, an annual award presented by the Air Corps (now Air Force) for the most meritorious flight of the year, as well as each receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross (Hegenberger would also go on to win the Collier Trophy for his work in developing blind flying techniques).
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The first civilian flight to make it to the Islands also failed to secure one of the Dole prizes. Ernie Smith and Emory Bronte flew a Travel Air 5000 named <i>The City of Oakland</i>, departing on July 14, 1927. After a flight of 25 hours, 36 minutes they found themselves over the island of Molokai and out of gas, and with no airfields to land at, they had to settle for putting the plane down in some trees. And, of course, since they didn’t land at Honolulu, they, too, were disqualified from the Dole prize.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The <i>City of Oakland</i> departs its namesake in a bid to become the first civilian aircraft to fly across the Pacific to Hawaii. The goal was Honolulu, and they almost made it (see below).</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">"July 23 - Resting place of Smith's plane, <i>City of Oakland</i>, in a tree on the island of Molokai". Photo also includes an editorial note: "These four pictures [the archive only has one] of the Smith flight to the Hawaiian Islands were rushed by steamer back to the mainland, and thence by fast mail to all points."</td></tr>
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For the rest of the teams planning on competing for the prize, a derby-style takeoff was planned for August 16th. In an expression of city pride, Oakland built a 7,020 foot runway, the longest in the world at the time, just for the event. To determine the order of departure, a drawing was held by the NAA at the Matson Building in San Francisco, an odd twist given Dole’s motivation for offering the prize.
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Before the race even started, three planes, <i>The Spirit of John Rogers</i>, The <i>Angel of Los Angeles</i> and <i>The Pride of Los Angeles</i> (a unique twin-engined 22-passenger CF-10 triplane) crashed, resulting in three deaths and two injuries. Another, The <i>Air King (City of Peoria)</i> was disqualified by the race committee because they believed it couldn’t carry enough fuel for the trip. At least one other crewman was disqualified for not meeting skills requirements.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">"Aug 11 - Disaster overtakes the 'Hoot' Gibson Triplane, <i>Pride of Los Angeles</i> as it attempts a landing at Oakland Airport after flying north from Los Angeles to enter the Dole fllight to Honolulu. Pilot James L. Giffin and companions prepare to abandon ship after crashing in the water a few yards from Oakland airport. Picture shows flyers, plane, shore, and runway of field in background, with swimer from shore bringing line to flyers. (Acme)"</td></tr>
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On August 16th, a huge crowd - a large as 100,000 by some press reports - had gathered at the Oakland airport to see the racers take off. <i>Oklahoma</i>, one of two Travel Air 5000s competing, was flown by Bennett Griffin and navigated by Al Henley, was first, taking off just after 11am. They didn’t get far, though: the engine started overheating over San Francisco, and Griffin turned back.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWdz7Tcyy0E7f8aTegmCZxXfAABTY6GIj47uyrJ2wjcXquI8fqTr-k2mXEc2yyLlxcsWeKWp6Beteg-MMQJePSVI8YkMa-9jjJNmEYfTCO7Sq3qb-XLSglpdjaq5-26csRMfJqvDzenQ/s1600/va-dole-02acr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWdz7Tcyy0E7f8aTegmCZxXfAABTY6GIj47uyrJ2wjcXquI8fqTr-k2mXEc2yyLlxcsWeKWp6Beteg-MMQJePSVI8YkMa-9jjJNmEYfTCO7Sq3qb-XLSglpdjaq5-26csRMfJqvDzenQ/s640/va-dole-02acr2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The Travel Air 5000 <i>Oklahoma </i>waiting on the starting line. One of two Travel Airs sponsored by the Phillips Oil Company, <i>Oklahoma</i> turned back with a misbehaving engine.</td></tr>
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Second in the lineup was <i>El Encanto</i>, a custom-built Goddard Special flown by Norman Goddard and navigated by Kenneth Hawkins. The odds-makers, before the race, had heavily favored this unique monoplane, but it didn’t even get off the ground, swerving and crashing on its takeoff roll.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivRnTbtqRPiTckxuFgcgpY3xF_4vB3bsN2Wi1R3uuM2Ouz1843zIpKoDj17GzYipoN11-NQjxpVhIMCT1gGwu3nqtnsXVcEGV3FDuXHLE_7tmTFC2u9OqvJzlA1_nPb9wC5ibhA9mA08/s1600/va-dole-02acr4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="188" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgivRnTbtqRPiTckxuFgcgpY3xF_4vB3bsN2Wi1R3uuM2Ouz1843zIpKoDj17GzYipoN11-NQjxpVhIMCT1gGwu3nqtnsXVcEGV3FDuXHLE_7tmTFC2u9OqvJzlA1_nPb9wC5ibhA9mA08/s320/va-dole-02acr4.jpg" width="320" /></a>Virtually the same thing happened to the <i>Pabco Pacific Flyer,</i> one of a pair of Breese-Wilde Model 5s entered. The plane was being flown solo by Livingston G. Irving, son of the mayor of Berkeley. Since Livingston was a decorated WWI pilot, he was able to qualify to fill both the pilot and navigator positions, so flew solo in order to be able to carry more fuel. But, fuel was his undoing. The plane was very heavily loaded, and on its first attempt he was not able to lift off, instead running off the end of the runway.
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Fourth was the Hearst Papers’ <i>Golden Eagle</i>, the prototype Lockheed Vega, with Jack Frost and Gordon Scott. Unique and far advanced in both design and construction, Golden Eagle was filled with safety features and was another favorite to win, since it was clearly the fastest plane in the field of competitors.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwwRC7Lg7ffUmaOCOKlyfION2qB8yKfi5gp2nzTNK9YtGztJXkreRgEy0qhByuDxO2QTet7Nj_ps3MEKTe0LO7qQBdew4WFgfNPyjhXb2tBWZIBThLAlPOaNMa_Xinro9vWoQdw-pn87U/s1600/ng-vega-01-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwwRC7Lg7ffUmaOCOKlyfION2qB8yKfi5gp2nzTNK9YtGztJXkreRgEy0qhByuDxO2QTet7Nj_ps3MEKTe0LO7qQBdew4WFgfNPyjhXb2tBWZIBThLAlPOaNMa_Xinro9vWoQdw-pn87U/s640/ng-vega-01-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The prototype Lockheed Vega, <i>Golden Eagle, </i>is delivered factory-new to the Oakland airfield, still wearing its original X-2788 registration. From left to right are race pilot Jack Frost, Lockheed test pilot Eddie Bellande, principal designer Jack Northrop, Allan Loughead (aka Lockheed) and Ken Jay.</td></tr>
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<i>Miss Doran</i>, a Buhl, was fifth, and it too experienced engine problems right after takeoff. Flown by Auggy Pedlar with Vilas R. Knope as navigator, the plane was named for Mildred Doran, a Michigan schoolteacher who was to be the only woman, and the only passenger in the race.
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Next was <i>Dallas Spirit,</i> a monoplane custom-built by the Swallow Airplane Company to fly in two prize flights: the Dole, and a $25,000 offering by William Easterwood for the first plane to fly from Dallas to Hong Kong. Flown by William P. Erwin and navigated by Alvin Eichwaldt, the <i>Dallas Spirit </i>fell victim to a mis-installed panel on the fuselage, which led to a large portion of the skin fabric ripping off shortly after takeoff. They were able to return to Oakland safely, but repairs would then take too long.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs1XgYS8sK1mmuuIcayUJXxJRxx6THXqGHnq8Mk48BvkPcmB2McY6J3z8OyCbxu9Ogpm4Hw4-GYEy2B4Vg28AmaRsY20Nfm3zp6Ngs3iQCmdhXdOHNmsVWCzClefUEuE92sDriSgcrp3w/s1600/va-dole-aloha-04-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs1XgYS8sK1mmuuIcayUJXxJRxx6THXqGHnq8Mk48BvkPcmB2McY6J3z8OyCbxu9Ogpm4Hw4-GYEy2B4Vg28AmaRsY20Nfm3zp6Ngs3iQCmdhXdOHNmsVWCzClefUEuE92sDriSgcrp3w/s640/va-dole-aloha-04-cr-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">The <i>Aloha </i>takes off from Oakland.</td></tr>
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<i>Aloha</i>, the second Breese-Wilde Model 5 then took off with Martin Jensen and Paul Schluter. Schluter wasn’t an aviator, but rather was a marine navigator who had seen an advertisement in the newspaper placed by Jensen. They were followed by the other Travel Air 5000, the <i>Woolaroc</i>, named after the Oklahoma ranch of sponsor and oilman Frank Phillips, and crewed by Arthur C. Goebel and William V. Davis, Jr. Phillips, of Phillips Petroleum, had sponsored both <i>Wollaroc</i> and <i>Oklahoma</i> as way of promoting the company’s Nu-Aviation brand of gasoline.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">This Acme press photo is dated August 9, 1927, but doesn't give an location of where it was shot.</td></tr>
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<i>Miss Doran</i>, her engine now fixed and running smoothly, departed a second time, followed by the <i>Pabco Pacific Flyer</i>. Since the plane wasn’t damaged when it ran off the end of the runway earlier, it was towed back to the starting line for another try. This time, Irving tried to lift off without sufficient airspeed, immediately stalled and landed hard, collapsing the gear.
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So after all the hoopla, drama and carnage at Oakland, four planes were in the air and heading west, <i>Golden Eagle, Aloha, Woolaroc</i> and <i>Miss Doran.
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In Honolulu, there was great expectation the next day, and scores of people went to the field to await the arrival of the four contestants. Only two showed up. The first was <i>Woolaroc,</i> which had flown a great circle route in 26 hours, 17 minutes. Almost exactly two hours later, <i>Aloha</i> also arrived, having flown a more “direct” route (Schluter should have know better, and as a result, out of the $10,000 second place prize, Jensen only paid his navigator the advertised fee of $25!).
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTz3wis92_gRharx7Br7HONETVgxzn5i7jtV4V_B1CiruUlEnVZ-zFjIDHG1ZJ6kx8JGvaLD5Z_li_FfbfigiBpYM1NJ-2FbJkR1cYL7OLk3Ce5JYz4KXyRpoBaD6PcrJTuh7JV569KKs/s1600/va-dole-01cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTz3wis92_gRharx7Br7HONETVgxzn5i7jtV4V_B1CiruUlEnVZ-zFjIDHG1ZJ6kx8JGvaLD5Z_li_FfbfigiBpYM1NJ-2FbJkR1cYL7OLk3Ce5JYz4KXyRpoBaD6PcrJTuh7JV569KKs/s640/va-dole-01cr-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">The <i>Aloha </i>arrives in Honolulu.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiQdXGzB2EcX54AA_ZQf0DvWdxoZpT9Pf6NCO397lpqMSTIy0wrgIlCMvOpec45jQD4poboz9jI30OHdMXsDB-8DfVSAvBAiiM90HyZWKsTOyVDI7h3lFIqKlU-7vzN1FFbcgYfhdmtwg/s1600/va-dole-aloha-02-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiQdXGzB2EcX54AA_ZQf0DvWdxoZpT9Pf6NCO397lpqMSTIy0wrgIlCMvOpec45jQD4poboz9jI30OHdMXsDB-8DfVSAvBAiiM90HyZWKsTOyVDI7h3lFIqKlU-7vzN1FFbcgYfhdmtwg/s640/va-dole-aloha-02-cr-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;">Photo donated by Vonrad Trading Post</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHfosiikHi7VWeRCCIb7ZvXzVE3-etbMYx_Zdny8-3_gvlTSkbxpGEqD6PV2wJLjZqWYvltXt-0V9Qm7jEwIu2Mll51DnZ82ikh24NiDcMZkQVTRxbVvaO2nkA4pFIAmYJimYa9qxmMM/s1600/va-dole-aloha-03-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="434" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHfosiikHi7VWeRCCIb7ZvXzVE3-etbMYx_Zdny8-3_gvlTSkbxpGEqD6PV2wJLjZqWYvltXt-0V9Qm7jEwIu2Mll51DnZ82ikh24NiDcMZkQVTRxbVvaO2nkA4pFIAmYJimYa9qxmMM/s640/va-dole-aloha-03-cr-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px; text-align: justify;">Photo donated by Vonrad Trading Post</span></td></tr>
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To the distress of everyone, both the<i> Golden Eagle</i> and <i>Miss Doran</i> were no-shows, and officially listed as missing. Another $50,000 in reward money was posted by various parties to help spur the search for the missing planes and fliers. In Michigan, the loss of school teacher Mildred Doran was taken hard, an eerie foreshadowing of the reaction decades later at the loss of Christa McAuliffe in the <i>Challenger</i> accident. The Navy Secretary E. W. Everle authorized the largest ever search effort, and tasked three submarines, and several destroyers already on patrol in the Pacific with searching. All 28 patrol planes from the carrier USS <i>Langley</i> were launched, but despite all the effort, no sign was found.
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The repairs to the <i>Dallas Spirit</i> took two days, and even though the prize money was all claimed, Erwin and Eichwaldt decided to make the flight anyways, and on the way try and search for the missing planes. After Hawaii, they planned to press on to their other goal of Hong Kong. Livingston Irving donated the short-wave radio from the <i>Pabco Pacific Flyer</i>, so that they could make calls in case they found signs of the lost planes. When they were about 650 miles west of Oakland, Eichwaldt sent out a call that the plane had gone into a spin, but that Erwin had managed to recover. This was followed shortly afterwards by another call, that they were in a spin once more. This message was interrupted midway through, presumably because the plane either broke apart or crashed into the water. No sign of wreckage was ever found. In the aftermath, the <i>Dallas Spirit</i> had been built by Swallow on the condition that the company receive some of the prize money from both the Dole and the Hong Kong flights. The loss of the plane - and thus the promised cash - was enough that Swallow had to declare bankruptcy.
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No sign of <i>Miss Doran</i> was ever found, either. However, there is an enduring mystery surrounding the <i>Golden Eagle</i>. There were some indications that Frost had actually reached Hawaii...the big island, that is, and had crashed on the side of the Mauna Loa volcano. In the days after the race, reports started filtering in that people had heard an airplane engine over the island, that there had been sightings, one of which even said that the tail number, NX-913, had been seen (this was dismissed, because the number was so similar to the Aloha’s, NX-914). However, at least seventeen different witnesses, at different locations around the Big Island, reported seeing Very flares (named for Edward Very, the US Navy officer who had invented the flare gun) on the night of August 18th, and again on the night of the 21st.
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Army Captain E. R. Block, who was stationed on the island, saw the flares, and was convinced that a plane was down, and he and a sergeant started out on foot up the mountain. Their mission, however, was interrupted when the sergeant suffered an appendicitis and they had to return to post. Relatives of the crew, and even Martin Jensen himself, became more and more convinced that the <i>Golden Eagle</i> had indeed gone down on Mauna Loa. Unfortunately, the 13,680 volcano was active at that time, and besides the steam and lava coming from its crater, the flanks were typically shrouded in fog, making an air search impossible during the rest of August. Careful interviews of the witnesses, which included testing their recognition of lights and flares fired in test from the mountain, all pointed to actual flares having been fired in a fairly defined area at the 8,000 foot level, in an area that was still a very hot lava flow.
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No physical evidence of the <i>Golden Eagle</i> was ever found, but then again, a wooden airplane landing in that volcanic hell would have likely been quickly obliterated. Two years later, search efforts were still being undertaken, the final one including a large flight of Army mapping planes which photographed a 10-square mile area of the mountain with large-format cameras. Detailed scrutiny of the photos failed to provide even a single clue.
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The <i>Aloha</i> was subsequently converted to a passenger plane and was used by the Hawaiian Air Tours company, before being returned to the US, where it served as an aerial photography platform for the <i>New York Daily News</i>. It was destroyed in a hangar fire in 1933.
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<i>Woolaroc</i> is the only surviving plane of the race, and is on display at the Woolaroc Ranch Museum in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-65547428665309728462015-07-31T11:13:00.000-07:002015-07-31T11:17:49.063-07:00Flight of the Pterodactyl<div>
Photographs are fragile things, and some of the ones I come across have almost succumbed to age and elements. It's always a joy to find a unique one and digitize before it completely crumbles to dust, and such is the case with this photo, of the very unique 1932 Westland-Hill Pterodactyl Mark V.</div>
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A lot of people died in stall-spin-crash accidents in the early decades of aviation, making the idea of a safe, stall-proof airplane something many inventors strove for. (It still is a goal today - for instance, that's the primary reason Burt Rutan pursued his early canard designs). British inventor Captain Geoffery T. R. Hill believed that the answer lay in the concept of a flying wing, as opposed to the more traditional aircraft configuration. Hill was, no doubt, influenced by the earlier development of the Dunne flying wings, which sought the same safety goals, and which ultimately led to a Curtiss attempt at developing a safe "everyman's" airplane in 1930 (See our <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-birth-of-american-flying-wing.html" target="_blank">April blog post <i>The Birth of the American Flying Wing</i></a>).<br />
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Hill began small, and called his series of aircraft the Pterodactyl. The first one was initially tested as a glider in 1926, and then modified to incorporate a 30 hp engine. The British Air Ministry was suitably impressed, and offered to fund the development, as long as Hill worked through Westland Aircraft, where he then hired on. Subsequent versions, beginning with the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl Mark I, refined the concept through the beginning of the 1930s, but all were relatively small, low-powered aircraft. </div>
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This all changed with the Mark V. The Air Ministry specified a fighter plane based on the concept, to be powered by a huge (given the size and weight of the plane) 600 hp Rolls Royce V-12 Goshawk engine. The tailless design allowed for a defensive machine gun turret to be mounted behind the pilot (missing from this photo), and there were plans to build a complementary version with a pusher prop and a turret in the nose.<br />
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Unlike the previous models in the Pterodactyl series, the Mark V included a stubby, straight sesquiplane lower wing. Roll and pitch control was through elevons and yaw control was through wingtip fins, each of which could only move outward. Initially, the fins were almost all rudder, but this design evolved to include a lower fixed fin.<br />
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The contract was awarded by the Air Ministry in 1931 with serial number K2770 being assigned to the project, and work started in 1932. By fall of that year, the plane was put through its paces in taxi tests and during one of these, the Pterodactyl hit a bump in the turf which caused the left wing to crumple due to a miscalculation in the structural stress analysis. By the time the wing structure was redesigned, another sixteen months had gone by, and the plane finally took its maiden flight in May, 1934.<br />
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The Mark V failed to impress the Air Ministry, however. It suffered from excessive pitch sensitivity inherent in flying wing designs, and was not nearly as fast as had been expected, turning in a top speed of only 165 mph. The RAF's Hawker Hart light bomber was a good 20 mph faster than this supposed fighter. The nose and engine were then extended forward in order to try to solve the pitching issues, and additional vertical fences were added to the bottom of the wings. The problems continued, however, and work on the Mark V was finally cancelled, after which plans for larger versions, including a twin-engine sea plane and a four-engined airliner capable of transatlantic flights, were abandoned.</div>
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YouTube has some footage of the earlier Mark 1A, which is the only plane of the Pterodactyl to survive, now preserved in London's Science Museum.</div>
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Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-7063873297940033522015-07-10T19:34:00.002-07:002015-07-10T19:34:32.654-07:00Remembering the Marshall MarsI have to confess, I’m a sucker for flying boats, and especially really big ones. So when my brother showed up with these three original US Navy 8x10 prints of the <i>Marshall Mars</i> from 1948, I was ecstatic. As the Navy’s largest flying boats, with two that have survived into the 21st Century, the Mars story is one that’s been well-told, but even so, I figured these three photos were worthy of a post, especially since none of them show up in a Google image search.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QVxK-iT6xRVheJuHKNeWscqPtMAvUm0qWoGUdAcKrkrfxPPNJp7tWFH08owGbQDSFgHw_GWBku-JfiBxUUwcu7iP-xN3GUFYQE56IsRS_Pw1-TNZJb8aGKPJNu8225SVxrs5QME7un0/s1600/va-mars-03-marshall-01-crx-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_QVxK-iT6xRVheJuHKNeWscqPtMAvUm0qWoGUdAcKrkrfxPPNJp7tWFH08owGbQDSFgHw_GWBku-JfiBxUUwcu7iP-xN3GUFYQE56IsRS_Pw1-TNZJb8aGKPJNu8225SVxrs5QME7un0/s640/va-mars-03-marshall-01-crx-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">This official US Navy photo is dated May 26, 1948 and per the handwritten notation on the back, shows "Refloating the Mars after engine change".</td></tr>
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At the time they were built, the Martin Mars were the world’s largest production aircraft, and they continued to hold that title until the first flight of the Boeing 747. The Navy had originally ordered the type as an armed patrol bomber three years before America was drawn into WWII, but when war materialized, the Admirals realized that their needs in the Pacific were different - there just wasn’t the demand for a big, slow bomber, but there was a lot of logistics supplies to move over a lot of wide ocean. In addition, with the constant threat of U-Boats in the Atlantic, planners were intrigued by the idea of a large cargo plane that would be immune to German torpedoes.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2aUpVMw5w7ohWwNcLnDdmcBiFZCKrqZuL8Gs6wktiOj-YfVVlBBrBK641eSjUmIwXLQc2DflvFcjwgC9LGIYOx2muVTDVen2yr5SXMm0DJKYMy5fRof9-hDILQgqge0K7hW0QmxWW5k/s1600/va-mars-04-marshall-02-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG2aUpVMw5w7ohWwNcLnDdmcBiFZCKrqZuL8Gs6wktiOj-YfVVlBBrBK641eSjUmIwXLQc2DflvFcjwgC9LGIYOx2muVTDVen2yr5SXMm0DJKYMy5fRof9-hDILQgqge0K7hW0QmxWW5k/s640/va-mars-04-marshall-02-cr-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Another US Navy photo, with the same date and caption as the one above.</td></tr>
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The prototype XPB2Y-1R Mars, dubbed <i>The Old Lady</i>, had been delivered about a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor, but little was done quickly for the follow-on production order. When it finally came, it was for twenty aircraft configured to haul large amounts of cargo and troops across the Pacific, and the first production JRM-1 Mars wasn’t delivered until July 27, 1945, a month and a half before VJ Day (this was the first <i>Hawaii Mars</i>; she sank in the Chesapeake Bay during a landing accident only two weeks after delivery).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhES_nrVfnoS5hbmo-lF2RbFYf5DxTybNqPnly-mqRARjdqdPX7w_6qQTWHydgl1wVk0gSoK817dg4-Y41EXyaTusucKjYa5XRW5ekv6Xyfi-uSeSuAg7DFTPjryNQQvY_1CebkCnRa8c8/s1600/va-mars-05-marshall-03-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhES_nrVfnoS5hbmo-lF2RbFYf5DxTybNqPnly-mqRARjdqdPX7w_6qQTWHydgl1wVk0gSoK817dg4-Y41EXyaTusucKjYa5XRW5ekv6Xyfi-uSeSuAg7DFTPjryNQQvY_1CebkCnRa8c8/s640/va-mars-05-marshall-03-cr-2k.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This official US Navy photo is dated May 25, 1948 and depicts "Beaching the <i>Marshall Mars</i>".</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRpQ-MgM3pq5Wk2JrxjdGVieazqtm-sW_1dqU_aM1GKm3Z42kTNp9MYwRzyb0RCMh4tRaqhEiD-27x-t_883nmythmS3haY3sHjSwhPLUgAN0hNFGOIyNh71pNiBclQgthyeY1Yfo44xM/s1600/va-mars-02-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRpQ-MgM3pq5Wk2JrxjdGVieazqtm-sW_1dqU_aM1GKm3Z42kTNp9MYwRzyb0RCMh4tRaqhEiD-27x-t_883nmythmS3haY3sHjSwhPLUgAN0hNFGOIyNh71pNiBclQgthyeY1Yfo44xM/s320/va-mars-02-cr2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">The Archive also has a couple small snapshots showing a Mars<br />
at Pearl Harbor, but unfortunately these small prints are not<br />
clear enough to tell which Mars is seen.</td></tr>
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With the war over, the Navy cancelled most of the order. Six planes had been built, with several more in various stages of production. Unlike other Navy aircraft, the Mars were treated more like ships, and were given individual names, after various Pacific islands. The<i> Marshall Mars</i> (BuNo 76822) was the fourth production bird by serial number, but the second one delivered when it arrived in early February 1946, but would only serve for just over four years. Assigned to squadron VR-2 and based at Naval Air Station Alameda in California, the <i>Marshall Mars</i> set a new world record for payload lifted on her second flight, carrying 27,427 pounds from California to Hawaii (the previous record was held by the prototype, <i>The Old Lady; </i>it would later be broken by the last aircraft delivered, the <i>Caroline Mars</i>)<i>.</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJPOYcKSMsA-UVvwaTqmOMde9FCKUkUSBPAx8biPtPSGR4C8GtdZg-_5GKUdtFk46l3SbPYPDLCHNe94GMl79yU24qKpyrjSiPbGXuBZQj03EsLednSQWhueKMvbkPqtoVv6b7uNs574/s1600/va-mars-01-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJPOYcKSMsA-UVvwaTqmOMde9FCKUkUSBPAx8biPtPSGR4C8GtdZg-_5GKUdtFk46l3SbPYPDLCHNe94GMl79yU24qKpyrjSiPbGXuBZQj03EsLednSQWhueKMvbkPqtoVv6b7uNs574/s320/va-mars-01-cr2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">Another snapshot from Pearl Harbor, again not clear enough<br />
to tell which Mars is shown.</td></tr>
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While building the JRM Mars, Martin also considered the idea of offering a derivative model as a civilian airliner, which would have been powered by the larger R-4360 Wasp Major engines, the most powerful production piston engines built. Martin went so far as to order the long-lead-time components for the first airliner, including the engines. But the demand for large airliners simply didn't materialize after the war, and when Martin delivered the <i>Caroline </i>in 1948, they used the R-4360s, and the plane was designated a JRM-2. The bigger engines allowed for heavier loads to be carried farther, which pleased the Navy, and so shortly thereafter, the other JRM-1s were upgraded with the Wasp Majors as JRM-3s. I have not found a specific date for when this was accomplished on the <i>Marshall Mars, </i>but since our three photos are dated May 25 and 26, 1948, and the occasion for the operation shown was an "engine change", it's entirely possible that this is when the more powerful engines were installed.<br />
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On April 5, 1950 the <i>Marshall </i>was flying near Oahu when a fire broke out in one of the engines. On-board fire suppression systems did little to stem it, and the crew set down in Ke’ehi Lagoon, just off of Oahu, and then abandoned ship. The fire continued to spread until it reached one of the fuel tanks, which then exploded in rather dramatic fashion, and the airframe broke apart and sank.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLfGHiTwn1Jz78cHIbACkwJkQMpQQZZ7CwEWagPYAHgj0VG5WKxqBlMdsCoFBX2yR2OkDuR7EGlbDZX9L8m1p3wnNpALFj_2sY-wuTXBrgJ9cKYyX4lm6kQwGhEt80gqb3e7IYKQrrjI/s1600/marshall-mars-noseport-d.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHLfGHiTwn1Jz78cHIbACkwJkQMpQQZZ7CwEWagPYAHgj0VG5WKxqBlMdsCoFBX2yR2OkDuR7EGlbDZX9L8m1p3wnNpALFj_2sY-wuTXBrgJ9cKYyX4lm6kQwGhEt80gqb3e7IYKQrrjI/s320/marshall-mars-noseport-d.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">The nose of the <i>Marshall Mars </i>as it looked in December 2004.<br />
Courtesy NOAA/HURL</td></tr>
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The <i>Marshall Mars</i> was rediscovered in 2004 by a joint survey team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), University of Hawaii and the National Park Service who set out to document various ocean-floor wreck sites off of Oahu, near the final resting spot of a Japanese midget sub which had been rediscovered in 2002.<br />
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Pieces of the <i>Marshall Mars</i> were first spotted in August, 2004, and then early the following December, over a two-day period, archeologists from the joint team explored various wreck sites using two submersibles from the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL; operated jointly by UofH and NOAA), the <i>Pices IV</i> and <i>Pices V</i>, documenting the sites’ location and condition and creating an inventory of surviving artifacts.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGgH9IuKsk7jAvGR8RqF97pcwpSTUhtg8BmEGtukzoRrxQ-a6voRLpf-z-zk0SHkPDQW-BUxU4cpnFDUmqf814rC1jflFvyO5DnWYaPDFXlSS5o6U_3lnqkusVw37ePBIilSJjSMzGvg/s1600/marshall-mars-nose.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJGgH9IuKsk7jAvGR8RqF97pcwpSTUhtg8BmEGtukzoRrxQ-a6voRLpf-z-zk0SHkPDQW-BUxU4cpnFDUmqf814rC1jflFvyO5DnWYaPDFXlSS5o6U_3lnqkusVw37ePBIilSJjSMzGvg/s320/marshall-mars-nose.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Courtesy NOAA/HURL</span></td></tr>
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The Marshall Mars was found at a depth of about 1,400 feet, and although five and a half decades has led to a lot of marine creatures claiming the old plane as home, the name <i>Marshall</i> could still clearly be read on the nose section, which rests inverted on the ocean floor. The site, along with other similar flying boat wreck sites, are considered protected cultural resources under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.<br />
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No post about the Mars would be complete, of course, without at least mentioning the current state of affairs with the two surviving Mars airframes, <i>Hawaii Mars II</i> and <i>Philippine Mars</i>, and a couple of fabulous photos of the former.<br />
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While not vintage photos, these two images, courtesy of my friend and fellow Antelope Valley aviation photographer Jim Mumaw, are destined to become classics. Jim traveled to Southern California’s Lake Elsinore in 2007 where the <i>Hawaii</i> was being used to fight a series of severe wildfires burning in the San Diego area, and he found that the Coulson crew had to use just about every foot of the lake for their operations, necessitating this rather dramatic approach over a hill to the edge of the water.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqjGvCaJRknUaVTNs3bxsNO14qEphi5vYpCXVJxXyQRX_jpmT_7ln2bhJ2leMKSUcX2ZFncoualV9yC93GB-QN9AVvLcYcT9cYIcAdEuuRDc2YTiDi-4qrSdmOtioVL_jewuBktMtY-U/s1600/Mars+Final+Approach+Lake+Elsinore+-+Mumaw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyqjGvCaJRknUaVTNs3bxsNO14qEphi5vYpCXVJxXyQRX_jpmT_7ln2bhJ2leMKSUcX2ZFncoualV9yC93GB-QN9AVvLcYcT9cYIcAdEuuRDc2YTiDi-4qrSdmOtioVL_jewuBktMtY-U/s640/Mars+Final+Approach+Lake+Elsinore+-+Mumaw.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;">Copyright 2007 by Jim Mumaw, used with kind permission</td></tr>
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Now, after a career as firefighting air tankers in Canada, a career which lasted much longer than their original one, time and technology have caught up with the two boats, and owner The Coulson Group has retired them from active service. One, the <i>Philippine Mars</i>, was destined for the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola and has been beautifully repainted in her original US Navy blue livery.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnftQ8ux7ZeRkXvyTTkfW11t44cVjwr2oYmjqN_k7_s4PugLG6hF-dWj600NTY2BQ1PySYe6G6eVXrXC_Mp7Jz1iCCKAExILOKRuxtFfK-OuDrZZGUMTACaWfda1OHSkFTvrz3pJRRJ8/s1600/Mumaw-hawaii_mars2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnftQ8ux7ZeRkXvyTTkfW11t44cVjwr2oYmjqN_k7_s4PugLG6hF-dWj600NTY2BQ1PySYe6G6eVXrXC_Mp7Jz1iCCKAExILOKRuxtFfK-OuDrZZGUMTACaWfda1OHSkFTvrz3pJRRJ8/s640/Mumaw-hawaii_mars2.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Copyright 2007 by Jim Mumaw, used with kind permission</span></td></tr>
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The fate of the other, the <i>Hawaii </i>was a bit more uncertain (at the time of this writing, a spate of wildfires has made it possible to bring the <i>Hawaii </i><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-fires-martin-mars-water-bomber-coming-out-of-retirement-1.3145022" target="_blank">out of retirement</a>, and Coulson has secured a contract for its operation from the Provincial government), but since their contribution to Canada has been so long and so significant, there is a lot of interest in making sure she ends up in a Canadian museum. This past May, politics reared its ugly head when Canadian Heritage Minister Shelley Glover put the brakes on the transfer of the <i>Philippine</i> to the Florida museum, in order to ensure that the <i>Hawaii </i>would be staying in Canada. As of this writing, it doesn’t appear that the impasse has been settled...so stay tuned.
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<b>More information and resources</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2004/s2354.htm" target="_blank">NOAA article</a> on the rediscovery of the <i>Marshall</i></li>
<li>A good <a href="http://www.oldwings.nl/content/mars/mars_a.htm" target="_blank">history article </a>on the Martin Mars</li>
<li>A <a href="http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/martin-mars-deal-stymied.html" target="_blank">May 2015 article from Warbird News</a> on the political gamesmenship surrounding the museum transfer.</li>
<li>A period newsreel film on the Mars:</li>
</ul>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qa7BvWyZb9w/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qa7BvWyZb9w?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<ul>
<li>A well-filmed recent documentary:</li>
</ul>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/I3C0rQo6I3k/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I3C0rQo6I3k?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<ul>
<li>A Coulson-produced promo video:</li>
</ul>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<ul>
<li>A video of a water-drop demo and flyby:</li>
</ul>
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Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-53089920473633985842015-06-19T11:24:00.000-07:002015-07-22T17:03:50.666-07:00From Air to Wax: Remembering Logan Fleming<i>Ed Note: Readers of Vintage Air may have, from time to time, noted that the Archive enlists the assistance of my brother and fellow historian Eric Radecki to dig up and procure aviation related antiques and photographs – it helps that he and his wife own the Vonrad Trading Post, an antiques and collectables business, with locations both online and traditional a “brick and mortar” affair at the Hanford Antique Emporium located in Hanford California. Today's story is not only resourced by Eric, but for the first time written by him as well. </i><br />
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Every collector, dealer, historian, or archivist’s dream is to stumble across a treasure trove or horde of items belonging to one single person, and even better when that person can be identified or recognized by the public. While obscure stories and people are always interesting to dig up and research, it is truly fascinating to find something previously unknown which belonged to a public or notable figure. Such is the case with today’s post.
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__n-zfxX0rQfPXrVzVvZ2-iSchhihjXXfX4BpwaulwcBEKyXBuoSO6pIGidSCZC07MxVbs9d1VYLIxGb_V7reJLU_SMnlasS5Y3moaRZ4UjE3bmVx6eIHrXjAS7tDQcE5DIXnOVGY-74/s1600/dog+tags+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi__n-zfxX0rQfPXrVzVvZ2-iSchhihjXXfX4BpwaulwcBEKyXBuoSO6pIGidSCZC07MxVbs9d1VYLIxGb_V7reJLU_SMnlasS5Y3moaRZ4UjE3bmVx6eIHrXjAS7tDQcE5DIXnOVGY-74/s320/dog+tags+%25282%2529.jpg" width="310" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="Standard" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Fleming's original “Stateside” dog tags, private purchase </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">sterling silver ID bracelet, and ID fob from Long Beach AAF. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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This trove was found in a typical Army-issue WWII footlocker purchased at the Long Beach antiques show, in the shadow of the old McDonnell Douglas hangar, which is rather ironic, as you'll see in a minute. Contained inside was the discarded bits and pieces of a US Army Air Force Sergeant who served in WWII. At first, the name Logan Mills Fleming didn't mean anything to me, and was merely another long forgotten name from a different time. Many pieces of uniforms, insignia and paperwork were stuffed into the footlocker, and of course, photographs. While not all too interesting or historic in nature, these were filed away as the rest of the contents were inventoried.
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What really caught my attention and triggered this story, however, were a few rather high-quality hand drawn cartoons, the kind that you don't see anymore, the kind that graced the wartime pages of such magazines as <i>Yank, Life, Look</i>, and the <i>Saturday Evening Post</i>, as well as many other publications of the time. These cartoons were pen and ink on paper and looked to be mostly unfinished. There was even a rejection letter from <i>Yank Magazine</i> for what I can only assume to be a cartoon submitted to the editors for consideration. The quality of the cartoons in the trove and the rejection letter led to a cursory internet search of Logan Fleming, to see if his cartoons had ever actually been published.
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwyZgqM5rJb578TQS0ZchxT1HzVcFm8ziatD1gI-NVhduwvOEBzT5969E6fERTngRDQPgmRcQEbQ1PXSLFhkD5izjkuKNR5f3EN7Cx9epOHewnFlO7lGk9C5aJAcaB9mb7XhXKddJ5zXk/s1600/logan+cartoon+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwyZgqM5rJb578TQS0ZchxT1HzVcFm8ziatD1gI-NVhduwvOEBzT5969E6fERTngRDQPgmRcQEbQ1PXSLFhkD5izjkuKNR5f3EN7Cx9epOHewnFlO7lGk9C5aJAcaB9mb7XhXKddJ5zXk/s320/logan+cartoon+%25282%2529.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An original, unpublished Fleming cartoon</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOxmjGEvnTNg25Munhf-U0pbl4-y4_Q3yqo3j_FZDZoHcPNR4Z5hUqsqDM2EobYTCVFqzV-1pApKg7cEG_KzBAwwk3ohNhJOcJPG5CHsPlotEBT4VpOhtYdx6q6Yk666Hy2uP1dTL4d0/s1600/Yank+rejection+letter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFOxmjGEvnTNg25Munhf-U0pbl4-y4_Q3yqo3j_FZDZoHcPNR4Z5hUqsqDM2EobYTCVFqzV-1pApKg7cEG_KzBAwwk3ohNhJOcJPG5CHsPlotEBT4VpOhtYdx6q6Yk666Hy2uP1dTL4d0/s320/Yank+rejection+letter.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Short and sweet rejection letter!</td></tr>
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As it turned out, Fleming was not to be a cartoonist, and that part of his brilliant artistic career may have faded, but following the war years with (presumably) the use of the GI Bill, Logan attended the short lived Jepson Art Institute in Los Angeles, which was open from 1945 to 1953. A commercial artist's living was made by Logan as he found employment with Pacific Outdoor Advertising, one of the Los Angeles area's largest billboard advertising firms at the time. In 1962 Fleming sought out a new career as art director and sculptor/designer for the now-defunct (but nevertheless famous) Movieland Wax Museum, located just north of Knotts Berry Farm on Beach Avenue in Buena Park California. The Wax museum closed on October 31, 2005 after 43 years and over 10 million visitors. Logan had worked the wax for over twenty years sculpting countless celebrity likenesses, and many of his works live on today at other Wax museums and private collections, since most of the inventory was sold at auction in 2006.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vI1BmFyul85yP2FUbQ6ALwOeZ32HnxViUr8Q-WZElv-7g7RZETq5OCwN6r1M5wtOTYngRppMeSg6AmdgwQgrbK09bIV6KR17dCsLchnlsL_HCeB84UuXOIgrRyH_T-g18wvzA78buho/s1600/43-16371+a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="516" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3vI1BmFyul85yP2FUbQ6ALwOeZ32HnxViUr8Q-WZElv-7g7RZETq5OCwN6r1M5wtOTYngRppMeSg6AmdgwQgrbK09bIV6KR17dCsLchnlsL_HCeB84UuXOIgrRyH_T-g18wvzA78buho/s640/43-16371+a.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Members of the 556th AAF Base Unit, 6th Ferrying Group Air Transport Command pose for a group photo with C-47B 43-16371 (c/n 20837), presumably at Long Beach AAF. Logan standing to the right of the propeller blade wearing an A-2 flight jacket and brimmed visor cap. Of interest is the woman, presumably a squadron civilian secretary as she is not wearing a Woman's Service Corps uniform. </span></td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mmDkcQGR95hoKej_a-p-gNMdsaI9mhl8-VmRAdP8qlLb1Ps-_SlWQIPoII1Fm3FAi4fGdiUuM6R_as2EzhWxCR8TqyG1g820CsZjXD8WGA0bMOBvWRHp0T2Ikirv2ZFjTwwYywSDCAc/s1600/43-16371.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0mmDkcQGR95hoKej_a-p-gNMdsaI9mhl8-VmRAdP8qlLb1Ps-_SlWQIPoII1Fm3FAi4fGdiUuM6R_as2EzhWxCR8TqyG1g820CsZjXD8WGA0bMOBvWRHp0T2Ikirv2ZFjTwwYywSDCAc/s320/43-16371.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">US Army Air Force C-47 B s/n 43-16371, presumably </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">taken at </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Long Beach Army Air Field
circa 1945. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">This aircraft shows the </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Military Air Transport </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">insignia on its nose and an unknown </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">c</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">rewman </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">posing for
a “Kilroy” impersonation.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> The C-47 </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">was </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">i</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">nvolved in a couple of</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> postwar indications </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">of
incidents, one </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">on </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">October 18, 1952 and another </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">on Jun 22, 1953 at White River </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Junction
, VT flown </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">by Nathaniel H. Lebish, while based at </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;">Mitchell AFB, NY</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;"> </span></div>
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Logan was born at Seaside Hospital in Long Beach, CA on September 25 1923 to Albert and Ethel Fleming, and on January 18, 1943 he joined the US Army Air Force and served until February, 8 1946, when he was separated at Camp Beale, CA. Fleming served as a Flight Traffic Clerk with the Military Air Transport Command. He was assigned to the 556th AAF Base Unit, 6th Ferrying Group Air Transport Command, Long Beach Army Air Field.<br />
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According to his Army separation Qualification Record, his duty description was: “Made up manifests for passengers, worked stop stick to arrive at proper weight and balance of plane, filled out weight and balance form, kept track of priority of cargo, acted as steward to passengers in flight, also acted as alert crew to airplane at times, filled out log of airplane, and ties down cargo." In addition, he also spent time working at Douglas Aircraft's Long Beach plant where he produced blue prints, and as well worked on the B-17 final assembly line, installing oxygen equipment. It seems that while Fleming was destined to never leave the US during the war, his service, along with many other veterans who never deployed to foreign shores, was vital to the war effort.<br />
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Flemming passed away in December, 2011 in Long Beach at the well-lived age of 88. He was survived by his wife, three children and two grandchildren. If any family members happen upon this blog post, drop us a line via the comments below...we'd love to hear more about the life of Logan. It seems quite fitting that this man was born and died in Long Beach, served at Long Beach AAF and worked in the Douglas Factory. And his trunk full of memories was rescued in Long Beach as well. It certainly is a small world, sometimes!<br />
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More info and reading about Logan Fleming:<br />
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<li>A biography written by Suzan Sumner Ferry entitled <i>The Day the Stars Stood Still</i> on Logan Flemings life and accomplishments as a wax artist is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Stars-Stood-Still/dp/1593936982" target="_blank">available on Amazon</a>.</li>
<li>A good video outlining Logan's work at the Museum can be found <a href="https://youtu.be/OJu5YNxCkjI" target="_blank">here on YouTube.</a></li>
<li>A general documentary on the Museum is <a href="https://youtu.be/GYXsfQJb0aY" target="_blank">here</a>.</li>
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Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-8557457000676034302015-06-14T05:00:00.000-07:002015-07-31T12:40:13.772-07:00The Teenie Weenies and their Silver Trimotor Adventure<div style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13.5749435424805px; widows: auto;">
It's not everyday that the world of vintage children's books, Sunday comics and aviation history collide, but today, the 101st anniversary of the debut of the Teenie Weenies, is one such day.<br />
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The Teenie Weenies are all-but-forgotten in busy 21st century America, where Facebook memes have replaced Sunday morning newspaper comics as childhood entertainment fare. But 75 years ago, they were household names, everyone knew the characters, and children all over America looked forward to the next Sunday morning comic adventure of these miniature people who lived in a town built out of old food containers safely hidden under a rose bush in the garden.<br />
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Created in 1914 (they made their publishing debut on June 14th of that year in the Chicago <i>Tribune</i>) by children's writer and illustrator William Donahey, the adventures of the Teenie Weenies populated kids' books, school readers and of course the Sunday comics until Donahey's passing in 1970. In 1924, though, the Tribune discontinued the comic series for a time, and with Donahey still needing to make a living, and with their popularity and the nature of their architecture, it was a natural progression for him to license the characters for commercial promotions and advertising.</div>
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One of the companies to quickly take advantage of the opportunity was Reid, Murdoch and Company, owners of the Monarch Foods brand. Many of the "buildings" in the Teenie Weenies' town were recycled food containers, so it was a perfect branding opportunity for Monarch Foods - if a bunch of delightful, family-friendly miniature people are going to make a soup can their new home, why shouldn't it be a Monarch soup can?<br />
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Meanwhile, Monarch's ad men, ever in the quest of building brand recognition and popularity, realized that the best way to build brand recognition was to find a way to bring the people to you, and in the process expose them to the wonders of your product line. The trick, then, was to attract the people in droves. And what better way than with an airplane? A year earlier, Lindbergh had electrified America with his trans-Atlantic flight, and his subsequent national tour had drawn throngs of people out to the local airfield (or merely farmer's field) to see his plane. Likewise, shows like the Inman Brothers' Flying Circus attracted huge crowds of people. The airplane was the perfect magnet to draw the people in to hear how wonderful Monarch's food line was.<br />
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So Reid, Murdoch & Co. picked up the 48th Ford 4-AT Tri-Motor (NC-7863) off of the assembly line, and named it the <i>Independence, </i>in a nod to all the independent grocery stores in the midwest that Monarch distributed to. Instead of the normal plush passenger interior, they built a custom "showroom" where their canned and packaged foods were neatly lined up for display (presumably they were secured in place for flight ops!). When the plane would arrive in a town, a wooden platform would be set up next to the fuselage so that the curious could peer in through the cabin windows at the food.<br />
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With the popularity of the comic and the success of Monarch's magazine advertisement campaign, it was a natural extension to make sure that a couple of live Teenie Weenie characters went along on some of the flights as ambassadors. Two characters, the General (who was the leader of the tiny village, and thus the natural spokesman to sell the public on the wonders of Monarch's foods) and the Police Officer (the symbol of trust and protection), were played by two children in costume, and were also featured in a number of Monarch publicity photos with the Ford, including our old 8x10 press print. The children sometimes actually traveled with the Ford as it visited towns large and small. Given the dates when this took place, it's possible that these two little boys are still around, although they'd likely be in their 80s. If anyone knows anything about who they were and their story, please share via the comments section below!<br />
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The advertising gimmick didn't survive the Great Depression, though, and in 1931 Reid, Murdoch & Co. sold the Ford to a gentleman named Vernon Jones, who based it in San Diego. On April 28, 1935, the plane was wrecked in Gadsden, Alabama, and parts were salvaged and used on other Tri-motors.</div>
Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-21013746021634637172015-05-30T12:14:00.001-07:002015-06-05T16:52:53.230-07:00Newbie Pilots of Randolph FieldSo there I was with my brother, Eric, in a Fresno antique store and saw this photo, a framed vintaged 8x10. I ditched the frame and bought the print, and since Eric's been bugging me to update this blog, I thought this would be an appropriate photo. Not much of a back-story to tell, just a cool lineup of North American BT-9B primary trainers at Randolph Field, Texas. Plane in the foreground is 37-151.<br />
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Did you fly BT-9s during your training days? I'd love to hear from you and learn your story! Comment below or email me at airphotoservices at gmail dot com.<br />
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-75539199857415248682015-04-30T05:00:00.001-07:002015-04-30T05:00:07.444-07:00High-Flying Cameraship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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NC858E was originally built as a standard five-place Vega 2, in May 1929. Lockheed kept the plane in-house for almost a year and a half, then sold it in September 1939 to Van de Mark Flying Service of Lockport, NY. Lt. Allen W. Van de Mark was prone topublicity stunts, including one with the local newspaper, the <i>Union Sun & Journal</i>, in which he would deliver bundles of newspapers by plane to the paperboys who’d then deliver them around their neighborhoods. Each boy was instructed to lay out a bedsheet in a nearby field, and Van de Mark would fly over and drop the papers. It’s unclear, though, whether this stunt was performed in his Ryan B-1 Brougham or in the Vega.
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Van de Mark had the plane modified at Lockheed into a seven-place 5B, which replaced the Wright Whirlwind J6 with a Pratt & Whitney Wasp, giving it a 50% increase in horsepower. It was later upgraded a step further to a 5C.<br />
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On November 11, 1935 Van de Mark sold the Vega to Columbia Airways of Bloomsburg PA. Though a relatively small town, Bloomsburg was a hubbub of aviation activity, centered around the Bloomsburg Flying Club. In June, 1934, the club saw opportunity in their hobby, and organized themselves into Columbia Airways, providing twice-weekly service from Bloomsburg to Philadelphia. Their service proved popular, and they expanded to eleven destinations, including Pittsburgh and New York. The airline few their Vega for a year and a half, selling it (or possibly trading it) to Beech Aircraft in April 1937.
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Beech flipped it the next month to Standard Aerial Surveys, in whose colors our photo shows the plane. Standard was established by George J. DeGarmo, Jr., who was a pioneer in developing aerial photography and photogrammetric engineering techniques. When WWII broke out, DeGarmo joined the Navy, and the service utilized his expertise. DeGarmo developed the syllabus used for the first aerial photography course given to Navy cadets, and commanded an aerial survey squadron based in the Pacific, earning an Air Medal for his efforts. When the Korean conflict broke out, he was back, again commanding an aerial photography squadron. Standard was based at Hackensack, New Jersey until 1938, when the company moved to Newark. As our photo has “Newark” including in the company name painted on the side, it’s a safe bet to assume that it was taken after 1938.
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The Vega was modified yet again to accommodate large-format survey cameras looking down through a port in the belly. In addition, DeGarmo had the engine modified with a 10:1 supercharger, which allowed the plane to operate quite well at altitudes as high as 26,000 feet (they didn’t bother with a cabin heater, however, and pilot and cameraman had use arctic-style cold-weather suits. The Vega was used primarily for aerial mapping, including producing the first complete set of aerial photographs of the State of Rhode Island in 1939. Before this, all maps of the state relied on surveys performed in the mid-1800s.<br />
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Standard kept the plane busy until selling it off in 1943 to well-known broker Charlie Babb. It then drifted through several different owners until being picked up by pilot-adventurer Jimmy Angel in 1944. By this time in his life, Angel was spending most of his time in South America, looking for gold, and using planes to do so. Angel was credited by the media in “discovering” Angel Falls, the highest waterfalls in the world, though he was far from being the first to discover them...they were well-known to locals for years.<br />
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Angel and partner Jack Baker took the Vega to Nicaragua, where it was re-registered AN-ABL. It’s uncertain if they used the mods incorporated by Standard for photo surveys for their search for gold, or just used the plane for transport. The end came on February 19, 1945 when the plane was wrecked, and was subsequently written off.<br />
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<i>Note: This article was developed from a number of sources, but the chief source is the extensive article at the <a href="http://www.dmairfield.com/airplanes/NC858E/" target="_blank">D-M Register website on this plane</a>. The site includes several technical articles on Standard and their photogrammetric techiques.</i>Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-69421299119479521592015-04-30T05:00:00.000-07:002015-04-30T05:00:09.949-07:00A Stout FordThe history of Bill Stout's business efforts are deeply interwoven with those of Henry and Edsel Ford, which is reflected in today's photo of this Stout Airways Ford Trimotor.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Inscribed on the back: Mr. Jos. Andrews, Chicago, 8-1929.</td></tr>
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Stout Air Services, established by William Stout in 1925, operated under a number of names, including the Detroit-Grand Rapids Airline and Detroit-Cleveland Airline as well as Stout Airways, Bill Stout originally designed the "Air Pullman", the forerunner to the Ford Trimotor, and then sold his aircraft manufacturing operation to Ford, while retaining his airline operation. And it shouldn't be confused with the Ford Air Transport Services, Ford's own airline, also established in 1925 and which started off <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2013/02/stouts-ford_25.html" target="_blank">flying Stout-built planes</a>. Stout carried passengers, while Ford carried Ford car parts (at first) and then airmail starting in 1926. In 1928, Stout bought Ford's airmail contracts (CAM-6, Detroit-Cleveland and CAM-7, Detroit-Chicago).<br />
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On April 29, 1929, Bill Stout cashed out, selling the line to United Aircraft and Transport Corp, who was going around the country gobbling up small carriers left and right. United continued operating the service under the Stout brand, however. In September 1930, as part of the big corporate shell game that United was playing, another carrier they'd just purchased, National Air Transport "bought" the Stout division from the parent company. A year later, all these little airlines were rolled up into the new United Airlines.<br />
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Because this photo doesn't show the plane's registration number, it's hard to know which plane it is, as Stout operated at least six 4-AT Trimotors (as well as several later 5-ATs, but this photo shows the 4-AT windshield configuration). According to Larkin's <i>The Ford Trimotor</i>, the planes were:<br />
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<ul>
<li>4-AT-5, NC-1879, which carried Stout fleet tail number 3. It operate from 6/23/27 to 5/12/31.</li>
<li>4-AT-8, NC-880, tail #6, from 2/18/28 until it crashed on 10/13/28 at Detroit.</li>
<li>4-AT-9, NC-1076, from 10/6/27 to 1/16/29 when it crashed near Toledo, OH.</li>
<li>4-AT-18, NC-4806, from 5/10/28 to 11/7/30.</li>
<li>4-AT-28, NC-6892, from 8/17/28 to 11/7/30.</li>
<li>4-AT-34, NC-7120, tail #9, from 9/14/28 to /1/13/31</li>
</ul>
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Since 4-AT-8 and -9 both crashed before our photo was taken, the plane shown is either 4-AT-5, -18, -28 or -34.</div>
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Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-824413208470116532015-04-23T05:00:00.000-07:002015-04-23T07:11:06.786-07:00The Birth of the American Flying WingOne hundred years ago today, one of the Navy's first tailless flying wings, a most unusual airplane, set a new US altitude record of 10,000 feet. The plane, serial AH-10, was a Burgess-Dunne BD-2 flown by Lt. Patrick L. N. Bellinger, and the story of these almost forgotten aircraft, which were hailed as one of the most significant developments in aviation at the time is what we'll delve into on this centenary. It can arguably be said that British aeroplane builder Lt. John W. Dunne was the inventor of the tailless flying wing, and that being the case, W. Starling Burgess was the stepfather of the improved and Americanized flying wing. The archive recently acquired a number of original photos of Burgess-Dunne aircraft, and in researching them, I've found that there's a lot of sketchiness to the information about their history out on the net, and downright inaccuracies and confusions, with planes and designations often mixed up! So, this is my attempt to provide some unique photos plus a concise history in one place of the history of this remarkable design (corrections and comments are invited and encouraged via the comments box at the bottom of the article).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhP1-hBs7cOy8B7P5tWq5_vpXEPPvk7dcV53lSv-jvwx3JCa63Jhga5wOJ09J0AxP9QQNYbFgDw94f3esWZh_K8Uj4QYLmAvGkzCbWTcxGE65I5exltmKjMQbNFnl405FZyLkunoNJCY/s1600/va-bd-04-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhP1-hBs7cOy8B7P5tWq5_vpXEPPvk7dcV53lSv-jvwx3JCa63Jhga5wOJ09J0AxP9QQNYbFgDw94f3esWZh_K8Uj4QYLmAvGkzCbWTcxGE65I5exltmKjMQbNFnl405FZyLkunoNJCY/s1600/va-bd-04-cr-2k.jpg" height="432" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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The Navy's second Burgess-Dunne, serial AH-10, the 18th aircraft purchased by the US Navy. It became the first American airplane to reach an altitude of 10,000 feet on April 23, 1915. Note the staggered wings, which differentiates AH-10 from its earlier sister, AH-7. (<span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">Backstamped as</span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">Official US Navy photo, 8x10 print)</span></div>
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Dunne had been obsessed with the idea of designing an airplane that was so stable that virtually anyone could safely fly it. After all, the press of the day, in their ever quest for sensationalism, loved to trumpet how aviation was unsafe, would come to nothing, and was a collossal waist of time and money. Solve the problem of safety, Dunne figured, and the rest would take care of itself. As a British Army officer, he was allowed the time and resources to develop his ideas from 1907-1909, resulting in several gliders and powered aircraft, all tail-less swept-wing biplanes. When he left His Majesty's service, he was allowed to keep his experimental planes (the British Army seeing no future in fixed-wing aviation and only being interested in lighter-than-air-craft), and he and several friends formed the Blair Atholl Aeroplane Syndicate to pursue his design ideas.<br />
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The keys to the stability of Dunne's designs was to both sweep the wings in order to put the tips farther aft than the rear of the nacelle, and the incorporation of washout in the wings. The wings were constructed with a fore and aft spar, and the forward spar was mounted with an anhedral (early publications called it an inverse dihedral), while the rear spar was level. This resulted in a lower angle of incidence at the wing tips; in addition, the center of the wings had less camber than the outboard regions. This feature, combined with the 30 degree sweep, resulted in an effect where, at slow speeds, the center of the wing would stall and drop while the outboard sections, including the control surfaces, were still flying. Dunne also progressively changed the camber of the wing from almost nothing at the center to its maximum outboard.<br />
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The controls were of a novel design, as well. There were a pair of what today we'd call elevons (he called them "wing flaps"), one on each side of the upper wing (later, wing flaps were added to the lower wing as well), and each side's control surfaces moved independent of the other side's. The pilot then had two controls, one on each side of him. Pull both back or push both forward, and the four control surfaces acted like elevators and moved to pitch the plane. Move the controls in opposite directions, and the surfaces acted opposite each other, like ailerons, rolling the plane. They could also be locked in place, with the pilot flying only by use of the throttle. At the wingtips, "wing curtains" acted as vertical stabilizers; there were no rudder surfaces mounted to them, however.<br />
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During a flight demonstration of Lt. Dunne's powered D.5 version on December 20, 1910, Orville Wright watched in fascination. Eventually, the D.5 was damaged in a crash, and was rebuilt as the D.8, which in 1913 flew across the Channel to Paris. Dunne also tried to adapt the design concepts to a monoplane configuration, without much success. By then, though, Dunne was suffering from ill-health, and became discouraged by a general lack of interest in his ideas of aerodynamic stability. He licensed the design of the D.8 to both Nieuport in France (Nieuport flew one at the 1913 Paris Airshow) and the Burgess Company in America, and by 1914, had left aeronautics, preferring to develop new fly fishing techniques and dabble in philosophy (fans of time travel should check out his unorthodox convictions).<br />
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Meanwhile, in America, W. Starling Burgess was a natural-born engineer and inventor, and owned a small shipyard which produced his innovative yacht designs in Marblehead, Massachusetts. By 1908 he had become fascinated with the new field of aeronautics, and formed the Herring-Burgess Company with aeronautical pioneer Agustus Herring, who had just left his partnership with Glenn Curtiss. They worked on both in-house designs, as well as obtained a license from the Wrights to build planes commercially. Two years later, Herring was gone, replaced by Greely Curtis (note just one "s") and they formed the awkwardly-named Burgess Co. and Curtis. With his background as a naval architect, Burgess naturally tried to figure out how to turn land planes into seaplanes, starting with the Wright. This upset the paranoid Wright Brothers, however, who insisted as a condition of their contract that licensed-built aircraft not be modified in any way, and the addition of floats violated that condition.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXZVGcn5SUhhX4yRMeg2i46-UowrCBZX1JxRTUHSi9IobAYs6PHKHYlSXzudduFFsBRLspSSuktxbJbnCP6VhLkgd0S9RbTnN0T5mnPqt_Vh31JpAW_3DaueG9XUZqFXI7pIOBEPyOUY/s1600/va-burgesswright-01-cr2-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilXZVGcn5SUhhX4yRMeg2i46-UowrCBZX1JxRTUHSi9IobAYs6PHKHYlSXzudduFFsBRLspSSuktxbJbnCP6VhLkgd0S9RbTnN0T5mnPqt_Vh31JpAW_3DaueG9XUZqFXI7pIOBEPyOUY/s1600/va-burgesswright-01-cr2-2k.jpg" height="374" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">A Burgess-Wright Model F, on take-off, location unknown. The Model F was a license-built version of the Wright Brothers' Model B, and first flew on April 12, 1911. Burgess built an estimated 60-100 model Fs.</td></tr>
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In late 1913, Starling Burgess sailed for England to look into the Dunne design, and see if there would be potential for license-building that aircraft in America. With J.W. Dunne amenable, with license terms not as restrictive as the Wrights, Burgess started to build his first flying wing based on the D.8, though incorporating some improvements. The first plane, the BD-1A (sometimes referred to as the BD-1A, you'll see why in a minute) was single-place and convertable between landplane and seaplane. After some initial testing as a land plane, Burgess removed the cumbersome wheel-and-skid landing gear and replaced it with a flat-bottomed, single-stepped pontoon (likely borrowing the idea of the Curtiss Triad's design but adding the step that was just coming into use) which was about 17 1/2 feet long and three feet in beam, with two smaller non-stepped pontoons on the wing tips. Dunne had been initially skeptical about the idea of adding a pontoon, thinking that the added drag would compromise the plane's inherent stability. Burgess also designed a more enclosed nacelle for the pilot (this was a single-seat airplane). Whereas Dunne had used engines ranging from 60-80hp in his D.8, Burgess initially used a 100hp Curtiss OXX-2. </div>
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(A note on the model designations: Burgess didn't have a strict naming or numbering scheme for his planes, and seemed to refer to them in different ways at different times. The scheme used here, starting with BD-1 and running through BD-12, was devised after-the-fact by historians, led by the Massechusetts Aviation Historical Society - which gathered much of their information on the development of the line from company pilot Clifford Webster - in order to bring some sense to the evolution of the designs.)</div>
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On January 16, 1914, Burgess climbed onboard to make the plane's first flight. Unfortunately, he misjudged his takeoff run (or rather, misjudged the length of the harbor), and when it looked like he was going to run out of room, he pulled both control levers back to the stops. With insufficient speed to fly away, the nose pitch up severely, stalled, and the plane came down and hit chunks of floating ice, causing quite a lot of damage.<br />
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A few parts were salvaged and used in building the BD-1B, which flew successfully on March 4, 1914. Burgess dispensed with the enclosed nacelle, and instead made it a two-place aircraft where the pilot and passenger essentially sat on an open platform, like the original Dunne D.8.<br />
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By all accounts, the attempt to create a safe and stable aircraft was wildly successful, and though to us today the unique control system may seem cumbersome, it wasn't seen that way at the time, and in fact was noted as being intuitive and efficient. Time and again, Clifford Webster would put the plane though its paces for astonished observers - laymen and aviation experts alike - on the ground. One of the demonstration flights, which took place on May 2, 1914, was for a delegation from the Aero Club of America. The distinguished gentlemen took their place in a small boat in the middle of the bay, and despite 40 mile-per-hour winds, Clifford Webster took to the air to show off. The following narrative comes from the Aero Clubs official report of the event:<br />
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<blockquote>
The Burgess-Dunne solves the problem of inherent stability and represents an important development in American aeronautics. The demonstrations began at 10.57 A. M. A stiff northwestern wind of about forty miles was blowing; it was thirty-two miles per hour from Blue Hill Observatory. The sea was choppy with whitecaps showing. The pilot, Mr. Clifford Webster, started from the dock where the seaplane was moored, 'taxied' out a few hundred feet, the rode in the air and flew toward the observers' boat, which was then about on and one-half miles from shore and two miles from the starting point. The observers, who watched the manoeuvers with powerful field glasses, saw Mr. Webster take his hands off the controls as he approached and the machine continued its flight without the slightest change of evenness. Then followed four circular flights, at a height of about 200 feet; during the fourth circle the pilot took his hands off the contols and held them over his head. The seaplane descneded in a spiral, during which the plane was but slightly inclined. Then rising to a height of about 500 feet, the pilot took his hands off the levers and glided in a stright line toward the boat of the observers. At a height of about fifty feet he reassumed control, threw the machine to a steep angle of descent, then straightened it and landed lightly within ten yards of the point first touched and 'taxied' to three yards from the observers' boat.<br />
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At 11.27 Webster cranked the motor, climbed to his seat and 'taxied' to a point 200 yards away, where he turned the seaplane, facing the observers and took his hands off the levers. The machine glided for about 250 feet, then rose in the air, the pilot's hands still off the levers, where they remained until the seaplane had reached a height of about forty feet.<br />
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Following the speed tests, which showed 58 3/4 miles per hour, the seaplane rose to a height of about 400 feet, described a wide half-circle, then flew in a straight line for a distance of about two miles, then described four circles, just over the observers' boat, during which the machine banked at a steep angle. In the last two circles aviator Webster held his hands over his head to the amazement of the observers, in turns when the machine banked even keel. At the end of the last circle, with the wind still blowing at forty miles an hour, Webster rose to a height of 1200 feet, then cut off the power, and took his hands off the control. The seaplane glided down at a slight angle; at about forty feet from the water Webster reassumed control, forced the machine to a steep angle of descent, then straightened and landed lightly a few feet from the observers' boat. The time occupied by the glide was 43.1 seconds.<br />
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In the afternoon, between 1.40 and 4.30 o'clock were given demonstrations in passenger-carrying, taking passengers and gasolene [<i>sic</i>] from boats two miles from shore. Among the passengers carried were four members of the committee, and one woman, Mrs. Elliot Benedict.<br />
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During the flights the members of the committee had occasion to study the operation and action of the seaplane at close range, and were amazed at the extraordinary demonstrations of inherent stability, airworthiness and ease of operation. In all the turns the seaplane mantained its height without the slightest drop; during the flights uncontrolled by the pilot the machine corrected its lateral deviations mechanically and maintained even flight; in landing it glided lightly on thewater, appeared easily controlled and floated well.<br />
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The unanimous opinion at the end of the tests was that the Burgess-Dunne solves the problem of inherent stability and represents an important development in American aeronautics." (Boston <i>Evening Transcript</i>, May 9, 1914)</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijmUC0o5l_Sf7RM08A3hJ9Uv7iDF-vaD2kKlDzAbHlGuuMrFrxGLgE0F7Ff8v4s5DkNbWHcYmyXbdkeLTuZ0E9pIKgGpMQMK8wlvzOQT9-WDHv9YuHJDGyLesPzc0xHalBxnhE00I4XOc/s1600/va-bd-06-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijmUC0o5l_Sf7RM08A3hJ9Uv7iDF-vaD2kKlDzAbHlGuuMrFrxGLgE0F7Ff8v4s5DkNbWHcYmyXbdkeLTuZ0E9pIKgGpMQMK8wlvzOQT9-WDHv9YuHJDGyLesPzc0xHalBxnhE00I4XOc/s1600/va-bd-06-cr-2k.jpg" height="506" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">This is probably the BD-1B while being demonstrated. Note that the pilot's hands are off the controls. Sadly, the Archive's copy of the photo is not an original print, and is not as clear as one would like.</td></tr>
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Initially, the company used this first plane for in-house testing and training, as well as making demonstration and sales flights. At this point, the story of this plane gets a bit weird, and it becomes a memorable symbol of the nation of Canada.<br />
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That nation was about to send its First Canadian Expeditionary Force off in October 1914 to join their English brethren in The Great War, and wanted an aeroplane of their own to contribute to the effort. One particular enthusiast for aviation was a guy named E. L. Janney. He was provisionally commissioned with the rank of Captain and sent off with a check for $5,000 in his pocket to look for a suitable aeroplane in the US which could be delivered quickly. He visited several manufacturers in New England and pretty much struck out before arriving at Marblehead on September 17, 1914. The only thing that Burgess and crew had flyable at the moment was the BD-1B, and it had had a lot of hours put on the engine, and really was in need of some TLC, and so Starling was rather reluctant to sell it. But in the end, Janney prevailed, and bought the plane (on the pontoon) plus the land undercarriage, but no other spares. Because the Canadian wasn't yet trained to fly, Burgess' chief pilot Clifford Webster agreed to make the delivery flight to Quebec. The plane was given some cursory maintenance, then put on a railroad flat car for the ride to Isle La Motte, Vermont. Reassembled there, on September 21 Webster and Janney took off for Valcartier, Quebec.<br />
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They didn't make it far, and the engine pretty much self-destructed, requiring the pair to set down on the Laurent River at Deschaillons. For an additional $2,500, Burgess sent a replacement engine and a mechanic to do the work, and the plane was flyable again on September 28th. They were so late, though, that they bypassed Valcartier and headed for Quebec City, landing in the harbor. With no time to waste, the plane was craned onto the deck of the SS <i>Athenia </i>for the trip across the Atlantic. However, the only precautions taken were to lash the plane to the deck...nothing was covered, nothing was protected, and the storms encountered on the voyage took their toll. Once in the UK, the plane was set aside (remember, no one had bothered to purchase any spare parts to repair anything, nor was anyone in the Canadian contingent really trained to fly the thing!), and there it sat, on the Salsbury Plain, again completely unprotected from the elements. And it pretty much rotted away, never to make another flight. With no plane to fly, Janney resigned his commission and went home. And yet, to this day, the BD-1B is celebrated by Canadians as their first warplane, and even has had it's own commemorative postage stamp.<br />
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The US Navy, still very much experimenting with the potential that airplanes could bring to the fleet, decided to try the B-D design, and acquired two, the first a BD-2 they designated AH-7, and the second a BD-5 designated AH-10. It is important to note that the designations "AH-7" and "AH-10" were serial numbers (or in contemporary Navy parlance, Bureau Numbers), <i>not</i> model numbers, as is often mis-reported on the internet. When the Navy started to buy airplanes in 1911, they started giving them individual alphanumeric numbers (starting with the first Curtiss Triad, which was A-1; <a href="http://www.joebaugher.com/navy_serials/firstalphaseries.html" target="_blank">click for a list</a>). In 1914, after having acquired 14 aircraft, they changed their numbering system, renumbered thirteen of the fourteen (AB-1 through AB-7, AH-1 through AH-6; <a href="http://www.joebaugher.com/navy_serials/secondalphaseries.html" target="_blank">list</a>), and then kept going from there. Thus, the Navy's two B-D aircraft were their fifteenth and eighteenth airplanes overall.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljbTOaCFJd2RSiiFLfziSJEURLKYrrBG3pCSlBMQNVbQC7oC6j1HBRchV7bwKPVfeWTOz7ywuus6rkP-7pmcqptjjfMGm8Lz5h4tmxEoUaG8pj0Dqpza462XXIb00qBNy1QmlzL4aMs8/s1600/va-bd-05-cr1-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljbTOaCFJd2RSiiFLfziSJEURLKYrrBG3pCSlBMQNVbQC7oC6j1HBRchV7bwKPVfeWTOz7ywuus6rkP-7pmcqptjjfMGm8Lz5h4tmxEoUaG8pj0Dqpza462XXIb00qBNy1QmlzL4aMs8/s1600/va-bd-05-cr1-2k.jpg" height="464" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">AH-7 on a takeoff run during Navy sea trials. Note the unstaggered wings and tandem seating, which distinguishes AH-7 from AH-10. Not sure which ship that is in the background. </td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MYGHnkJuKg4h9hNT0j5tP-CafRQgtIumitA2b0J3KhQw27ThGzZRulXOnI6l-AysnB7MpC0ejMy5EDEHJSXIjo9cEdfwOyEqh70md8lGE0Vs0OfS8o2OvUp0faWbtikK7jxQTq-2-0Y/s1600/va-bd-05-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6MYGHnkJuKg4h9hNT0j5tP-CafRQgtIumitA2b0J3KhQw27ThGzZRulXOnI6l-AysnB7MpC0ejMy5EDEHJSXIjo9cEdfwOyEqh70md8lGE0Vs0OfS8o2OvUp0faWbtikK7jxQTq-2-0Y/s1600/va-bd-05-cr2.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a>AH-7 first flew on October 10, 1914, and was delivered to Pensacola shortly thereafter. At one point, it was modified with bomb racks under the left wing, and there is some indication that for a time it wore a lavender and green camoflage paint scheme (which must have been quite a sight! Sadly, vintage black-and-white photos often don't convey such chromic brilliance). It was gone from the Navy's records by January, 1916.<br />
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AH-10 entered the record books on April 23, 1915 when Lt. Patrick L. N. Bellinger piloted her to a new US altitude record, 10,000 feet, over Pensacola during a 1 hour, 19 minute flight. Bellinger, who was Naval Aviator No. 4, was one of the first Navy pilots to see combat, in Vera Cruz, Mexico, and was nominated for a Medal of Honor (though ultimately not awarded). He later flew Curtiss NC-1, one of the three Nancy Boats to attempt to cross the Atlantic (only NC-4 made it; Bellinger and NC-1 had to put down near the Azores due to heavy fog, and the plane was damaged beyond repair by the heavy seas). Bellinger ultimately retired in 1947 as Vice Admiral after serving as Commander, Air Force, Atlantic Fleet.<br />
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The US Army Signal Corps had shown interest in the design as early as 1913, and when Burgess started building them, they placed an order, receiving hydroaeroplane BD-3 (marketed as the "Burgess-Dunne Military Aeroplane"), powered by a nine-cylinder Salmson radial engine, as Army serial number 36. It was delivered December 30, 1914 to North Island, San Diego. Unlike the early models with their flat decks on which the pilot and passenger sat, the BD-3 had a rather boxy nacelle, complete with 1/8 inch thick nickel steel armor plate, making this the heaviest version yet built. It was also equipped with a machine gun at the forward crew station (the pilot sat in the aft) and so although this wasn't the Army's first airplane (they'd bought a number of Wright flyers), since it was armed it was hailed in the contemporary media as the Army's first "warplane". In the spring of 1915, it was modified as a land plane and assigned to the Army's Coast Artillery for use as fire control support. It had been dropped from inventory by October 18, 1916.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPBdf6qr7YeqlCU6tawDbSU29VHNS5B6VN4fEO1lsAGaO2xtQVME4cPq3ev23JVC8t7INIw2HBO3ygLCJ2Ui0Ya-KbPQfk5_Fb-iYwMCS83WbHJ7iLiXHQYS3MxlEK7ilJVs_55DolUGk/s1600/bd-ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPBdf6qr7YeqlCU6tawDbSU29VHNS5B6VN4fEO1lsAGaO2xtQVME4cPq3ev23JVC8t7INIw2HBO3ygLCJ2Ui0Ya-KbPQfk5_Fb-iYwMCS83WbHJ7iLiXHQYS3MxlEK7ilJVs_55DolUGk/s1600/bd-ad.jpg" height="243" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An ad from 1915, featuring the BD-3</td></tr>
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BD-4 became known as the "Russian Burgess-Dunne". Built by the company as a military demonstrator aircraft, it was powered by a Gyro 110 hp rotory engine. A New York agency by the name of Gaston, Williams and Wigmore visited Marblehead ostensibly at the behest of the Czarist Russian government, looking at the possibility of purchasing aircraft for Mother Russia. There were lots of reports in the contemporary media that BD-4 and possibly other production aircraft were sold to the Russians, but there is no conclusive evidence that this was true. However, Burgess ads which repeatedly appeared in the industry magazine <i>Aeronautics</i> claimed to have furnished B-Ds to Russia.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdlQ64dmSH30TNMUUWO2S2CPE1kx5libDSgt46e_fSOZoivORRD6ppMfT6or9UzCZJl0qyZxz8QDu8GTJJdt-F3mqMPQ2ZnJkr-kqxctCGhauBZw10HGtOEEERZWeSiiAMCdA0oEVloic/s1600/va-bd-03-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdlQ64dmSH30TNMUUWO2S2CPE1kx5libDSgt46e_fSOZoivORRD6ppMfT6or9UzCZJl0qyZxz8QDu8GTJJdt-F3mqMPQ2ZnJkr-kqxctCGhauBZw10HGtOEEERZWeSiiAMCdA0oEVloic/s1600/va-bd-03-cr-2k.jpg" height="470" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px; text-align: left;">A BD-6 beached, probably at Pensacola. Note the dog. And any guesses as to the name of the gunboat in the background would be appreciated. </span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px; text-align: left;">(Backstamped as Official US Navy photo, 8x10 print)</span></td></tr>
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In May, 1915, it was announced that the Navy had decided to purchase three more Burgess-Dunne aircraft of an updated configuration, which the factory called the BD-6, assigning them Bureau Numbers A-54 through A-56 (the service re-doing their numbering scheme yet again, beginning with A-51). Rather than the side-by-side seating arrangement of earlier aircraft, the BD-6 featured a bullet-shaped nacelle with tandem seating and was powered by a liquid-cooled 140-hp V-8 Sturdent 5A. The shape of the main pontoon had matured, as well, becoming more aerodynamic.<br />
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Flight testing began in September, 1916, when the cruiser USS <i>North Carolina </i>arrived off of Marblehead. The ship had been detached from the Atlantic Fleet specifically for use in testing seaplanes. While this turned out to be the fastest of the Burgess-Dunnes, hitting 80 mph, there were problems with this new design, however. Initial testing performed by Webster showed an unexpected longitudinal instability (ie, the exact opposite of the conditions that Dunne was after in the first place), which was most pronounced in terms of uncontrollability in a dive. The Navy returned all three aircraft, and the Burgess engineers went to work to figure out the problem, using the new wind tunnel at MIT.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEIpLVWJjHvYB7MzQ1jImVUpjoC09IKPmbmQJxdREZDyb6NvwuEV4O1RwHZTOzsXNprq_a8AtWhcrvMNjpMtfTAEsALKbJ7_TEitCxiVsrG8uk60tViZDJyuNaa8T5-1INiL6tmC5Xa4/s1600/va-bd-02-cr1-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTEIpLVWJjHvYB7MzQ1jImVUpjoC09IKPmbmQJxdREZDyb6NvwuEV4O1RwHZTOzsXNprq_a8AtWhcrvMNjpMtfTAEsALKbJ7_TEitCxiVsrG8uk60tViZDJyuNaa8T5-1INiL6tmC5Xa4/s1600/va-bd-02-cr1-2k.jpg" height="474" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">A BD-6, probably A-54, takes off with the cruiser USS <i>Columbia </i>(C-12) in the distance on March 3, 1916, off shore from Pensacola. The <i>Columbia</i>, at this time, was serving as the flagship of the Atlantic submarine flotilla, and typically would transit between sub bases on inspections. Her presence in this photo suggests that AH-54 was taking part in sub patrol evaluations at this time. <span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">(Backstamped as Official US Navy photo, 8x10 print)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAOZFsihvH5xKvLrr6YBhfiRcapGQlAgMHn-8c5upq4ba_F3Ge5EJQPYig9b9huqKs3Ajyb2XSRg6oEhPzvHrERvdJUeipRLAbnU3CKNzfOtL9uvfPS0Cilaq3PY5Ujc-2Fln7jMkYAKA/s1600/va-bd-02-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAOZFsihvH5xKvLrr6YBhfiRcapGQlAgMHn-8c5upq4ba_F3Ge5EJQPYig9b9huqKs3Ajyb2XSRg6oEhPzvHrERvdJUeipRLAbnU3CKNzfOtL9uvfPS0Cilaq3PY5Ujc-2Fln7jMkYAKA/s1600/va-bd-02-cr2.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a>What they found was that by re-positioning the wings slightly, and readjusting the planes center of gravity, the instability went away. Here, the vagaries of time have introduced some uncertainty. One aircraft was modified with the fix, and accepted by the Navy. One source says that this was serial A-54, another says that it was A-55 (based on what I know about the sources, I'm leaning toward it being A-54; but I'm open to input and discussion); in any case, whichever it was, it was struck from the Navy's inventory in December 1917 (why is not clear). The cost of modifying the other two aircraft was deemed too high, and the Navy rejected them. Again, more vagaries in the story - depending on what source you refer to, some say that this rejection was the end of the story, whereas others indicated that the contract was funded once again in January 1918, and that A-55 and A-56 were ultimagely accepted. These two were, were removed from the inventory by October 1918, which pretty much ended the military's use of flying wings until Jack Northrop re-introduced the concept to the Army Air Corps in the 1940s.<br />
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The civilian market for Burgess-Dunnes was starting to pick up, as well, and out of the blue, the manufacturer scored big with one of the most influential customers in New England. Vincent Astor, son of and heir to tycoon and Titanic drowning victim John Jacob Astor IV, became fascinated with the Burgess-Dunne concept (which is entirely possible when you inherit the fortune of one of the richest men on earth) and ordered one. The BD-7 started out as a break from the traditional Dunne configuration and melded the wing concept with a Curtiss-style flying boat hull. Astor started flying lessons with Clifford Webster on April 27, 1915, while his plane was still under construction.<br />
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But the new BD-7 was destroyed during flight testing when Webster hit a seawall while trying to land on Marblehead Harbor. When the replacement was built, Burgess reverted to the tried and true pontoon configuration, finally delivering the new plane in August. The wings of this configuration were built modularly in four sections, which allowed for ease of disassembly for shipping. BDs with this feature can be identified by the short non-swept center section of the upper wing. Astor being Astor and needing a place to keep his BD, also commissioned the company (remember, they had roots in building boats) to build a very unique floating hangar on a small barge hull, which could be towed behind his yacht <i>Noma</i> to Florida in the winter. It had an overhead crane ("trolley" is what they called it) which would lift the plane out of the water and pull it inside.<br />
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In the fall of 1915, Astor and his BD-7, as well as a speedboat, participated in an exercise off of New London, Connecticut, where they "hunted" two Navy subs which, in turn, tried to avoid detection. The combined air-speedboat team managed to find one of the subs and direct a Navy destroyer to it, and it was judged a kill.<br />
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And Astor wasn't the only upper-crust gentlemen to purchase a BD plane. Thoroughbred horse breader Harry Payne Whitney purchased one similar to Astor's, but without the sectionalized wings, designated a BD-8; he based the plane at Manhasset Bay, Long Island. The most sales, though, were of the BD-9, again very similar to Astor's reconfigured BD-7 (Burgess advertised the BD-7 thorugh -9 as the "Sportsman" model). One of the principle differences was the relocation of the radiator to the rear of the engine, cutting down on drag. At least six were built, the first one going to industrialist (and founder of the Aero Club of New England) Godfrey L. Cabot, who named it <i>Lark</i>. With war afoot in Europe, fears of U-Boats were rife on the east coast, a number of these richest of the rich reacted accordingly, and used their resources to bolster local militias. Cabot organized the Independent Aviation Corps (try doing something like that today!) in 1915, which became part of the Massachusetts Naval Militia the following year. In that capacity, he would fly the BD-9 with Clifford Webster patrolling Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor. Webster and Cabot made one notable flight over Boston on May 27, 1916 in conjunction with the Boston Preparedness Demonstration. During the flight over the city and the parade below, Cabot dropped thousands of leaflets urging a greater effort for preparedness for war.<br />
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Both Norman Cabot (a famous ivy-league college football player from the 1890s, no relation to Godfrey) and Eben Draper Jr (son of the two-time Massachusetts governor) were also members of the Massachusetts Naval Militia, and also bought BD-9s, which suggests that this militia also doubled as a rich-boys' flying club of sorts.<br />
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Astor joined the New York Naval Militia, part of the New York National Guard, and with his influence, that organization started to look at acquiring some armored BD-9s. These were paid for by raising subscriptions from a number of wealthy New Yorkers, including Astor, Commodore Foreshew and others. The Aero Club of America also pitched in some cash for the effort. When the first one was ready for delivery, on May 20, 1916, Astor brought a delegation from the Second Battalion to Marblehead on the <i>Noma</i> to evaluate the plane. They were quite pleased with what they saw, and brought the first of two back with them on the yacht a week later. The Second Battalion set up its aviation headquarters on Astor's estate at Rhinebeck, on the Hudson River, with their first BD-9 as well as Astor's BD-7.<br />
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On July 1, with 350 invited guests at a gala at the foot of Brooklyn's 52nd Street, Mrs. Astor christened the first BD, and the committee that purchased it formally presented it to the State of New York. There is some indication that the Militia bought a third one for themselves, but I've not seen confirmation of that. <i>Aerial Age Weekly, </i>for July 10, 1916, spoke of the ceremony in lofty terms. "When Mr.s Astor had broken a bottle of champagne on the shell the official guests were taken to he United States Ship <i>Gloucester</i>, formerly J. Pierpont Morgan's yacht <i>Corsair</i>, which is now used as a training ship for the Second Battalion, to watch the first official flight. Alongside the <i>Gloucester...</i>was Vincent Astor's yacht <i>Noma</i>. While the guests were being transferred to the yachts by launches, a giant crane lifted the new air machine into the water. Vincent Astor, in the uniform of an ensign, supervised the towing, and when out in midstream, Ensign Samuel Pierce started it under its own power. The plane rose gradually and traveled about six miles at a rate of thirty-five miles an hour. ...Pierce had sent it skimming over the water and then taken it 800 feet in the air, while passing boats whistled a salute." The New Jersey Naval Militia bought a BD-9 as well.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJej4gxp3tuzMwFZB5n3nD2iFEh8IhwdqrmXmSecK-IawrTTi6QMHhR_3VUSRh6DhT0d0ZhK-vK-wQuIoHnaiViopA6BSbPGGrRLjhve0et1uldCzmO5Ilb45G_vqEhOUJJ3FV8Fotunw/s1600/va-bd-01-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJej4gxp3tuzMwFZB5n3nD2iFEh8IhwdqrmXmSecK-IawrTTi6QMHhR_3VUSRh6DhT0d0ZhK-vK-wQuIoHnaiViopA6BSbPGGrRLjhve0et1uldCzmO5Ilb45G_vqEhOUJJ3FV8Fotunw/s1600/va-bd-01-cr-2k.jpg" height="452" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicmUAPVbFrRQEHSCsp5xvrqpsxrVS_tMSI84xT2xZ1AOwOS2N8ies7pD0rXG9CXFsuRdTcQq4nVdXJjsXi84KfKYrPIjfdSGQAXVZBIwOOK6FLTyFRQl9X_Zhd7vPcMnRhNtKeeVVmm0/s1600/va-bd-01-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicmUAPVbFrRQEHSCsp5xvrqpsxrVS_tMSI84xT2xZ1AOwOS2N8ies7pD0rXG9CXFsuRdTcQq4nVdXJjsXi84KfKYrPIjfdSGQAXVZBIwOOK6FLTyFRQl9X_Zhd7vPcMnRhNtKeeVVmm0/s1600/va-bd-01-cr2.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">A Burgess-Dunne BD-9 Hydroaeroplane flies over the SS</span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;"> </span><i style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">Asbury Park. </i><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">The Archive's </span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">copy of this photo is a glass magic-lantern slide. It's hard to determine which plane this is, but it is most likely the single BD-9 which served with the New Jersey Naval Militia. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">The ship was operated by the </span><span style="font-size: 12.7272720336914px;">Jersey Central Railroad from when she was new in 1903 through the end of the summer season in 1916, helping establish a cutoff date for when this photo could have been taken. The ferry, amazingly, was rebuilt several times from the waterline up, and lasted until she was finally scrapped in 2009!</span><br />
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In August, 1916, the Burgess Company hosted a flight test program using a BD to try to develop a wireless radio system for aircraft. Radio still used morse code, and the biggest challenge was for the pilot to be able to hear the signal above the roar of the engine mounted right behind him. For this set of experimental flights, which was done in cooperation with the firm of Cutting & Washington (the principals being two young Harvard engineers), a generator, sending and receiving equipment and a trailing antenna were added to one of the company's demonstrator aircraft. The key, as described in <i>Aerial Age Weekly</i>, is that "the radio operator in the machine wears a brass helmet, which is designed to be as nearly as possible soundproof. It completely covers the head and sits on his shoulders." Sounds quite uncomfortable!<br />
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The Army took one more stab at using a Burgess-Dunne, ordering one for a special research project on September 27, 1916, which became the BD-10 (sometimes referred to as a Burgess Dunne H), and carrying Army serial number 136. John Jays Hammond, Jr. was an inventor who is widely regarded as the father of radio control. A protege of Alexander Graham Bell, Hammond had devised a method of radio controlling a torpedo, and the Army wanted the Burgess-Dunne for the project, and planned on equipping the plane with state-of-the-art radio gear. The Army cancelled the contract on June 18, 1917, using a Curtiss R-4 instead. It's unclear whether the BD-10, which was to have staggered wings, was actually completed. The BD-11 (or BDH-11) also was designed with staggered wings, as a military demonstrator. While it was built, there is no record of a military sale.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwAxmQpOrBW5I89UrEISuZBwUPDXE8zb8yw3gupeXMTAvdjuHNimvxcQue3wsEEp-DEDaeS4GvysngND2yl_D9vocnw_OfvOkTG_D3Xom6oeMuU_7niqK9RDE4UOzJf2SBSlXSDG4oto/s1600/collier-trophy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfwAxmQpOrBW5I89UrEISuZBwUPDXE8zb8yw3gupeXMTAvdjuHNimvxcQue3wsEEp-DEDaeS4GvysngND2yl_D9vocnw_OfvOkTG_D3Xom6oeMuU_7niqK9RDE4UOzJf2SBSlXSDG4oto/s1600/collier-trophy.jpg" height="320" width="204" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Collier Trophy in all its glory. The lower</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">base is not ususally displayed at NASM, sadly.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">This was taken at the ceremony awarding the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">trophy to another tailless Navy aircraft, the</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">X-47B, the team I've been privileged to be a </span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">member of.</span></td></tr>
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The final Burgess-Dunne built, finished in the fall of 1916, was the BDF-12 (sometimes just BDF), which was a second attempt (after the crashed initial BD-7) to mate a Curtiss boat hull with the BD wing structure. It, too, had staggered wings.<br />
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For his work in maturing the original Dunne design, Starling Burgess was named the 1915 recipient of the the Aero Club of America Trophy (later renamed the Robert J. Collier Trophy in 1944). The Award was established by Collier, the son and heir of P.F. Collier, the publisher of the popular magazine <i>Collier's Weekly</i>. The younger Collier was an avid sportsman and aviation enthusiast (he was the first person to purchase a plane, a Model B, from the Wrights for personal use), and used his upper-crust standing to help promote the young industry with the award. The trophy is awarded annually by the National Aeronautics Association "for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year." Burgess was the fifth recipient of the award, following Glenn Curtiss (twice), Orville Wright and Elmer Sperry.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0tbtmVZPhIL92bNBIlpzmIyLJOcGeWtsU48JboIKw6naoiKfLNpJWT-9ZcVENA6y7ARb7XJNJzGs_zkAdhb7s1eSPXdZYC-0cKcdu2srzd_rkqrdh6tzASZPg_d3GrsKHjpcE3Yy-mc/s1600/collier-closeup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0tbtmVZPhIL92bNBIlpzmIyLJOcGeWtsU48JboIKw6naoiKfLNpJWT-9ZcVENA6y7ARb7XJNJzGs_zkAdhb7s1eSPXdZYC-0cKcdu2srzd_rkqrdh6tzASZPg_d3GrsKHjpcE3Yy-mc/s1600/collier-closeup.jpg" height="237" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The first 16 recipients of the Collier Trophy</td></tr>
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All tolled, Burgess built 26 Dunne-type aircraft. Though the Burgess Company was busy building airplanes, Starling still kept his hand in the marine world, too, designing a 14-foot sailboat (aka cat boat) called the Brutal Beast, which became had excellent sales and became a very popular boat in the region. In March 1916, a month after the Collier award ceremony, Burgess sold the company to John N. Willys, who in turn sold it to Glenn Curtiss, which then became the largest aircraft manufacturer in America, producing ten planes a day. The Marblehead operation was operated for a time as an independent entity from the Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Co. Starling Burgess stayed on until 1917, when he joined the Navy and helped them design airplanes. In 1918, the Marblehead factory burned to the ground, effectively bringing the history of the Burgess company to a close. After WWI, Starling Burgess continued to design yachts, and built three defenders of the America's Cup (<i>Enterprise</i>, 1930; <i>Rainbow</i> 1934; <i>Ranger</i>, 1937). As a naval architect for ALCOA, he helped introduce corrosion resistant aluminum as a feasible, lightweight material for yacht hulls. During WWII, he served as a civilian engineer to the Navy, working on anti-submarine warfare techniques. He passed away on March 19, 1947.<br />
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But even though the Burgess-Dunnes disappeared into obscurity, that wasn't the end of the story. I suspect that, in the back of his mind, Glenn Curtiss knew what he'd bought when he absorbed Burgess' company. The late teens just wasn't the right time for a super-safe, inherently stable every-man's airplane. But then along came the roaring 20s, barnstormers, and Charles Lindbergh, and the world had grown up, and suddenly flying - as opposed to rail travel - was all the rage with the upper crust, and where the rich go, the middle class inevitably follow. I can imagine Curtiss pondering that finally, the time was right for a simple, safe and affordable airplane. Maybe there was something to that revolutionary, Collier-winning design that had been shelved all those years earlier (Curtiss wasn't alone in thinking that a flying wing would fit the flivver bill, as several others were pursuing the same thought at about the same time, including Waldo Waterman and his Whatsit, as I <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2013/09/waldo-watermans-whatsit.html" target="_blank">wrote in an earlier post</a>).<br />
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Curtiss teamed with J.W. Davis, who had once worked as an engineer at Burgess and with whom Curtiss was involved in real estate investment, as well as retired USMC Maj. B.L. Smith to form the Safety Aircraft Corporation. Called the Arrowhead Safety Airplane, or B-2 (how's that for irony?), the concept kept the basic Dunne layout, but modified the control system to incorporate conventional pilot controls connected to split elevons mounted to the top wing only. The small plane was powered by a three-cylinder Szekely engine. The design was targeted for a purchase price of a mere $1,000. Two were built, NX899Y and NX10405, the latter making up to 34 flights before the project, like so many others, fell victim to the Great Depression. So maybe Curtiss was wrong...the time still wasn't right. Before the first flight could take place, though, Glenn Curtiss died on July 23, 1930.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYyF-l3QDNlKz59r-TXv8Wf0UPZeOEyJ0J4bsUrL0CH6AZ4T7QElpNBHa586IOF-oLtX_ENP5i7hZ2XsscDp66Q1OkUzRH0Aj-V59VG3kPrbaerzZyKD1H-2EYRjVCupMnR2E5o954XL0/s1600/va-curtiss-arrowhead-01-cr2-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYyF-l3QDNlKz59r-TXv8Wf0UPZeOEyJ0J4bsUrL0CH6AZ4T7QElpNBHa586IOF-oLtX_ENP5i7hZ2XsscDp66Q1OkUzRH0Aj-V59VG3kPrbaerzZyKD1H-2EYRjVCupMnR2E5o954XL0/s1600/va-curtiss-arrowhead-01-cr2-2k.jpg" height="473" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Caption pasted to the back of this slightly retouched news release photo:Glenn Curtiss' "Air Flivver" Successful. Miami Fla: The last invention that took the entire attention of the late Glenn Curtiss, pioneer aviator, makes its first official flight at Miami, Fla. Shortly before his death Mr. curtiss worked day and night with confederates on this "Air Flivver" believing it to be the future Ford of the air. It is a paradox in design, having no tail. It has a landing speed of 19 m.p.h. and cannot loop, spin or dive. Mr. Curtiss believed it could be manufactured to sell at $1,000. The plane is powered by a three cylinder motor and is known as the "Aerohead Safety Plane". Photo shows the tailless Safety Plane taking off in Miami, Fla. Note the absence of a tail. it is very small, measuring less thatn 35 feet across the greatest spred of its wings. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mar. 4, 1931, Miami News Service. [Note...the first flight actually took place in December, 1930]</span></td></tr>
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Interesting links:<br />
<ul>
<li>Perhaps the most accurate <a href="http://www.massaerohistory.org/Burgess.html" target="_blank">listing of Burgess aircraft</a></li>
<li>A <a href="http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/most-talented-aviation-pioneer-youve-never-heard-180950149/?all&no-ist" target="_blank">detailed bio of Burgess</a> the man from NASM</li>
<li>The amazing <a href="http://www.evergreenfleet.com/cityofsacramento.html" target="_blank">story of the SS <i>Asbury Park</i></a> which lived to 106!</li>
<li>Want to build a paper version of the D.8? <a href="http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Burgess-Dunne-FlyingWing.html" target="_blank">Try this!</a></li>
<li>Someone built an exact replica of the BD-2, and <a href="http://www.adrageous.com/burgessdunne/" target="_blank">this old website </a>was established when he first offered it for sale. It's now sold, but the site has a lot of great photos of the plane as it was being built. It is currently<a href="http://airforcemuseum.ca/en/aircraft-2/burgess-dunne" target="_blank"> on display at the National Air Force Museum of Canada.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://webodysseum.com/history/photos-of-world-war-i-at-sea/" target="_blank">This page</a> has a <a href="http://webodysseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/World+War+I+at+Sea+20.jpg" target="_blank">photo</a> of a New York Naval Militia BD-9</li>
<li><a href="http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675026885_Arrowhead-Safety-Plane_trees_runway_clouded-sky" target="_blank">Video footage exists of the Arrowhead</a>.</li>
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-38385134895679295602015-04-19T19:12:00.001-07:002015-04-19T19:21:46.491-07:00Amelia's First Speed Record (of Sorts)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlfqX1SBPJD1MbzOlHW89PG-UfhptFgqEBUrPngIK0eJy2LcSjH-sTj4HpNLSVa9ed3v1zxxzpk-ym40l5EF7hPJcUa_wM-IpZij4nr1Sw-hSYAL3sTCblASht6cpMIVKOcK0Yky-YHc/s1600/va-vega-01cr-12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQlfqX1SBPJD1MbzOlHW89PG-UfhptFgqEBUrPngIK0eJy2LcSjH-sTj4HpNLSVa9ed3v1zxxzpk-ym40l5EF7hPJcUa_wM-IpZij4nr1Sw-hSYAL3sTCblASht6cpMIVKOcK0Yky-YHc/s400/va-vega-01cr-12.jpg" height="316" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption">Vega NC-538M somewhere over the San Fernando Valley</td></tr>
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<i>4/19/2015-This post was originally published on August 9, 2013, but has been rewritten and updated.</i><br />
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During the famous 1929 Women's Air Derby, billed by the press as the “Powder Puff Derby”, Amelia Earhart flew the only Lockheed Vega (NC-31E, c/n 36) that had been entered entered to a respectable third place, which garnered yet more positive media publicity for Lockheed.
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Following the Derby, Earhart flew her race Vega back to Los Angeles, and there stayed with friends Jack and Helene Maddux (of Maddux Airlines and subsequently T-A-T Airlines fame). While in LA, she decided to visit Lockheed and shop for an upgraded Vega, taking several test flights in Wasp-powered Vega 5A Executive NC-538M. Earhart recorded in her logbook that on November 18, while test flying the plane over a closed course, she flew one leg at a blazing 197 mph. “Hooray!” was her commentary.
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In the Derby a few months before, Louise Thaden had won the race. Thaden also happened to hold the women’s speed record, at a paltry 156 mph. It occurred to Earhart that in the Vega, she could easily beat that. On November 21, Earhart flew the one mile course set up at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Airport - what is now known as Van Nuys Airport – with Detroit Aircraft’s chief test pilot, Lt. Carl Harper, to confirm the potential. Lockheed recognized a great publicity opportunity when they saw it, and offered to loan her the plane for the record attempt.
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NAA rules specified a 24-hour notice for any record attempt, and Earhart fulfilled this obligation, indicating that on the following day she’d attempt to break Thaden’s record.
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The NAA sent their official timer, a Mr. Joe Nikrent, and over four laps Earhart’s average speed was 184.17 mph, with one lap clocked by Nikrent at 197.8 mph. And yet, despite the use of the official timer, who used two calibrated chronometers, the NAA refused to recognize the achievement as an official record. The reason? The NAA informed her that the FAI did not have a category for the one-mile straightaway. They only recognized the 3-kilometer closed course, and only for absolute world records, meaning there wasn’t a separate women’s record to be claimed for that distance.
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Frustrated, Earhart continued shopping for a new plane, settling on serial number 22, NC-7952 (she also took a ride in <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2014/11/lindbergh-and-tingmissartoq.html" target="_blank">the Sirius, serial 140</a>, that had been custom built for Lindbergh). She also began petitioning the FAI to establish a category for women’s speed records, and at length they acceded. Finally, on July 5, 1930, flying another borrowed Vega (serial 94, NC-974H), Earhart set the 3-km closed course speed record at 181.18 mph. It still took another year of fighting the FAI to get them to officially recognize the attempt as an official record, but in the end the determined Earhart prevailed.<br />
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Meanwhile NC-538M stayed on with Lockheed, who used it as a demonstrator aircraft. On October 14, 1931, the Vega crashed in Greencastle, Indiana. Supposedly, at least one of the wings was later used to rebuild another Vega, s/n 99.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEixwiKQT2jGS8TOjxYPhNRfXhG-Zgh1_kJ5vNs5t3N8HmFwzf7v1elZVdrnKqZTzHEfM91PCu5bHFowEBPxqH4TZE7LkUos5GIASY5NzN_hqcfeuk_6m4v-fWNeoHtqvM7BCBSmEVdpg/s1600/va-vega-01-back-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEixwiKQT2jGS8TOjxYPhNRfXhG-Zgh1_kJ5vNs5t3N8HmFwzf7v1elZVdrnKqZTzHEfM91PCu5bHFowEBPxqH4TZE7LkUos5GIASY5NzN_hqcfeuk_6m4v-fWNeoHtqvM7BCBSmEVdpg/s320/va-vega-01-back-6.jpg" height="196" width="320" /></a>The photo itself is back stamped "Grand Central Air Terminal Photo Services", and came from R.C. Talbot's camera.
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-36119389552506624112015-04-16T04:46:00.000-07:002015-04-16T04:46:16.008-07:00Grace's Mystery RyanHere’s one that has stumped me. This is a 1920s press photo (the back has a file date of July 14, 1927), and the caption pasted to the back (a common practice for press photos) consists of two words: “Grace’s plane.”<br />
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So who was “Grace?” During that era, it would not have been proper to use a woman’s first name in this manner, so presumably it is a last name. There is no one by that name in the <i>Who’s Who in Aviation History</i>, there is no one by that name listed in the <i>Early Birds of Aviation</i>. However, in the list of early movie stunt pilots, one name stands out at the top: Dick Grace.
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Grace had been a combat pilot during WWI, and following the war, hit the barnstorming circuit. From there he found his way into the movies, and carved out a niche for himself as the go-to person for airplane crashes. Grace approach crashes with more science than bravado, learning to understand how a plane comes apart in a crash, and thus how to add safety features so that a crash can look devastating on-camera and yet be survivable for the stunt pilot. He invented his own safety equipment, including a chest harness that was designed to break away at a certain point in order to absorb some of the energy.
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Through his career, he managed to crash upwards of 50 planes, although he didn’t always walk away. During the filming of the 1927 Gary Cooper film <i>Wings</i>, Graces safety equipment failed him, and his head smashed into the instrument panel. Although he didn’t realize it at the time, he had broken his neck and crushed four vertebrae. The doctors told him to expect to stay in a neck brace in the hospital for a year, but he checked himself out six weeks later, and returned to crashing planes. In all, Grace claimed to have broken over 80 bones during his career.
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Grace was an active member of the Associated Motion Picture Pilots guild, and was involved in the 1932 film <i>Sky Bride</i> in which stunt pilot and AMPP president <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/search/label/Leo%20Nomis" target="_blank">Leo Nomis</a> was killed. During WWII, he re-enlisted and flew combat missions as a B-17 co-pilot (one has to wonder what the rest of the crew thought about flying with a guy who’d deliberately crashed so many planes!).
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Not satisfied with merely being a stunt pilot, Grace also tried his hand at acting, with his first lead role in <i>The Flying Fool</i> (1925; not to be confused with 1929 flick of the same name). In the July 1930 issue of <i>Modern Mechanix</i>, Grace wrote an extensive article, <a href="http://blog.modernmechanix.com/crashing-planes-for-the-movie/" target="_blank">which can be read online</a>, on how he accomplished the movie crashes (it’s well-worth the read!). He also wrote a number of books on his exploits, including <i>Squadron of Death </i>and <i>Crash Pilot</i>. Unlike most movie stunt pilots of his era, Grace didn’t die in a plane crash, but rather of emphysema at the age of 67 (possibly suggesting that smoking is more dangerous than being on board a crashing airplane!).
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So what’s the plane? It’s hard to identify it because there’s no registration number: such numbers weren’t required until after 1927. But by configuration, it appears to be a Ryan M-1 mailplane with some unusual modifications. In comparing this photo to the M-1, there are many striking similarities, including the engine cowling (and lack of top cowling), engine bracing, landing gear, wing struts, horizontal stab braces, and tail shape. But there are two unusual aspects to this plane. The first is that the wings and the horizontal stab fabric skin appear to be translucent.<br />
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The second is the cockpit: the standard M-1 had an open, two-person cockpit, with the wing being a parasol configuration, so that the pilot had visibility underneath it. It appears that the fuselage has been built up to the bottom of the wing, and the cockpit has been enclosed. This same configuration was used on Lindbergh’s NYP, which was based on the M-1 and M-2, and on the NYP, the space was used to house the extra-large fuel tank required for the trans-Atlantic trip. It’s entirely possible, then that this plane was similarly modified, possibly for an endurance flight attempt, although I have found no record of such an event.
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I can find no indication that Dick Grace owned an M-1 (his name doesn’t show up in the old registration lists, but then again it wouldn’t if this plane crashed and didn’t make it into the age of aircraft N numbers). One possibility for the mods, of course, was movie work. As mentioned above, Grace was famous for carefully modifying aircraft so that the drama of the crash would be enhanced on-camera, while he would be protected during the shoot. Could this have been a plane modified to look like a different one for a movie shoot?
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But maybe this plane has nothing to do with Dick Grace at all. If so, whose was it? And why was it so modified?
Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-54911578415977177732015-04-12T15:40:00.003-07:002015-04-12T15:40:26.166-07:00Gilmore's Electra<i>Note: Since this was original posted in late 2014, it has been rewritten and expanded, so is being re-posted.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiVnCKVBqbcaaq3H2oFj3yaRwSLy5Vf1aRZQG57EN-TU-CUVxQrIoaZgSROg9PxqCdfzhDCDDK3Kil2UsibFSN_uFHJjQHKJelQdrPaXRzODqf15HyTdwxtMRFPuXZ60Wo6UKVDpR9uQ/s1600/va-lockheed12A-gilmore-01cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiVnCKVBqbcaaq3H2oFj3yaRwSLy5Vf1aRZQG57EN-TU-CUVxQrIoaZgSROg9PxqCdfzhDCDDK3Kil2UsibFSN_uFHJjQHKJelQdrPaXRzODqf15HyTdwxtMRFPuXZ60Wo6UKVDpR9uQ/s1600/va-lockheed12A-gilmore-01cr-2k.jpg" height="514" width="640" /></a></div>
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During the 1930s, the Bureau of Air Commerce had been trying hard to promote the advancement of aviation in general, and airline travel in particular. After Lockheed successfully introduced their 10-passenger Model 10 Electra airliner in 1935, the Bureau saw the need for a smaller yet modern aircraft to be used by "feeder" airlines, and so sponsored a contest to promote the development of such a plane. <br />
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Lockheed scaled down the Electra airframe (but kept the same 450-hp engines) and introduced it as the Model 12 Electra Junior. Because the other two competitors (one of which was the Beechcraft Model 18) weren't ready by the June 30, 1936 deadline, the Electra Junior won by default.
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NC18130 is a Model 12A, serial 1226, and rolled off the assembly line at the end of June, 1937. It was bought by oil tycoon F. C. Hall as the successor to his Winnie Mae and named Villa. Hall decided to sponsor its entry into the 1937 Bendix Trophy race from Burbank to Cleveland. The Electra Junior was flown by airshow pilot Milo Burcham (who in 1933 had established a world record of sorts by flying inverted for just over four hours), and Lockheed modified the plane with an extra internal fuselage fuel tank, allowing Burcham to fly the course non-stop.
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For the race, Hall and his wife flew onboard with Burcham, and even though the plane carried passengers (not a normal thing in an air race!), the Lockheed airliner was so fast that they came in only a few minutes after a Seversky racer flown by Frank Sinclair. The effort resulted in a fifth place finish.
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In November 1937, the plane moved over to Gilmore Oil, where it received the company’s trademark cream and crimson colosr scheme, and lion logo. Gilmore then used it as their executive transport plane.
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In November 1941, Gilmore sold the plane to the Free French Air Force (FAFL), and she headed to war in Europe. The FAFL used the plane in various roles, from anti-submarine patrol to troop transport, to VIP transport for Generals Maréchel LeClerc and De Gaulle. Amazingly, she survived, and spent the next 65 years in Europe, principally in France, England and Ireland, owned for much of that time by the British Earl of Granard.
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NC18130 is one of only ten or so Electra Juniors to have survived into the 21st century, and is the lowest time airframe of the bunch. In September 2007, after sitting for many years in storage in France, the Lockheed was restored to flying condition and returned to America, where it was once again registered as NC18130.
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As of this writing, the plane has received a complete restoration in Monroe, Washington, and is currently for sale! If you want to purchase (or just oogle the restoration pics), you can see its listing on <a href="http://www.warbirdconnection.com/forsalePages/Lockheed_12A.html" target="_blank">the Warbird Connection website.</a> A very detailed history (in PDF form) <a href="http://airborneattitude.com/pdfs/1226_complete.pdf" target="_blank">can be seen here</a>.<br />
<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-18492591878515383212015-04-09T05:00:00.000-07:002015-04-12T16:01:47.514-07:00Heavy Lifting Zenith Albatross at GlendaleAnother day, another photo with a cool, forgotten story, and some mystery to it. This is an Acme Newspictures 8x10 press photo, taken at Glendale Grand Central Air Terminal. The plane is the one-off Zenith Z-12 Albatross.<br />
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The caption pasted on the back reads:<br />
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CALIFORNIA PLANE TO MAKE PACIFIC FLIGHT - The “Albatross”, a tri-motored plane built at Los Angeles, is being prepared for a flight over the Pacific Ocean this spring or early summer. Photo shows the size of the wings --90-foot spread--as compared with the people who came to look at the plane.</blockquote>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8VpIekwkaATVpxvwHRhdLt_nzFUqamevJVQ5vUWf4qDQnql96ZsJWp45ScVG1dkV65QZEwign5V_8pIXGO7OileuRc3OV9p8PCTqNJNb9l28DiNsoq53DhzJR_0wRz3ptTkMJirps0o/s1600/va-albatross-z12-reverse-cr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_8VpIekwkaATVpxvwHRhdLt_nzFUqamevJVQ5vUWf4qDQnql96ZsJWp45ScVG1dkV65QZEwign5V_8pIXGO7OileuRc3OV9p8PCTqNJNb9l28DiNsoq53DhzJR_0wRz3ptTkMJirps0o/s1600/va-albatross-z12-reverse-cr.jpg" height="70" width="200" /></a>This photo is very similar to one - just at a slightly different angle - of the Z-12 which is available online as well as in John Underwood’s book on GCAT, <i>Madcaps, Millionaires and “Mose”</i>. The grandstands behind the plane were built specifically for GCAT’s dedication festivities in February, 1929, which suggests when this photo was taken.<br />
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In 1927, Zenith was a southern California manufacturer of farm equipment and machinery, but the sudden national obsession with aviation after Lindbergh’s flight sparked the owners of the Midway City, California company that there might be some money to be made building airplanes. As Lindbergh proved, making a record flight in spectacular fashion in front of the media was a surefire means of instant success. So, for their first project, started on October 1, 1927, Zenith decided to build a mammoth plane (“largest plane on the west coast”, as it was billed at the time) and try to set some records with it; both the mission and the plane’s giant wings seem to have suggested the name Albatross. <br />
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Zenith was founded by, John Willingham, Maurice Price, Sterling Price, Albin K. Peterson and Charles Rocheville (the latter being a rather interesting US Navy officer; <a href="http://eaavintage.org/december-2015-mystery/" target="_blank">this EAA webpage</a> has a fascinating bio of him). Peterson, who had also served in the Navy, and Rocheville were the design engineers for the project. Their goal was a large parasol-wing monoplane capable of carrying at least 12 people (hence the Z-12 designation), and able to fly for an extended amount of time.<br />
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During the building, the naysayers expressed concern that the large airplane was woefully underpowered, and likely wouldn’t be able to get off the ground. Usefulness - the ability to carry a load and actually accomplish something useful - had been a major challenge for aviation design for the first three decades of the industry, for the same reason that flight itself was delayed longer than it should have been. Flight didn’t happen until the Wright Brothers’ success not because airplane builders didn’t have the basic concepts, it didn’t happen because there weren’t any engines that were powerful enough yet light enough to get a plane off the ground. And even when that threshold had been crossed, it was only barely so. For the first couple of decades of aviation, planes could fly and fight (a bit), but could do little more of practical value.<br />
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That’s one of the things the Zenith team set out to change with their Z-12 project, and they succeeded. The Albatross took merely 90 days to build, and flew for the first time on January 2, 1928 (another source lists the date as January 9), with Rocheville and Peterson at the controls, and carrying the registration NX-3622. Despite the naysayers, performance was actually surprisingly good. The plot of land that the initial testing took place on measured 2,000 feet by 1,200 feet, but that was plenty: in a no-wind condition, the takeoff roll was a mere 150 feet, and the climb to 2,000 feet altitude took only four minutes; landing speed was 25 knots...all a testimony to what such a large wing could do.<br />
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With flight achieved, the team immediately set out to garner the kind of media attention that only record flights can bring, and the team had their sights set on endurance. They moved their flight test operation to the barren wastes of the Imperial Valley and set up shop on the shore of a dry lake. The Z-12 was equipped with two 400-gallon wing fuel tanks, as well as a 900-gallon one in the fuselage. In early February, the Albatross was topped off with just over 200 gallons of Richfield Oil's donated gasoline for the first try at endurance flying. Peterson and Rocheville were joined by Jack Reid as radio operator and relief pilot (replacing W.L Shields, who served in that same position during earlier testing). After less than an hour in the air, though, one of the fuselage fuel tank seams split open, forcing the crew to land.<br />
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After repairs were accomplished, a second attempt was made, with much better results. After 27 hours, fourteen minutes, one of the engines (which had been operating at full-throttle) began to overheat, and the crew called it quites. The plane was powered by three Ryan-Siemens 125-horsepower 9-cylinder radials, but in reality they only put out around 90 horses, necessitating the full-throttle operations. One more attempt was made, and this time the plane carried even more fuel than before, for a total takeoff weight of 13,898 pounds. The third try was definitely not the charm, as after nine hours, 45 minutes, more engine problems - traced to a rocker arm failure - forced the flight down, and no further attempts were made.<br />
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However, in the process of making this last attempt at an endurance record, the team set two other records, which might not be so glamorous to the press and aren't tracked by the FAI, but had tremendous meaning to the aircraft design community. In order to fly for a really long time, one has to carry a lot of fuel and a lot of oil (engines of that era actually consumed large quantities of their lubricating oil), which means that the plane would have to lift a lot of weight, and therein lies the real "gold" of the team's record efforts - the two records that the team accomplished were ones that had some practical value. The first was for lift. Up to this point in the history of aviation, the most any plane had lifted was only a small fraction of its own weight. The Albatross, however, was shown to be able to lift a stunning 2.47 times its own weight, with its immense wing area.<br />
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The second record was also one that would appeal especially to engineers: lift-to-horsepower. Up to that point, the most that had been achieved was about 25 pounds per horsepower, and aviation technology was only improving in very small percentage increments. The Albatross, however, smashed that with a record book figure of 38.3 pounds per horsepower (based on actual power output, not the rated power of the engines), a remarkable leap of over 50% improvement. That the Zenith team was able to achieve these kinds of numbers was nothing short of an engineering breakthrough. What this showed, too, was that the team's original goal, 60-70 hours of endurance, was achievable based on carrying the needed weight of fuel and oil. What they lacked was engine reliability.<br />
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A planned fourth flight was dropped, and Rocheville parted ways with Zenith to set up his own company (along with brother Henry), possibly because as an engineer, he wanted to focus on continuing to develop aircraft for endurance records, and the rest wanted to focus on commercial production. Peterson and the rest of the crew worked on and saw modest success with the smaller Z-6 airliner (one of these has been gorgeously restored to flying condition, as documented in <a href="http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/restoration-17309062/?page=1&no-ist" target="_blank">this Air & Space article</a>).<br />
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As the Z-12 and the endurance records had been Rocheville's passion more than Peterson's, NX-3622 and the rights to build production models (contemporary media had claimed that several orders had been placed, but how accurate this was is doubtful) were sold off to Schofield, Inc., headed by G. L. Schofield and Harry Miller, which accounts for the company’s name being blazoned across the bottom of the wing in our photo. Schofield and company clearly had the idea that the endurance potential of the design promised an opportunity for a go at making the first trans-Pacific flight, if only the engine reliability could be addressed. The Z-12, now known as the Schofield Albatross was re-engined first with Axelsons (probably the 150-hp Axelson B) and then with the 170-hp Western Enterprise Engines L-7. However, there is no record that I could find of any successful endurance test flights, and certainly no record (other than several publicity photos) of a serious attempt at the trans-Pacific flight.<br />
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Meanwhile, in 1928 the Zenith company was replaced by Albatross Aircraft Company (aka American Albatross), although the personnel remained the same (less Rocheville, for the moment), and the work was moved to Long Beach, California. This move suggests a change in financial backing as the company struggled to both make a name for themselves and to start selling production Z-6 aircraft. Rocheville still maintained some involvement with the new company, and worked on the design of the Albatross B, or B-1, which was very similar to the Z-12 but with a single engine, and the two airframes that were built were both used in endurance record attempts (we<a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-pride-of-hollywood.html" target="_blank"> did a blog post </a>back in 2013 on one of these, <i>The Pride of Hollywood.</i>)
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About a year later, the whole operation was sold to E. M. Smith & Associates of Long Beach (a manufacturer of asbestos products), which then changed its name to EMSCO, and moved to Downey, California. EMSCO brought Rocheville back as a Vice President and designer, and he continued to build aircraft based on lessons learned with earlier attempts. The Z-12 was thus reborn, albeit somewhat scaled down, as the EMSCO B-2 Challenger, two of which were built.
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NX-3622 appears to have made at least one motion picture appearance, when it played the part of a wrecked Fokker in the 1928 show Conquest, directed by Roy Del Ruth; according to IMDb, this film has been lost.<br />
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The fate of NX-3622 is also documented historically, as can be seen in this circa 1939 image from the California Historical Society that resides in the USC Digital Library, and in this image managed by Corvis. The Albatross, now with “Royal” appended to it, appears to have become part of a service station in Studio City, and shows a fair amount of alteration. Besides the obviously fake (and way too small) engines, the outboard wing struts have been shortened and are at a much steeper angle (probably done so that cars pulling up to the pumps wouldn’t hit them, and the forward fuselage seems to have been covered over with sheet metal. Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-60445530335013277192015-04-02T05:00:00.000-07:002015-04-02T05:00:09.769-07:00Clues from Everybody's SweetheartAlmost every photo has a story to tell, but getting it to speak is sometimes harder than at other times. Sometimes, a little bit of sleuthing can reveal a bit about a photo that initially looks like it contains no usable information, and that chase is part of the fun of finding and preserving these photos. Take, for instance, this group photo of at least some of the personnel from a B-24 Liberator squadron. Found in a pile of snapshots at an antique store, there is no information written on the back, so very little to go on, especially since the plane shown is seen nose-on. But if you look close, at the far right of the image, you’ll see a B-24 vertical stabilizer, and it’s lower than one would expect, meaning that it’s been removed from the aircraft.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYjVHgJZI8FR156wDHSoMR024DhzTimTh3fKIa3qxkp6eNU9CF5toVov4OEeWBgy8mOpJ2hEi6ZpcTFtxJ7LOPFpsi7c5hk6lWlua5kg1tI3A38DBHwNYxhc5OttgUlVLOXFpG6b6bK7Y/s1600/va-b24-04-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYjVHgJZI8FR156wDHSoMR024DhzTimTh3fKIa3qxkp6eNU9CF5toVov4OEeWBgy8mOpJ2hEi6ZpcTFtxJ7LOPFpsi7c5hk6lWlua5kg1tI3A38DBHwNYxhc5OttgUlVLOXFpG6b6bK7Y/s1600/va-b24-04-2k.jpg" height="382" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">While I can't say with 100% certainty, this is probably the 345th Bombardment Squadron at Lecce, Italy</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaqgiT2t2RtNuIY1-YrGOuZZ5GoM55_qkRs1Op5sUFU-LhnnVDmaEWe3XioXeNZQGJtHAeDPea3Ix1YrbI-zswcAOdn8dtZ5-qgsy7qURZiVGMNbgzAotlGEwxsatik-TL_1VnEZaWyUs/s1600/va-b24-04-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaqgiT2t2RtNuIY1-YrGOuZZ5GoM55_qkRs1Op5sUFU-LhnnVDmaEWe3XioXeNZQGJtHAeDPea3Ix1YrbI-zswcAOdn8dtZ5-qgsy7qURZiVGMNbgzAotlGEwxsatik-TL_1VnEZaWyUs/s1600/va-b24-04-cr2.jpg" height="245" width="320" /></a></div>
The number on the stab, 264372, means that this came from aircraft 42-64372, a B-24J which was known as <i>Everybody’s Sweetheart</i>. After returning from a bombing mission against the Steyr Walzlagerwerke (or Steyr Ball Bearing Factory; this facility was responsible for 10-15% of Germany’s ball bearing production capacity, and thus was a critical target) in Austria on 2 April 1944 (yes, there’s a reason this post is running on April 2nd!), <i>Everybody’s Sweetheart</i> was shot up by ME109s and badly damaged, with four of the crew injured. The right tire had been hit, so the plane ran off the runway on landing.<br />
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There are two photos on the internet that show the wreck of <i>Everybody’s Sweetheart</i>, one <a href="http://www.b24bestweb.com/everybodyssweetheart1.htm" target="_blank">here</a> and one <a href="http://www.b24bestweb.com/everybodyssweetheart2.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. The photos show that the left vertical stabilizer had been pretty well shot up, but the right appears unscathed. Army records show that the plane was “salvaged” on 4 April 1944, and it would make sense, then, that the maintenance crews would save a perfectly good stabilizer and rudder that then might be able to be used on another aircraft, later.<br />
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<i>Everybody’s Sweetheart</i> was assigned to the 345th Bombardment Squadron, 98th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force, and during this timeframe, the 345th was stationed at Lecce Airfield, Italy (way down in the “heel” of the country), so it’s likely that this is the squadron and location where our photo was taken.<br />
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There is also a first-person account of the landing by waist gunner Gene Robinson that has been preserved online, <a href="http://www.redwingareaseniors.org/laststory.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Sadly, though, the identity of the main Liberator in our photo remains a mystery.Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-299746593505764372015-03-26T05:00:00.000-07:002015-04-11T11:59:09.289-07:00The Plight of the First Air Force One<i>4/11 update: The Archive just acquired a second photo of 8610, which has been added to the article below.</i><br />
<i>3/27 update: Looks like there's hope after all! Be sure to read the addendum at the end of the article.</i><br />
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Our story starts like so many others around here...a little snapshot in a booth at an antique mall for a buck. A closer look showing that this might be something a bit more special, and some preliminary research that reveals a very cool story that's very relevant to today!<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UVz-P7K9X9ppF062AJSSlrMSztSruO2bUHE0rMOv6FSh2nJEnDYno-OMyn_OUKiPfrSH0V4MKPCpyZ8HU5W-87Y3E2cpAD1eUSR2HZgiI2S_BKRbIv5K076_N-3CGzfXIzeIgQVDr_E/s1600/va-af1-cr2-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UVz-P7K9X9ppF062AJSSlrMSztSruO2bUHE0rMOv6FSh2nJEnDYno-OMyn_OUKiPfrSH0V4MKPCpyZ8HU5W-87Y3E2cpAD1eUSR2HZgiI2S_BKRbIv5K076_N-3CGzfXIzeIgQVDr_E/s1600/va-af1-cr2-2k.jpg" height="420" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This photo is dated November, 1953 by the processing lab.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyfLYKOHDlVC0kKJM6RY1qho8vwrOkTI1rgCOKr76cMA2SSJrwC6iSUmUNEqyT1Cz6RqUxeNfM5ufBMRt_FdTiu5BBqd_yzsV3-KXNMfv90y5anmiR2IzzzEwi3OwjCjU_g_upDLFaPng/s1600/va-af1-cr3-1k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyfLYKOHDlVC0kKJM6RY1qho8vwrOkTI1rgCOKr76cMA2SSJrwC6iSUmUNEqyT1Cz6RqUxeNfM5ufBMRt_FdTiu5BBqd_yzsV3-KXNMfv90y5anmiR2IzzzEwi3OwjCjU_g_upDLFaPng/s1600/va-af1-cr3-1k.jpg" height="219" width="320" /></a></div>
In the store, I showed this to my brother, and he noted the honor guard and the platform. "Must be someone important," was his comment. It occurred to me that President Eisenhower had used Connies as his presidential aircraft. So I paid the buck. The photo isn't as clear as I'd wish, but it's clear enough to make out the tail number, 8610 (aka 48-610), the very first Air Force One, and clear enough to see a man in black standing at the top of the stairs waving his hat to the crowd...presumably this is Ike.
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The plane has a remarkable story (and I find it ironic that it's probable that this snapshot was taken by someone capturing the moment of Ike's arrival, with little or no interest in imaging the airplane itself), with the Air Force One aspect just a part of the story...and this is a story that's continuing today.<br />
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The plane was born as a Plain-Jane Lockheed C-121A Constellation (model L-749-79-36, c/n 749-2602), one of a lot of nine ordered in 1948. After rolling off the assembly line in Burbank, Lockheed bailed it from the Air Force to be used as a company transport in Alaska for a while, before finally being delivered to the Air Force in 1950, when it was converted to VIP configuration (VC-121A-LO) for use by Eisenhower, who named it <i>Columbine II </i> (replacing a sister VC-121A, the original <i>Columbine</i>).<br />
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Some readers may take umbrage at my title for this post, protesting that there were earlier Presidential aircraft, and indeed they would be right. But this was the first "Air Force One". As most will recall, that title is not given to a specific airplane, it's a radio call sign used for any plane which POTUS is flying aboard. But it wasn't always so. Before 1953, the flight would simply used the plane's tail number, so for <i>Columbine II, </i>the call sign would be Air Force 8610. And this is exactly what happened on one day in 1953 when the Connie, with Ike onboard, was flying over New York. Unfortunately, at that moment also flying over New York was Eastern Airlines Flight 8610, and due to confusion induced by the similar call signs, the two planes almost collided. Eisenhower's pilot, Col. Billy Draper, is credited with finding the solution to the problem, coining the phrase "Air Force One" for use when the President was on board, and the tradition stuck (here's a <a href="http://www.ohio.com/lifestyle/history/local-history-cuyahoga-falls-aviator-billy-draper-named-air-force-one-as-eisenhower-s-pilot-1.543737" target="_blank">great bio on Draper</a>). Besides Eisenhower, a whole litany of other VIPs, including Queen Elizabeth II and Richard Nixon, flew on board <i>Columbine II.</i><br />
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<i>Columbine II,</i> which was based on the civilian Constellation airliner, was replaced in November 1954 with <i>Columbine III </i>(VC-121E, 53-7885), which was based on the larger Lockheed 1049 Super Constellation. Stripped of its name and fame, 48-610 was leased by the Air Force to Pan American Airways and given the civilian registration N9907F for a short time, and then transferred to the Government of Thailand. It was returned to the USAF in June 1955, and the service continued to operate it as a normal airlifter until retiring the old gal to Davis-Monthan AFB in April, 1968.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpmb4K-FrdalCQ8kvSK3k5YXnrHMO2acIueVkmxnxI1G89ZXdoRMGuuaFvyxASeJczb5VzKulfDpQGG31IfufLFbZ93YtU3qpxgnM3WzgZ8pPkTIvDgt5A_u8PS_DxuVf8F9SOpzaPtuc/s1600/va-af1-2-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpmb4K-FrdalCQ8kvSK3k5YXnrHMO2acIueVkmxnxI1G89ZXdoRMGuuaFvyxASeJczb5VzKulfDpQGG31IfufLFbZ93YtU3qpxgnM3WzgZ8pPkTIvDgt5A_u8PS_DxuVf8F9SOpzaPtuc/s1600/va-af1-2-cr-2k.jpg" height="322" width="640" /></a></div>
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Sometime around 1970, Christler Flying Service purchased several old Air Force Connies out of the boneyard, with the intent of turning them into large pest spraying aircraft. Unfortunately, 48-610 was in pretty rough shape, and Christler decided to simply use it as a source of spares to support the rest of their fleet. Enter the historians of the Smithsonian, who were researching the early presidential aircraft: they contacted Christler, who had no idea of the unique story behind their derelict, which they were getting ready to scrap. That changed everything, and funds were raised and the old gal was refurbished and actually returned to the air in 1990. The plane was flown to Abilene, Kansas, home of the Dwight D. Eisnhower Presidential Library and Museum for Ike's centennial. With fame rediscovered, Christler put the plane up for sale at auction, expecting that it would be picked up by a museum. It wasn't, and in 2005, she was flown back to Marana, Arizona, where she sits to this day. Ten years have taken a drastic toll on the plane and she is quite literally rotting away.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIKSYrdzhyphenhyphenJQpPNSfXxi6UF-uylBbPXiHHeJRQwW7_v0Hn5T82mi0v6pUn8VGMjl4pHRNaJJ2lg5VQF9ZY_sO_fxwKwrZk83JVQXAzlthdWonWmZdEnCqiPsR2RyhUEz8vTyJnKY3dOn0/s1600/va-af1-2-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIKSYrdzhyphenhyphenJQpPNSfXxi6UF-uylBbPXiHHeJRQwW7_v0Hn5T82mi0v6pUn8VGMjl4pHRNaJJ2lg5VQF9ZY_sO_fxwKwrZk83JVQXAzlthdWonWmZdEnCqiPsR2RyhUEz8vTyJnKY3dOn0/s1600/va-af1-2-cr2.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
A logical place for the plane to be preserved is in Eisenhower's home state of Kansas, but all the big museums, and even Ike's presidential library, simply down have any desire to do anything to save <i>Columbine II. </i>Recently, the plight of <i>Columbine II</i> has been publicized through social media, as efforts continue to find a way to preserve this unique piece of history; <a href="https://www.facebook.com/firstairforceone?ref=br_rs" target="_blank">the effort even has a Facebook page</a>. Every seems to think that it's a great idea, at least until the subject of money comes up, at which point the subject politely gets changed. So in a way, the plane itself is a bit like our found photo: simply discarded as forgotten and irrelevent.<br />
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There are two short documentaries about the plight of <i>Columbine II</i>, and I would recommend both, as they have a lot of great footage and interviews from key players:<br />
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There's an interesting aside to this story, as well. As I mentioned, <i>Columbine II</i> was one of a lot of nine Connies which the Air Force bought in 1948, and of the eight others, five of them have either survived or had a story of their own. Here's a quick overview:</div>
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48-609: After a two-decade Air Force career, 609 was retired to Davis-Monthan, and then was part of the group purchased by Christler. After almost a decade and a half doing spray work in both the US and Canada, the plane was purchased by none other than John Travolta, who re-registered it as N494TW, but ended up putting it in storage. It was then sold to aerospace entreprenieur Vern Raburn in 1991, who put the Connie through an extensive restoration before it was then sent to South Korea, where it is part of the permanent collection of the Korean Airlines Museum in 2005.</div>
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48-612: Following its Air Force service, 612 was also purchased by Christler in 1970, and then by Raburn in 1993, who oversaw its restoration. The plane then went to the Netherlands, where it is registered as PH-LDF.</div>
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48-613: This was General MacArthur's VIP transport, and he named it <i>Bataan</i>. Upon retirement in 1966, the aircraft was transferred to NASA, who used it as a transport for the Apollo program, flying between the west coast, Houston and Florida. When NASA no longer had need of it, 613 ended up at the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, before being picked up by Planes of Fame at Valle, Arizona.</div>
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48-614: This was the original <i>Columbine</i>, assigned to Eisenhower while he was still an active duty Army General. It is currently part of the collection of the Pima Air Museum.</div>
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48-615: Named <i>Dewdrop</i>, this was General Vandenberg's ride. After the Air Force, it was another one of Christler's spray birds. In 1976 she became a movie star, featured in the film <i>MacArthur</i>. Sadly, she then was turned into a freighter and came to an untimely end while flying for the Dominican carrier Aerolineas Argo. While on approach to Harry Truman Airport in St. Thomas, VI during a heavy rainstorm on October 26, 1981, she crashed into the sea; the three crewmembers were killed, but the two passengers onboard survived. The plane sank in 150 feet of water.<br />
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<i><b>3/27/15 update!</b></i><br />
After posting, it came to light from a user on Reddit that Karl Stoltzfus and his Dynamic Aviation, along with Scott Glover and the Mid America Flight Museum are currently evaluating <i>Columbine II </i>for purchase and restoration, with a final decision to be announced April 28th. There are three online articles covering this development, and as I learn more, I'll post more updates here.<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/presidential-connie-columbine-ii-fly-again.html" target="_blank">Warbird News, February 19, 2015</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/lockheed-constellation-columbine-ii-progress-report.html" target="_blank">Warbird News, March 19, 2015</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbird-restorations/columbine-ii-update.html" target="_blank">Warbird News, March 26, 2015</a></li>
</ul>
Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-51412297749405749522015-03-20T05:00:00.000-07:002015-03-21T19:44:59.563-07:00Maryland's CorsairSince today is the 95th anniversary of the launching of the battleship USS <i>Maryland </i>(BB-46)<i>, </i>it's appropriate that we celebrate with a photo of her. The small print in the Archive's collection isn't dated, but the ship appears to be at rest at Pearl Harbor. Of interest to us, of course, is the Vought O2U Corsair bobbing contentedly behind the mighty ship.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7hf07JjzxbzLuM-ObYi69eLfM_uyrNL3ScGx420JArFlShdvtPzu-KkTO3cLQzE_P0d5KzvXmvzx6Lexl1imBXR6Sxpw7jwoyaUBX67ZuQfHqX7cR29YYb1nLmd8_nkBfv5YkBGzt-V4/s1600/va-O2U-maryland-cr2-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7hf07JjzxbzLuM-ObYi69eLfM_uyrNL3ScGx420JArFlShdvtPzu-KkTO3cLQzE_P0d5KzvXmvzx6Lexl1imBXR6Sxpw7jwoyaUBX67ZuQfHqX7cR29YYb1nLmd8_nkBfv5YkBGzt-V4/s1600/va-O2U-maryland-cr2-2k.jpg" height="348" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;">If you look carefully, you can see two men on <i>Maryland's</i> turret catapult, probably preparing it for the hoist-aboard of the Corsair.The ship in the background is the USS <i>New Mexico.</i></td></tr>
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The <i>Maryland,</i> a dreadnaught of the Colorado class, was at Pearl during the infamous December 7th attack, but was only lightly damaged, and went on to lend her eight 16-inch guns to the effort in the Battles of Midway, Tarawa, Kwajalien, Saipan (where she took a torpedo to her bow), Leyte Gulf (hit by a kamikaze) and Okinawa (hit by yet another kamikaze). And yet she survived, at least until 1947 when she succumbed to the scrapper's torch.<br />
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Before posting this photo here, I had supplied it to Navsource.org, who used it on the <a href="http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/46c.htm" target="_blank">Maryland's web page</a>. There, researcher Alan Moore provided some valuable information on the plane itself. He wrote:<br />
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Two aspects of the aircraft's markings are date-indicative. The first is the fuselage markings, 5 / 8, which signify VO-5's (Observation Squadron 5's) eighth aircraft. The symbol for Observation Squadron would later be changed from "/" to "O," making the marking 5-O-8. </blockquote>
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The second is the solid-color painted tail surfaces. Prior to the adoption of this practice, the rudders where painted with vertical Red-White-Blue stripes. The solid-colored tails were to identify the aircraft of a squadron, each squadron having it's own tail color. Each Battleship Division had its own squadron, with the planes distributed among the ships of the Division. Therefore, the planes on the ships of a Division had the same tail color. So this photo was taken after the adoption of painted tail surfaces but before the change of / to O. I can't find a specific date for either practice, only a vague "around 1930" or (in the case of the O) "in 1930." </blockquote>
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A third factor leading to the date is the existence of the squadron, VO-5B. William Larkins, in his Battleship and Cruiser Aircraft of the United States Navy 1910-1949, writes "VO-5B was only in commission for three years, 1927-1930, so planes with these markings are rare." (page 176) </blockquote>
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In the same work Larkins lists BatDiv5's ships as West Virginia (BB-48) (Flagship), Tennessee (BB-43), Maryland and Colorado (BB-45).</blockquote>
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From this photo I can't distinguish an O2U-2 from a -3 (Larkins lists both.) but it's definitely not an O2U-1, which had a different rudder. Appended is his aircraft breakdown for Maryland.<br />
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Date Division Squadron Aircraft <br />
7/1926 Five VO-1 2 UO-1<br />
7/1927 Five VO-1B 2 UO-1, 1 OL-3, 1 FU-1<br />
7/1928 Five VO-5B 3 O2U-1, 1 OL-6<br />
7/1929 Five VO-5B 11 O2U-1, 1 O2U-2 [These are the aircraft for the entire Division, not just MD.]<br />
6/1930 Five 6 O2U-1, 1 O2U-3 [ditto: aircraft for entire Division]<br />
7/1931 One VO-1B 4 O2U-1, 1 O3U-2 [ditto; (Larkins lists only two ships, MD and ID)]</blockquote>
<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-49389292311496252562015-03-13T20:27:00.000-07:002015-04-04T17:29:23.707-07:00An Unlucky VegaThe story with this photo is pretty thin, if a bit unlucky, which is appropriate since today is Friday the 13th. Shown is Lockheed Vega 1 serial 12B, NC7425, and its pilot Ralph E. Morrison at Mills Field in San Francisco (which later became San Francisco International). The plane was delivered on August 21, 1928.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUn1ruhCut5beyBlYM8QHIk_dqV3BA-brxD2rBSaF0glfBylj7UAjgftGeTpxpMTQI5w-0D3VgMyaS-2Vn9tifnKslT-4XQHYH908BVuSBcnyjh4nVPFiOoJKDFZukRrBBNDeT-8TMFRM/s1600/va-vega-01-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUn1ruhCut5beyBlYM8QHIk_dqV3BA-brxD2rBSaF0glfBylj7UAjgftGeTpxpMTQI5w-0D3VgMyaS-2Vn9tifnKslT-4XQHYH908BVuSBcnyjh4nVPFiOoJKDFZukRrBBNDeT-8TMFRM/s1600/va-vega-01-cr-2k.jpg" height="360" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hand-dated on back Feb. 1931</td></tr>
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The one remarkable thing about this plane is its serial number. Yes, this was the 13th airplane built by Lockheed. In an era when superstitions were given semi-official status, instead of getting serial number (or construction number) 13, they used 12B (think about it from the Sales Dept's point of view: would you want to try to sell ship #13?).<br />
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After less than seven years after rolling out of Lockheed's Burbank factory, the Vega's luck ran out, and it suffered a forced landing near a place called “Fishtrap” on April 21, 1935 and was abandoned (not sure which state, as far as I can determine, there are four states that have a community called Fishtrap, Alabama, Kentucky, Montana and Washington...and it’s my guess that the crash took place either in Montana or Washington).<br />
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I've not been able to find any info on Morrison.<br />
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According to the French website <a href="http://aeromovies.fr/articles.php?lng=fr&pg=738" target="_blank">Aeromovies</a>, NC-7425 supposedly appears in the 1931 flick <i>Air Eagles</i>. Google translates the applicable paragraph from French to English as “At the end of the film, Eve and the agents of the mining company, embark on a Lockheed Vega 1 12B (NC7425) . This aircraft will be damaged during a forced landing in 1935 and abandoned. The Vega 1, released in 1927, was an ultra modern aircraft at the time and will be the source of a long line of famous aircraft.”
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You can go see this utterly forgettable excuse for a movie for yourself at <a href="http://free-classic-movies.com/movies-03g/03g-1931-12-20-Air-Eagles/index.php" target="_blank">Free Classic Movies</a>. The acting is terrible, the writing is boring, but if you want to see dog fights between a Travel Air (NC3621) and a Catron-Fisk CF-13 (NC3404, and the only CF-13 ever built, by the way) and later between two Travel Airs (the other being NC945Y) over the San Gabriel Mountains (flying was probably staged out of Glendale, and I’m pretty sure I recognized Big Tujunga Road at one point), then this is the blockbuster for you. And, where else can you still hear the smooth roar of a Lockheed Vega? The Vega makes its first appearance at 57:02, and its second at 1:05:56. I watched that first clip over and over again, and have come to the conclusion that Aeromovies is incorrect, the airplane featured isn’t NC7425, but rather sister ship NC7427...as it looks to me that there’s a “7” at the end of the number on the bottom of the wing, rather than a “5”. Almost a movie star...how unlucky. And this makes sense, too, as NC7427 was registered to Wilson Aircraft, and Al Wilson was a well-known movie pilot of the late 20s and early 30s (he was killed in a crash at the 1932 National Air Races).Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-7681075062330627212015-03-05T05:00:00.000-08:002015-03-05T05:00:00.814-08:00Volunteer at RestHere are three more photos from our small collection that came from the San Francisco UPI office when it closed in the late 1960s. The date is probably 1931 or 1932, the location is a Goodyear plant, probably in Southern California. The airship is the <i>Volunteer,</i> the same blimp featured in last week's photo.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhyphenhyphenkcWauJrfaPBnckVrQ-BQm7Se1Yzb1P9L5_HNE9HVfiy7nwvGqjBMKwVqETM3npu8yDO3_U3J_rgTob-SWhBYd8AxQYu6yU7-fg8aCTqwgVA8nap6YATB7wvj67vBh_nKXn5MAu0x8/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-02-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhyphenhyphenkcWauJrfaPBnckVrQ-BQm7Se1Yzb1P9L5_HNE9HVfiy7nwvGqjBMKwVqETM3npu8yDO3_U3J_rgTob-SWhBYd8AxQYu6yU7-fg8aCTqwgVA8nap6YATB7wvj67vBh_nKXn5MAu0x8/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-02-2k.jpg" height="496" width="640" /></a></div>
The <i>Volunteer</i> was Goodyear’s second Type TZ airship, and fourth overall (after <i>Pilgrim</i> <i>I</i> and <i>II</i>, and the <i>Puritan</i>). Goodyear’s president, Paul Litchfield, had a penchant for naming the airships after America’s Cup yachts, seeing the blimps as yachts of the sky.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGHaY-A_XjQM8jvQgTwp38abL1BqWcAlRAh7xy6ULKgmhe4vefqnyHiDajnmeXQsc8dcSKh53WdJWoI3KkNsu5WFcsDAEqWkdqeIbIknjnNKaIf3XzZ7Ll4lkYthbzkfVFMFnqbGtV470/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-02-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGHaY-A_XjQM8jvQgTwp38abL1BqWcAlRAh7xy6ULKgmhe4vefqnyHiDajnmeXQsc8dcSKh53WdJWoI3KkNsu5WFcsDAEqWkdqeIbIknjnNKaIf3XzZ7Ll4lkYthbzkfVFMFnqbGtV470/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-02-cr-2k.jpg" height="358" width="640" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWn8xg_E6PrtFYRPIFy0_ktqeVoH6E9FsCDyKb8A-G6lRZYL-fVfi58Lgmz5aO0C6DdZ3xikzEkcRKe6CninhWov4S9PRU8tO0iNfHCpXM0FwQIeEmKnfWmVH9yVa5BTU1X9SlCDO2DgQ/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-01-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWn8xg_E6PrtFYRPIFy0_ktqeVoH6E9FsCDyKb8A-G6lRZYL-fVfi58Lgmz5aO0C6DdZ3xikzEkcRKe6CninhWov4S9PRU8tO0iNfHCpXM0FwQIeEmKnfWmVH9yVa5BTU1X9SlCDO2DgQ/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-01-2k.jpg" height="400" width="312" /></a>These three photos also feature Goodyear's west coast portable mooring mast, a 1930 Ford Model AA, the truck version of the Model A passenger car. It was fitted with a collapsable mooring mast and outriggers to keep it from tipping. The mast included a pivot which allowed the airship to weathervane. A <a href="http://theoldmotor.com/?p=56201" target="_blank">Buick bus</a> performed similar duties for Goodyear's east-coast airship. Now that Goodyear is transitioning from blimps to Zeppelins, they have <a href="http://www.macktrucks.com/community/mack-news/2014/goodyear-chooses-mack-granite-to-moor-blimp/" target="_blank">selected a massive Mack truck</a> to serve the same purpose in 21st Century.<br />
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The <i>Volunteer</i> series airships were the west-coast Goodyear advertising representatives. The first one first flew on April 27, 1929, and sported a 128-foot long, 36-foot diameter envelope which held up to 86,000 cubic feet of helium.<br />
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The <i>Volunteer I</i> was retired in late 1929, when Goodyear decided to replace the envelope with a larger, 96,000 cu. ft. one (it was 133 feet long with a 39 foot diameter), and the original 82hp Siemens-Halska engines were replaced with 110-hp Warner Scarabs. The “new” <i>Volunteer</i> retained the original car, and the original NC-8A registration number. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg66j3Jfr5tS_MmtIcvl5upZddF_1ADN1zqi3SbpfrKsfs2VtGx-8BuqLB5_TWG9VwcwZ3af2Ye9ytBBJDvylZurBHZISpuwOU46KdsIurx9b7tckFgoCcyGS2nWnZccTsP43v0O3MfAY/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-03-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg66j3Jfr5tS_MmtIcvl5upZddF_1ADN1zqi3SbpfrKsfs2VtGx-8BuqLB5_TWG9VwcwZ3af2Ye9ytBBJDvylZurBHZISpuwOU46KdsIurx9b7tckFgoCcyGS2nWnZccTsP43v0O3MfAY/s1600/va-goodyear-volunteer-03-2k.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></a>The <i>II</i> only lasted for two years (so, if my math is right, the <i>II</i> is the airship shown in our three photos), because Goodyear decided once again to expand the size of the envelope, installing 112,000 cu-ft bags. Ultimatey, there were three iterations of the <i>Volunteer</i> with this configuration, III, IV and V. In each case, the car and the registration were reused.
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Odd little trivia twist: the <i>Volunteer</i> (the airship) was named after the <i>Volunteer </i>(the yacht) which was built in 1887 and successfully defended the America's Cup against the Scottish challenger <i>Thistle</i> that same year. The <i>Volunteer, </i>along with the two previous America's Cup yachts <i>Puritan</i> (1885) and <i>Mayflower </i>(1886) (which also had blimps named after them), was designed by Boston maritime architect Edward Burgess, the father of W. Starling Burgess who started the Burgess Company, the largest manufacturer of license-built Wright Brothers aircraft, until he sold out to Glenn Curtiss in 1916.<br />
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-77126963793698472842015-02-26T05:00:00.000-08:002015-02-28T13:17:53.913-08:00A Busy Day at GlendaleFor a few magical years before World War II, Glendale's Grand Central Air Terminal was the hub of the aviation scene in Southern California, and so there was always something going on. On this day, probably sometime in 1932 or 1933, Goodyear's Type TZ airship <i>Volunteer</i> descends steeply for a landing while T&WA's Fokker F-32 NC-333N taxis up to the terminal. Just another day at Glendale....<br />
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The <i>Volunteer</i> (and the registration NC-8A) was actually a series of airships that all utilized the same gondola or "car", but which were equipped with progressively larger envelopes. Our photo most likely shows the <i>Volunteer III</i>, which first flew on September 5, 1931.<br />
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Also visible in the photo is Roscoe Turner's Gilmore Oil Lockheed Air Express (NR3057), a parasol-wing variant of the venerable Vega, and just beyond it, the window line of a <strike>Lockheed Orion, probably one of Varney Air's</strike> Northrop Delta (several folks, including Tim Kalina and John Underwood, wrote to correct me on this one!).<br />
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Although <i>Volunteer</i> wasn't based at Glendale, she was a frequent visitor. The photo below comes from the Archive's R.C. Talbott negative collection and features California Governor James Rolph getting a ride on the <i>Volunteer; </i>there's no way to tell whether this was on the same day as the photo above, or another visit by the airship.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhazM6Xy8Jrj0CbKhMLYijMpY_ZwtgCf-lAupqauLgDqNpX3VaoBKgXUUYTPylwGPiAj3vn4_837WNdnXCJOV99386NYeDjS5pWVJoy4zMpxvMH8kUGRq9quKF5mhmPNOkEOLKJfr_pFa8/s1600/glendale-goodyear-01-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhazM6Xy8Jrj0CbKhMLYijMpY_ZwtgCf-lAupqauLgDqNpX3VaoBKgXUUYTPylwGPiAj3vn4_837WNdnXCJOV99386NYeDjS5pWVJoy4zMpxvMH8kUGRq9quKF5mhmPNOkEOLKJfr_pFa8/s1600/glendale-goodyear-01-cr-2k.jpg" height="446" width="640" /></a></div>
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Glendale had its own "pet" dirigible, the <i>City of Glendale</i> developed by Slate Aircraft (see our <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2013/08/slates-strange-dirigible.html" target="_blank">post from August 20, 2013</a>, for a history of this ill-fated project). In the overhead photo below, the <i>City of Glendale</i> pokes its nose out from its hangar. Both photos in today's post come from a small collection that was saved from UPI's San Francisco bureau office just before the vast bulk of their old photo archive was discarded after the office closed.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPw0WxHvkGY-LjD8CpUixZ7HW0FXfYd8Swea2YvX9_R6zEPm6861K4mZwCh2_C7OXgzokx78Z4mx2eaMKU6BdtW4vJl3Fag3Lq5Umwiq4BJFD1Pucwsk37HpLXmgU4QNVSFqaTpyqPIz0/s1600/va-gcat-01-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPw0WxHvkGY-LjD8CpUixZ7HW0FXfYd8Swea2YvX9_R6zEPm6861K4mZwCh2_C7OXgzokx78Z4mx2eaMKU6BdtW4vJl3Fag3Lq5Umwiq4BJFD1Pucwsk37HpLXmgU4QNVSFqaTpyqPIz0/s1600/va-gcat-01-2k.jpg" height="508" width="640" /></a></div>
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In the view below, from Google Earth, I've tried to get the same approximate angle as in the one above.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwG4PC5p6Nfu9irHLRogRSTLB2SP0_TiMYxhEAMRXx_E0bzVTGntzNTxd791ybSKK-lphxWZucTZAJORji6pEH0RwlVrjoGlVpdRUNhD-o-R0S86FHIiZCCIY5HKQkyxP_mNcx55b3ztU/s1600/va-gcat-01-ge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwG4PC5p6Nfu9irHLRogRSTLB2SP0_TiMYxhEAMRXx_E0bzVTGntzNTxd791ybSKK-lphxWZucTZAJORji6pEH0RwlVrjoGlVpdRUNhD-o-R0S86FHIiZCCIY5HKQkyxP_mNcx55b3ztU/s1600/va-gcat-01-ge.jpg" height="430" width="640" /></a></div>
Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-88975045223807185802015-02-21T20:22:00.000-08:002015-02-28T11:33:53.185-08:00The Ace 300 That's Not a Biplane<i>2/28 update: aviation historian </i>par excellence<i> sent me an email with a whole bunch of information about this plane, which I'm adding to the bottom of the post.</i><br />
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<i>2/24 update: in response to a comment, I've added a sharpened and contrast-enhanced image of the logo on the tail.</i><br />
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Another day, another mystery photo. Okay, not a mystery in that this plane’s identity is unknown, but a mystery in that all the internet resources, the few that there are, which have any information about it are, well, to put it bluntly, wrong. (Gasp, you say, the internet might be wrong?)<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWCGlYIDlHD_m3e8vTArgXluUD2rLC1PUW9q_hTHSCp7EZKAXUjIzxlFYb1edj3EN_pMhXcgMKY71hAgbZr8vwS9rY0GoNCZaaZWNg5eZj7V2mBKSPaImD34LwabJakiFGJrVxAbTo7Co/s1600/va-ace300-01-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWCGlYIDlHD_m3e8vTArgXluUD2rLC1PUW9q_hTHSCp7EZKAXUjIzxlFYb1edj3EN_pMhXcgMKY71hAgbZr8vwS9rY0GoNCZaaZWNg5eZj7V2mBKSPaImD34LwabJakiFGJrVxAbTo7Co/s1600/va-ace300-01-2k.jpg" height="486" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anyone want to take a stab at who this gent is? I believe the location is Oakland CA.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
First stop on the research journey was airhistory.org.uk and their database of historic aircraft registration numbers. NX952Y isn’t listed, but NC952Y is, as “Aircraft Engineering Co. Ace 500”. So that’s a start. Next stop was the invaluable Aerofiles. Aircraft Engineering Co. is listed as having been established in 1919 in New York, and a year later the rights to the designs were acquired by Horace Keane and the plant moved to Long Island. The only plane listed there is the K-1 Biplane (along with two photos of this very sexy-looking biplane), and a note at the end of the listing that reads “Also produced in 1931 with Salmson AD-9 [952Y] c/n 1, and LeBlond 5D [953Y] c/n 2, registered as Ace 300 and 200 respectively.” The rest of the internet resources (such as Wikipedia) parrot Aerofiles.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2s0SkJ6SULRz18TznMBqRLMnrrO38Z0c_GBhwFYmGzVGCKzH8qZutirsrR8ULLI5uTUTXD03_cvzNjsNUJSI3A13WGvhzXqynsCtENuHTlOOqh0kqtyPaKZs9-ivQ04KuKlrB5szyl3Q/s1600/va-ace300-01-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2s0SkJ6SULRz18TznMBqRLMnrrO38Z0c_GBhwFYmGzVGCKzH8qZutirsrR8ULLI5uTUTXD03_cvzNjsNUJSI3A13WGvhzXqynsCtENuHTlOOqh0kqtyPaKZs9-ivQ04KuKlrB5szyl3Q/s1600/va-ace300-01-cr2.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
In one sense, Aerofiles is correct: from our photo, it’s clear that the model number is 300, not 500. And while the listing suggests strongly that the ACE is a variant of the K-1 biplane, it’s very clear that this is <i>not</i> a biplane, nor does it look anything like the K-1.
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In the February 1931 issue of Flying magazine, there was a news item about Aircraft Engineering Co. introducing a new plane, the ACE 200, a two-place, high-wing monoplane with a Salmson AD-9 engine, which makes me question whether Aerofiles got the engine application for the ACE 200 and 300 reversed.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbfK-Y-KoQUKSBbTsX7AdJaVr1Pg2vE8Rdz-DBJ4kJCHxH9J7ZnqjrRZ-4ot6dBNI3I2wmLXhmu6ss05bV6DS6NAcrZVw5ldPPXO4Dzr6iBqa2LauAKJZ_uAPIENp2ULFkXVxTUkw5UpI/s1600/va-ace300-01-cr3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbfK-Y-KoQUKSBbTsX7AdJaVr1Pg2vE8Rdz-DBJ4kJCHxH9J7ZnqjrRZ-4ot6dBNI3I2wmLXhmu6ss05bV6DS6NAcrZVw5ldPPXO4Dzr6iBqa2LauAKJZ_uAPIENp2ULFkXVxTUkw5UpI/s1600/va-ace300-01-cr3.jpg" height="244" width="320" /></a></div>
And that’s pretty much it for the references I could find. So, my theory, is that there were actually two unrelated companies using the same name, the one on the east coast in the 1920s, and the other on the west coast in the 1930s, and because of the company name, and the lack of photos of the ACE 200 and 300 (other than our photo here, I’ve not seen any anywhere) contributed to the belief that the latter models were just an update of the K-1. Have a different opinion or other thought? Please start the conversation in the comments below.<br />
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Excerpted from an email received from John<br />
Underwood:<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNvFcRjnSyYpw9RjrbjUAgBEG0XI_x3qKj1QwKfjS98oRkCIsjn9m7J2knSbi_ax90aSYjlEBatmbh-JLFEJDtmVkpMVj6HQZUOkkqeLZk28qeQvaLcw7i8pZ3ceE2K7TnssOpX15CvWA/s1600/va-ace300-01-cr2-adjusted.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNvFcRjnSyYpw9RjrbjUAgBEG0XI_x3qKj1QwKfjS98oRkCIsjn9m7J2knSbi_ax90aSYjlEBatmbh-JLFEJDtmVkpMVj6HQZUOkkqeLZk28qeQvaLcw7i8pZ3ceE2K7TnssOpX15CvWA/s1600/va-ace300-01-cr2-adjusted.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contrast enhanced, clarifying the model number as "300"</td></tr>
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Your picture of X952Y shows Richard Hardin, the designer, one of Douglas' World Cruiser engineers', who had formed his own company to manufacture both the Ace 300 and 2-place Ace 500. The operation involved the acquisition of Ace Airport, which had formerly been Murphy's Airport. Before that it was Calif. Airways; afterwards Sprott's and lastly Telegraph & Atlantic.<br />
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The 2-seater, X953Y, was powered by a 60-hp Le Blond whereas the single-seater had a 40-hp Salmson. Hardin and an attorney named Harry Miller, who was also a director of the company, took off from Ace Airport for both the St. Louis and Detroit shows. They were planning to fly East in formation with Frank Barber in the Model 300. In the vicinity of San Gorgonio Pass they encountered terrific winds and what happened next was probably due to wind sheer.
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The Model 500 flipped over on its back and Miller was thrown out, possibly because his safety belt was either unbucked or it broke. His chute fouled in the tail and he was killed. Hardin bailed out successfully. All of this was witnessed by Barber, who made copious notes about it in his log book.<br />
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I knew the test pilot, Frank Barber. He was a retired AF brig. gen. who'd been sacked by Pacific Air Transport in 1928 for flying one of their Boeing mailplanes into a mountain concealed by a snow storm. He was also one of the 13 Black Cats.<br />
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Re Horace Keane. He was in no way involved with the foregoing Ace monoplanes. </blockquote>
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-71069595088459781052015-02-14T09:22:00.001-08:002015-02-14T09:22:32.403-08:00Mammoth French FlopWhen I picked up this small photo of a large monstrosity, there were two things that I realized right away: the print was damaged, and I had no clue what plane it showed. My friend and photo restoration artist Bob Cohen took a stab at it, and took care of both problems...so below is the restored image, and he was able to come up with an identity, a Blériot 74 (or in Blériot's parlance, an LXXIV)...or is it?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKhR2F4a71dKQWDFIMXYnngerGuHCUgthkTrs-Ca4OEZ4kILf1qN8BzCjDcha8hsBhdGXtx05tKI0-r4wG71XeF93Smw_1NRecdbXEKdgzPC3-19FE1braz1hwYxFUlaJcTv93c8rHbGs/s1600/va-bleriot-02-retouched-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKhR2F4a71dKQWDFIMXYnngerGuHCUgthkTrs-Ca4OEZ4kILf1qN8BzCjDcha8hsBhdGXtx05tKI0-r4wG71XeF93Smw_1NRecdbXEKdgzPC3-19FE1braz1hwYxFUlaJcTv93c8rHbGs/s1600/va-bleriot-02-retouched-2k.jpg" height="380" width="640" /></a></div>
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After doing some more checking, it turns out that this is one of those murky corners of aviation history where things don't always make a lot of sense, and there are a whole lot of places on the internet where not a lot of care has gone into accuracy in image captions. Here's some of what I found in digging into this little mystery.<br />
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First, Frenchman Louis Blériot was the fellow who invented the first practical automobile headlamp. With that invention bringing a nice steady flow of cash, he could delve into his <i>real</i> passion, aeroplanes. In 1909, he hit the jackpot (in fame at least), and developed the world's first successful monoplane, the Type XI, and then used it to become the first person to fly across the English Channel, claiming the <i>Daily Mail's</i> £1,000 prize. His company produced around 900 airplanes, most of them based on the type XI. He later came to head a consortium called the Société pour les Appareils Deperdussin, which he renamed Société Pour L'Aviation et ses Dérivés, better known by its acronym SPAD.<br />
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At some point during WWI, Blériot started thinking big, really big. Bomber big. The results of this thinking took the form of five large one-off aircraft, the Type 67, 71, 73, 74 and 75. The first four were intended to be large, long-range bombers, and the last was to be an airliner variant based on the airliners. None of these planes were successful by any means. One of these planes is shown in the photo above, but figuring out which has proved to be harder than I expected, so I'll run through them here.<br />
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<a href="http://flyingmachines.ru/Images7/Aerodrome/155-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://flyingmachines.ru/Images7/Aerodrome/155-1.jpg" height="165" width="400" /></a></div>
The first, the Type 67, is the one that, structurally, most resembles the plane in our photo, with a fuselage suspended between both wings. However, the Type 67 used Gnome rotary engines, and flew only once, on September 18, 1916, crashing at the end of the flight. By now, you've probably noticed the "67" written by hand in the lower right corner of our photo. Was this an indication of the subject, or just a negative number (which would be an odd coincidence)? The issue is, of course, that this photo clearly doesn't show the plane to be powered by rotary engines. Maybe Blériot started out with inline Hispano-Suizas and then changed his mind? Then I found this patent drawing of the Type 67 on a Russian web page called <a href="http://flyingmachines.ru/Site2/Crafts/Craft29139.htm" target="_blank">Their Flying Machines</a>. While photos of the 67 clearly show Gnome radials (<a href="http://www.1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/BregeriePierre/9589.htm" target="_blank">this one</a>, for instance), the drawing shows the smaller cowlings that were used over the in-line engines shown in our photo.<br />
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Blériot's next attempt was the slightly larger Type 71 which debuted in November 1917, but the <a href="http://www.finemodelworks.com/arizona-models/reference/Aircraft/France/Bleriot/Bleriot_71_Side_Front.jpg" target="_blank">patent drawing for this one</a> (which comes from<a href="http://www.finemodelworks.com/arizona-models/reference/Thumbs/Aircraft/France/Bleriot/Bleriot.html" target="_blank"> this Blériot page</a> on the Arizona Model Aircrafter's website) shows a fuselage, though similar in shape to the 67, now mounted directly on the lower wing.<br />
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The Type 73, an even stranger aircraft, followed in 1918, but was destroyed when it broke up in-flight on January 22, 1919. Here's <a href="http://www.finemodelworks.com/arizona-models/reference/Aircraft/France/Bleriot/Bleriot_73_Side_Front.jpg" target="_blank">its patent drawing</a>...clearly not our bird. A second Type 73 had been started, but after the crash of the first one, that attempt was abandoned, and the wings, which had already been built, were used on the Type 74, <a href="http://www.finemodelworks.com/arizona-models/reference/Aircraft/France/Bleriot/Bleriot_74_Side.jpg" target="_blank">a whale of a plane</a>. And then there was the 75, the <a href="http://www.finemodelworks.com/arizona-models/reference/Aircraft/France/Bleriot/Bleriot_75_Side_Front.jpg" target="_blank">airliner version</a>. Thankfully it was also abandoned.<br />
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So, for our photo, my money is on the Type 67, which at one point or another was equipped with different engines than it eventually flew with. Have a different thought or opinion? I'd love to hear from you via the comments section below.Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-75012760398925976452015-02-05T05:00:00.000-08:002015-02-21T18:01:37.023-08:00Fueling Ford's X-Plane for the NavySince I posted a Ford Trimotor photo last week, I thought I'd go for two.... In 1927, the US Navy picked up the fourth Ford 4-AT-A Trimotor off the assembly line, designating it as an XJR-1 (BuNo. A7526).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSX-D5bm7VA68A8e1VDV4yqFLdoYzqA0N_vGkLeXXAZO8GxvCAp8U_yW_e9glp-tEuF6zMnlMaBMk2g0xIad5IdUErb59X-RaOpUahDKgeM1jl6PNlafynrd6W0tawj4Jt8130W6Ksds/s1600/va-xjr1-01-cr2-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnSX-D5bm7VA68A8e1VDV4yqFLdoYzqA0N_vGkLeXXAZO8GxvCAp8U_yW_e9glp-tEuF6zMnlMaBMk2g0xIad5IdUErb59X-RaOpUahDKgeM1jl6PNlafynrd6W0tawj4Jt8130W6Ksds/s1600/va-xjr1-01-cr2-2k.jpg" height="420" width="640" /></a></div>
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The plane first flew on 29 January 1927 and was delivered to the customer on March 9th. After an initial testing period, the Navy based A7526 as NSF Anacostia, near Washington DC and started using it as a liaison transport for senior commanders and civilian leaders (there's record that the Assistant Secretary of the Navy flew cross-country in it at least once), often flying between Washington and San Diego, CA.<br />
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The XJR-1 didn't last long, as it was badly damaged by a tornado on 18 November 1927, with the empenage crushed and the right wing broken. The plane was disassembled and sent to the Naval Aircraft Factory in August 1929, but it was judged beyond economical repair and scrapped; the plane was officially stricken from the records on 30 April1930. In the eight and a half months of service, it accumulated 971 hours of flight time.<br />
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The Navy eventually bought eight more Fords, two 4-AT-E/JR-2 (later RR-2), three 5-AT-Cs as JR-3 and one more 5-AT-C as a RR-4, as well as two 4-AT-Ds as RR-5s (both of which have survived and are at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. The Trimotors served both the Navy and the Marine Corps until 1937.<br />
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Some links:<br />
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<li>This plane also shows up in an earlier Vintage Air post, <a href="http://vintageairphotos.blogspot.com/2013/02/four-fords-at-ford.html" target="_blank">Four Fords at Ford</a>.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://www.dmairfield.com/airplanes/A_7526/index.html" target="_blank">Davis-Monthan Register's page</a> on the plane</li>
<li><a href="http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/attractions/aircraft-exhibits/item/?item=rr-5_trimotor" target="_blank">Pensacola Museum's page on their Ford</a></li>
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<br />Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5470545423650754178.post-62484738497645629942015-01-29T05:00:00.000-08:002015-04-08T07:51:53.098-07:00Tin Goose for Gray GooseGray Goose Air Lines Inc. was a luxury carrier based at Chicago Municipal Airport (predecessor of Chicago Midway), and operated this Ford 4-AT-B Trimotor (4-AT-17, and thus the 17th built, NC4805) as well as a Stinson for charter work, and a Laird for flight instruction. The photo was taken by the official Ford photographer at the factory on April 20, 1928, the day it was delivered to Gray Goose.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjogchBunI2OyPebgh6nPSM1VcFDdFlgSwTd0GfxDBQgh_tEndL9GUAAPANzNM4ZYdznDngi7IagoKuAk_YAWsuYk7BZbStpDiUUGSiPMuNYvqIzTPGStwzZVRninZTCvFRxii7Ofw9xA/s1600/va-ford-06-cr-2k.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjogchBunI2OyPebgh6nPSM1VcFDdFlgSwTd0GfxDBQgh_tEndL9GUAAPANzNM4ZYdznDngi7IagoKuAk_YAWsuYk7BZbStpDiUUGSiPMuNYvqIzTPGStwzZVRninZTCvFRxii7Ofw9xA/s1600/va-ford-06-cr-2k.jpg" height="460" width="640" /></a></div>
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Gray Goose operated from their headquarters at Chicago Municipal and served a number of midwest cities, including nearby North Shore Airport in Glencoe, and Sky Harbor (here's <a href="http://modern-b4-mies.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Frank Murcuiro's blog post</a> with a pic of our plane at the iconic Sky Harbor terminal). One of the airline's directors was Merril C. Meigs, the head of the Chicago Aero Commission as well as the publisher of the <i>Chicago Herald and Examiner</i>, and the man that Meigs Field was named after.</div>
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The line also flew as far south as the Gulf Coast. The seven hour flight south was operated in conjunction with Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel (<a href="http://uptownhistory.compassrose.org/2011_08_01_archive.html" target="_blank">here's a neat blog post</a> about that, and more on the <a href="http://oldmoviesnostalgia.com/8662/edgewater-beach-hotel-chicago/" target="_blank">hotel can be found here</a>), and was much more stylish than the 25-hour overnight train <i>Panama Limited</i>, operated by Illinois Central. One advertisement from the time read, in part, "Direct to the Gulf Coast by Airplane / A Special Service for Edgewater Beach Hotel Guests. Rise from the Municipal Airport, Chicago, and after seven delightful hours, find yourself at the Gulfcoast.
On wings of luxurious comfort, speed your way Southward, from Winter's blustering blasts to balmy summer zephyrs.
Loll restfully against the handsomely appointed upholstery of your easy chair as you are wisped along with the speed of the wind.
At your will enjoy exhilarating freshness of the open window or the snug comfort of the closed one.
All the attendant comforts of travel are provided: heat, light, and lavatory."</div>
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Gray Goose Air Lines, Inc. shouldn't be confused with Gray Goose <i>Airways</i>, a fraudulent investor-bilking scheme based on the east coast during the early 1930s run by one Jonathan Edward Caldwell, which sold stock (the <a href="http://www.glabarre.com/item/Gray_Goose_Airways_Inc_/1828/p3c93" target="_blank">certificates were very beautiful</a>, too) to raise investment dollars to develop several radical new types of planes, one of which, well, was shaped like a goose mounted on a motorcycle with flapping wings. It is a fascinating story in its own right, and one that's told <a href="http://www.aerofiles.com/graygoose.html" target="_blank">at this page on Aerofiles</a>. The two companies were not related, though some references confuse them, including, unfortunately, David E. Kent's book <i>Midway Airport </i>(Arcadia Publishing, page 15).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEX-vqxnw8Dny_glXNtTdHeijXIxVDOjto2CgHJN7kmbthCU118uMtnMrC4_qISX5njwlSEyKCBfpfc1lrp_6-5_kjgfrQCxXyGQveIkl8Ijmk3DYtX1ToC_xyN_J8peBgx-giMZuixZ8/s1600/va-ford-06-cr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEX-vqxnw8Dny_glXNtTdHeijXIxVDOjto2CgHJN7kmbthCU118uMtnMrC4_qISX5njwlSEyKCBfpfc1lrp_6-5_kjgfrQCxXyGQveIkl8Ijmk3DYtX1ToC_xyN_J8peBgx-giMZuixZ8/s1600/va-ford-06-cr2.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a>And beware the "e"...in some places, Gray Goose is mis-spelled <i>Grey</i> Goose, including on an otherwise attractive airline poster reproduction that's being hawked widely on the internet. </div>
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NC4805 didn't stay with Gray Goose for long. On October 26, 1929, it was picked up by Chicago Air Service, then in December 1930 moved to United Aviation Corporation. Four month later, in April 1931, the plane was bought by Skyways Inc. in Blackwell, Oklahoma. In September, Skyways started service using the plane to serve Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City. Times were hard, though, and in December they suspended service on that route. Skyways had owned the Trimotor less than a year when, on March 15, 1932, their Blackwell hangar burned to the ground, destroying NC4805 and seven other planes.<br />
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Alan Radeckihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05363748649625404498noreply@blogger.com0