OTHER RESOURCES
THANK YOU!
YOUR PURCHASE OF THESE BOOKS SUPPORTS THE WEB SITES THAT BRING TO YOU THE HISTORY BEHIND OLD AIRFIELD REGISTERS
Your copy of the Davis-Monthan Airfield Register (available in paperback) with all the pilots' signatures and helpful cross-references to pilots and their aircraft is available at the link. 375 pages with black & white photographs and extensive tables
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The Congress of Ghosts (available as Kindle Edition eBook) is an anniversary celebration for 2010. It is an historical biography, that celebrates the 5th year online of www.dmairfield.org and the 10th year of effort on the project dedicated to analyze and exhibit the history embodied in the Register of the Davis-Monthan Airfield, Tucson, AZ. This book includes over thirty people, aircraft and events that swirled through Tucson between 1925 and 1936. It includes across 277 pages previously unpublished photographs and texts, and facsimiles of personal letters, diaries and military orders. Order your copy at the link.
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Military Aircraft of the Davis Monthan Register, 1925-1936 (available in paperback) at the link. This book describes and illustrates with black & white photographs the majority of military aircraft that landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield between 1925 and 1936. The book includes biographies of some of the pilots who flew the aircraft to Tucson as well as extensive listings of all the pilots and airplanes. Use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.
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Art Goebel's Own Story (available as free PDF download) by Art Goebel (edited by G.W. Hyatt) is written in language that expands for us his life as a Golden Age aviation entrepreneur, who used his aviation exploits to build a business around his passion. Available as a free download at the link.
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Winners' Viewpoints: The Great 1927 Trans-Pacific Dole Race (available as Kindle Edition eBook) is available at the link. This book describes and illustrates with black & white photographs the majority of military aircraft that landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield between 1925 and 1936. The book includes biographies of some of the pilots who flew the aircraft to Tucson as well as extensive listings of all the pilots and airplanes. Use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.
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Clover Field: The first Century of Aviation in the Golden State (available in paperback & Kindle Edition) With the 100th anniversary in 2017 of the use of Clover Field as a place to land aircraft in Santa Monica, this book celebrates that use by exploring some of the people and aircraft that made the airport great. 281 pages, black & white photographs.
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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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I'm looking for information and period 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 5-AT-B NC9651
This large airplane landed at least a dozen times at the Grand Central Air Terminal (GCAT) during April-July, 1931. It was manufactured in 1929 by Ford, wore S/N 34 and carried three Pratt & Whitney R-1340 series engines. It seated 17.
The first visit by NC9651 was on Thursday, April 2, 1931 at 12:32PM. NC9651 was owned by Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA) at that time. Deduced from the Register, it flew the routes from Glendale to San Francisco, and Glendale to Kansas CIty, MO. Of the twelve flights, only one had a pilot identified by the tower Operator, A.J. Lygum, who entered data in the Register. He was Eddie Bellande, well-known west coast pilot, and probably known, by sight at least, to Lygum. Bellande and his unidentified copilot carried ten unidentified passengers headed for San Francisco that Thursday.
Although we have little pilot information, the good news is that NC9651 is still with us and still registered with the FAA. Below, from the AAHS Journal, Spring, 2013, is a photograph of NC9651 in TWA livery appearing somewhat like it did back in 1931. The caption below the image misidentifies the 5-AT-B model number.
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Two of the entries in the GCAT Register have written in the Remarks column, "603." This was the TWA identifier for the airplane. No pilot or passenger counts were recorded in the Register.
NC9651 had an interesting, if harrowing, chain of custody. It originally sold to Transcontinental Air Transport and operated with them from 1929-1931. When T.A.T. merged into Transcontinental and Western Air (T.W.A.), it operated with T.W.A. during its time at GCAT, until 1935. From 1936-1940 it flew with the Radio Corporation of America out of Camden, NJ. It was registered "NX" and carried secret radio and television projects for testing.
Early in the 1940s NC9651 sold to Northwest Airways, then Northern Air Transport, then Wien's Alaska Air Lines. It then went briefly with a private owner, Davis-Monthan Register pilot Kenny Neese of Anchorage, AK. Neese incorporated it into Star Air Lines in Anchorage sometime during 1941. In 1943, at Fairbanks, AK, the left engine quit on take-off and NC9651 was ground looped and stood on its nose. It was then dismantled and stored until 1951 when it was sold to an owner at Compton Airport (CA), but remained crated in Alaska.
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In 1953 it was sold to an owner in Idaho who brought it back down the Alcan Highway on a flatbed truck. More recently, from aerofiles.com,"5-AT-B c/n 34 [NC9651]. 1929: Transcontinental Air Transport. Sold by Irv Perlitch (Perch), Morgan Hill CA, to Kermit Weeks in 1992. LOCATION: Florida, believed flyable. Appeared in movie, 'Temple of Doom.'"
The airplane is presently owned by Kermit Weeks and is hangared at his Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, FL. Please direct your browser to this link to see a starboard profile of NC9651 at the Weeks facility, and to learn more about the airplane.
Update of 12/03/17 A YouTube video shows briefly at the link the Ford trimotor NC9651 landing and taxiing at GCAT. Look near the end of the video. The photograph, above right, is a still image from the video.
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THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 07/28/14 REVISED: 03/29/16, 5/23/17, 12/03/17