A Busy Day at Glendale

For 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 Volunteer descends steeply for a landing while T&WA's Fokker F-32 NC-333N taxis up to the terminal. Just another day at Glendale....

The Volunteer (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 Volunteer III, which first flew on September 5, 1931.

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 Lockheed Orion, probably one of Varney Air's Northrop Delta (several folks, including Tim Kalina and John Underwood, wrote to correct me on this one!).

Although Volunteer 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 Volunteer; there's no way to tell whether this was on the same day as the photo above, or another visit by the airship.

Glendale had its own "pet" dirigible, the City of Glendale developed by Slate Aircraft (see our post from August 20, 2013, for a history of this ill-fated project). In the overhead photo below, the City of Glendale 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.

In the view below, from Google Earth, I've tried to get the same approximate angle as in the one above.

A Fokker Chorus Line

Eighteen of the Fanchon & Marco Fanchonettes dance on the wing of WAE's

first F-32.

In 1930, Western Air Express decided to go big...very big. They agreed to purchase and operate the largest airliner then built, and the first four-engined aircraft built in America, the Fokker F-32. (We gave a brief history of the plane in this post, back when the Archive obtained its R.C. Talbot negative collection.)

At the time, WAE's headquarters were still located at Alhambra, and the company held F-32 inaugural celebrations there as well as at Burbank and Glendale. During these gala events, which drew thousands of spectators, one of the highlights was a performance by a chorus line of young, beautiful women stepping and kicking on top of the airplane's wing in almost perfect unison...the glamorous Fanchonettes.

Today, we're featuring two Fokker F-32 photos from the Glendale inaugural event, which came to the Archive as part of the Alman collection, and one of these shows eighteen of Fanchonettes in mid-kick (typical theater performances featured 48 of the girls). The original Alman photo album page doesn't clarify the location, but what identified it to me as Glendale, rather than the other venues, is that this photo was taken at almost the exact same moment as one by R.C. Talbott which is featured in John Underwoods book on GCAT (if you have a copy of the book, it's on page 47; Alman appears to have been standing just to the right and a bit forward of Talbott).

During the 1920s and '30s, F&M was a huge deal in the Los Angeles area (think of them as that era's equivalent of Cirque du Soleil). They produced spectacular vaudeville performances at Paramount Theater Los Angeles as well as at other top are venues. At the Paramount, the live performances were part of a bigger entertainment event...for the price of admission, you would be treated to the live stage show, a news reel feature, a cartoon short and the latest top Hollywood blockbuster movie. When the movie changed, F&M came up with a whole new stage show to go along with it. So to have them help publicize WAE's new "big thing" was a publicity coup for that time. So to have the F-32 turn out to be such a colossal dud after such a spectacular beginning is especially poignant.

There's a great website that details the history of Fanchon and Marco, and I've made inquiries with them to find out if they have additional details on the WAE performances, but as of this writing, I have not heard back.

This article from Air Transport World has a photo of the girls onboard the F-32.

Lucky Air Mail Route 13

Obviously this was staged, as they guy doing the "painting"
clearly can't keep his brush in the lines!

The PR department at Western Air wasn't afraid to play with superstition when it came to flying (in contrast, next time you're on a modern airliner, look for row 13!), issuing this rather fun press release photo on May 13, 1934. The location of this photo is not specified, but it could well have been taken at Glendale, California. The caption read:

Airline Employees Not Afraid of "13" Hoodoo

Designated as U. S. Mail Route 13 by the Post Office Department under new contracts, the Western Air division of General Air Lines defied superstition by waiting until May 13 to paint it on ship tail surfaces. Employes [sic] of the company consider the symbol lucky. When private mail carrying was resumed May 6, General Air Lines transported 13 pounds on its first load. There were originally 13 employes on April 17, 1926; 13 emergency landing fields mark the Los Angeles-Salt Lake City route; 13,000,000 miles have been flown without serious injury to 110,000 passengers; Ship 113, oldest in company's service, has flown 800,000 miles without even a punctured tire, and 13 pilots are now employed by the line.

The original caption, pasted on the back of our 8x10 glossy

NC584K was a Fokker F-10A trimotor, construction number 1045, and was originally operated by West Coast Air Transport before that company was acquired by Western Air Express in 1929; it was one of 25 F-10/F-10As operated by WAE. At the behest of the Postmaster General, Western merged with Transcontinental Air Transport to become Transcontinental and Western Airlines, the forerunner of TWA.

But to understand the real significance of this photo and press release, we need to digress for a moment and look back at the history of how air mail was contracted in the early 1930s. As air mail routes were consolidated at what later became known as the "Spoils Conference" following the Air Mail Act of 1930, T&WA became one of only three airlines (along with American and United) granted air mail contracts (otherwise known as CAM routes).

This led to allegations of fraud and collusion, resulting in a Congressional investigation and what was termed the "Air Mail Scandal". As a result, an angry President Roosevelt cancelled all commercial air mail contracts immediately, and the job of hauling airmail was assigned to the Army Air Corps. The Army initially used P-12 fighter planes, which could only carry 50 pounds of mail each. Later observation aircraft and even B-2 Condor bombers were used.

The Army was ill-equipped to do the job that commercial air mail pilots had been doing, and disaster ensued. Because air mail was so lucrative, companies that had been carrying airmail had pushed the technological development of commercial aviation hard, to the point that the industry was far ahead of the military technologically in areas such as intrument flying. As luck would have it, severe blizzards greeted the Army pilots on the first day of operations, and that was only the beginning of the Army's problems. In the first three months of operations, the Army suffered 66 accidents with the loss of twelve pilots. The public was outraged and President Roosevelt was quite embarassed.

The government had to do something, so the Black-McKellar Bill, aka the Airmail Act of 1934, gave the contracts back to commercial airlines, but under some very restrictive regulations. The chief of these was that any airline and any airline executive that had been involved in the previous contracts was barred from bidding on the new ones. Which meant that T&WA was out of the running. What to do? Work around the rules: in May 1934 the assets of the old Western Air Exress were severed from the larger corporation and operated as the Western Air division of General Airlines until December of that year, when they took on the name Western Air Lines. As a "different" company, Western could apply for their old Los Angeles to Salt Lake contract, now designated Route 13, which they won. Of course, this was with a wink and a nudge...even the language of the caption above makes it sound as if this was just the continuation of the previous airmail carrier's work, not a separate company that had not been involved in the previous contracts.

The public sentiment surrounding the Army's disasterous performance would have been very fresh on the minds of the readers of our featured photo caption, which puts the celebratory humor used here in a much clearer light.

And yes, this was intentially posted on Tuesday the 13th.

T&WA Fokker at Glendale

Note the lack of "Grand Central Air Terminal" lettering above the arches.

The history of Glendale, California's Grand Central Air Terminal to the Golden Age of Aviation is a particular passion of mine, and thus whenever I have an opportunity to add a Glendale photo to the archive, I jump at the chance. Such was the case with today's photo, an official 8x10 glossy stamped on the back "Courtesy of Transcontinental & Western Airlines".

The Fokker F.10, a 12-passenger outgrowth of the successful eight-passenger F.VII, was the first Fokker to be built in the US (from components imported from Holland by Fokker subsidiary Atlantic Aircraft Corporation).

It was the airplane of choice of Western Air Express for its new first-class service between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and WAE had ordered sixteen of them; NC4458, the plane shown here, was the first of these to be delivered, on April 24, 1928. The type stayed in service after WAE merged with Transcontinental Air Transport-Maddux Airlines to become Transcontinental & Western Air (and later Transworld Airlines) on July 24, 1930. Interestingly, the plane carries the company's titles in three different ways...TWA (instead of T&WA) under the wing, "Transcontinental / Western Air Inc" under the Indian head logo, and "Transcontinental Air Transport - Maddux Airlines And Western Air Lines" under the passenger windows (below).

Evidently, ownership of this plane was transferred to T&WA on March 24, 1931. Only a week later, the usefulness of the F.10 as an airliner was cut short by the tragic crash of sister ship NC999E, flying as TWA Flight 599 on March 31, 1931. Unlike the Ford Trimotor, which was all-metal in construction, the Fokker used wood as the main material in the F.10 wings, and delamination of crucial components was identified as the cause of the crash. All the F.10s were temporarily grounded, and only allowed to fly after significant inspections and preventative maintenance had been accomplished. Even this didn't last long, as one of the key results of the crash was regulation that prohibited airliners from using wooden construction. NC4458 was reportedly retired on April 30, 1931.

A detailed technical article from 1928 describing the F.10 can be found here.

The Ed Coates Collection includes a similar photo of the same plane, possibly taken just a few seconds later as the Fokker taxied past.

A big tip o' the hat to Luc Winance for some of the dates and details!

Glendale Photo Collection Discovered

The MojaveWest Vintage Photograph Archive is pleased to announce the acquisition of a rare and unique collection of large-format photographic negatives from the 1920s and 1930s, containing what appears to be previously unknown and unpublished images of a number of well-known aviators from what has come to be known as the "Golden Age of Aviation".

One of two Fokker F-32 airliners that served for a short time with Western Air Express.

The collection, which appears to be the work of just one passionate photographer, centers on the Glendale, Calif., Grand Central Air Terminal, which at the time was the hub of the aviation activities of the glitteratti from nearby Hollywood. Included in the collection are photos showing aviation celebrities such as Amelia Earhart and husband George Putnam, Roscoe Turner, Paul Mantz, Howard Hughes, Art Goebel and Al Wilson, as well as others such as Will Rogers and Eleanor Roosevelt. There are a number of people shown who clearly were VIPs, but who have not yet been identified.

Because the negatives are all of the nitrate type, they require special handling, and are potentially subject to degradation and even, if the conditions are right, spontaneous combustion. Because of this, they have all been carefully digitized at high resolutions, in order to preserve the embedded images.

The identity of the photographer remains a mystery, but the lack of any of the images showing up in public domain databases tends to indicate that he wasn't press, and his access suggests that he instead might have been a hobbiest who hung out with the small group of Hollywood types who indulged in aviation as a pasttime.

Some of the photos will be featured in upcoming Vintage Air blog posts, while others are being saved for inclusion in a very limited-edition high-end collector's book, tentatively titled "Golden Age Air in the Golden State", will be formally announced later this year, at which time pre-publication reservations will be taken.

The photo included with today's announcement shows one of two giant, four-engined Fokker F.32 airliners which served briefly with Western Air Express, taking on some final baggage just before departing the Grand Central Air Terminal. The F.32 was the first four-engine airliner built in America, and was essentially a failure. Only ten were built, and only two actually entered commercial revenue service, both with Western. Initially, Western Air Express had ordered five, as did Universal Air Lines. The prototype, which first flew on September 13, 1929 was even painted in Universal's livery, but it crashed a mere two months after its maiden flight, while attempting to demonstrate a three-engine takeoff.

The problem with the F.32 was that it was woefully underpowered, and the arrangement of having one engine mounted behind the other led to the aft engine having cooling and efficiency problems. In an odd arrangement, the forward engine powered a two-bladed propeller, and the aft engine drove a three-bladed prop which had a smaller diameter compared to the front one. In addition to the technical problems, the plane was just downright expensive, at $110,000 per aircraft, an enormous sum during the Great Depression.

Western Air Express initially operated the F.32s out of Alhambra Airport starting in 1930, but moved to Glendale in 1932, so that gives an indication of when this photo might have been taken.

There are a couple of other informative web resources on the F.32, including this one from the Ed Coates Collection, and this one from the Dutch Aviation website, which has some rare interior shots.

A Fokker in the Field

As of this posting, this photo is somewhat of a mystery to me. The photograph itself is small, and the image of the plane on it is thus smaller still, and unlike many vintage prints, the clarity just isn't there on this one. What's clear is that it is a Fokker F.VII taking off from an open field.

What isn't clear is whose trimotor this is. There appears to be an "N" on the tail, and the lettering on the fuselage appears to read "Coteal...", or something similar to that..

Click on the image to see it larger...lettering on the fuselage
seems to read "Coteal..." Could it be "Colonial"?

The paint scheme is a slight clue, as online research shows only one example of a Fokker painted with the angular design, that of early Pan American operations to Cuba, as seen in this 1927 photo from the University of Miami archives. (More information on this same image is on this Florida-related website.) Could my photo be the same plane, maybe with a later operator?

Anyone with a guess as to the answer to this little mystery is invited to comment below, or email me at airphotoservices at gmail dot com.

Sept 25th update! My friend Glen Tagami, one of the moderators over at Aviation Photographers of Southern California (http://www.apsocal.com) has pointed out an interesting angle related to my mention of Pan Am above.

A young banker-turned-airline entrepreneur named Juan Trippe had taken his inheritance money after his banker-father's untimely death, and tried to start an airline called Long Island Airways, using some surplus Jenneys. It had failed. With the passage of the Kelly Act of 1925 which made airmail contracts available to private companies, suddenly it appeared that there would be enough revenue to sustain a small airline operation, and with the help of a couple of well-to-do partners, Tripped formed Colonial Air Transport, and got the first airmail contract for the New York-Boston city pair, with the inaugural flight taking place on July 26, 1926. To service the route, Trippe picked up a pair of Fokker F.VII Trimotors. The mail guaranteed a regular cash flow, which then could be augmented with passengers. In 1927, Colonial inaugurated the first night passenger service in the U.S., again between New York and Boston.

As will often happen, though, disagreement arose between the venture's stockholders and Trippe's management team, a fight which led the stockholders to sell Colonial off, and it operated as a part of American Airlines until it was merged into Eastern Airlines in 1956; Trippe and crew were frozen out of the process. Now with cash from their portion of the sale, but no airline to operate, Trippe's group bought Aviation Corporation of the Americas and decided to bid on the airmail route from Havana to Key West, Florida. In 1928, they took this company and merged it with two other small carriers, Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean Airways and Pan American Airways, keeping the name of the latter company for the new organization.

So what does this story have to do with our photo? Well, the fuzzy lettering can easily be made out to spell "Colonial", meaning that this image was taken in New England sometime in the 1926-27 timeframe, and this or the other F.VII Colonial operated went on to fly with Pan Am, retaining the paint scheme on the nose.

I'm still looking for confirmation, or an alternate theory. If you have information, let me know!