OTHER RESOURCES
Very readable volumes about the Grand Central Air Terminal are these books:
Underwood, John. 1984. Madcaps, Millionaires and 'Mose'. Heritage Press, Glendale, CA. 144pp.
And...
Underwood, John. 2007. Grand Central Air Terminal. Arcadia Publishing. Charleston, SC. 127pp.
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A very readable, and brief, online history of the Grand Central Air Terminal by Ron DIckson is at the link.
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Everything you ever wanted to know about the Ford tri-motor series is in William L. Larkins' 1957 book, The Ford Story: A Pictorial History of the Ford Tri-Motor. Robert R. Longo Company. Wichita, KS. 178pp.
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YOU CAN HELP
I'm looking for information and photographs of this airplane to include on this page. If you have some you'd like to share, please click this FORM to contact me.
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FORD TRI-MOTOR NC8413
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NC8413 landed at the Grand Central Air Terminal (GCAT) 33 times between January 10, 1931 and July 4, 1931. The airplane was owned by T.W.A. and it was one of the airline's early workhorse transports plying the routes between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and between Los Angeles and Kansas City, MO. Photograph, right, is from the University of California Digital Library (USC) at the link. The men, unidentified by name, are described as "Owl Drug Company employees."
As usual, the tower Operators A.J. Lygum et al. did not enter the names of the pilots or passengers on 8413, except on three occasions.
The three times when pilots were identified were January 11, 1931 when pilot Eddie Bellande departed with the airplane at 9:05AM for San Francisco, March 23, 1931 when Royal Leonard departed near 10:00AM for San Francisco and March 27, 1931 when Lygum noted Dutch Holloway departed near 10:15 for the same city.
Appropriately, below, from the Loyola Marymount University Digital Collection (LMU), NC8413 appears in harness on a picture postcard posed in front of the GCAT.
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NC8413 was a model 5-AT-C, S/N 5-AT-51. It began life on June 13, 1929. Soon after it was working with Maddux Airlines and flew for Maddux during 1930-31 (this dates to image at the top of the page to 1930-31, because Maddux livery is painted on the fuselage). When Maddux went through a series of mergers finally resulting in T.W.A., the airplane became a T.W.A. asset from 1931-1936. T.W.A. sold it to Register pilot Max Conrad of Winona, MN in 1937. According to the link NC8413 suffered an accident at Mankato, MN on Thursday, August 11, 1938. There were no injuries or fatalities, but the airplane was damaged beyond repair. Ford tri-motor NC8419 was repaired using the port wing from NC8413. NC8419 is now part of the Kermit Weeks collection at the Fantasy of Flight museum in Polk City, FL. I have no real photographs of it. If you do, please let me KNOW.
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THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 03/06/16 REVISED: