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 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 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 It includes across 277 pages previously unpublished photographs and texts, and facsimiles of personal letters, diaries and military orders.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 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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Art Goebel's Own Story 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 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) 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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GRANVILLE E SPORTSTER NC46V
This handsome, single-seat airplane appears one time in two of our Registers. It landed first at Santa Monica, on Tuesday, August 18, 1931. It was flown by its manufacturer, Zantford Granville. The Granville Brothers manufactured specialized airplanes in their factory located in Springfield, MA. The port profile of 46V, below, is courtesy of the San Diego Aerospace Museum (SDAM).
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The E Sportster was a low-wing, externally braced monoplane. Its type certificate was approved on February 6, 1931. All five of the E models built (NC46V was the second one constructed) featured a seven-cylinder, 110 HP Warner Scarab radial engine. All had the Townend Ring around the engine cylinders for streamlining. A Heywood Air Starter was optional. As far as I could discover, none of them had assigned constructor or serial numbers. The others were, in order of manufacture, NC856Y, (NC46V), NC72V, NC11041 and NC11044. None of the others ever appeared in any Register. All were fully aerobatic, including inverted flight.
All were light aircraft, weighing in at 912 pounds empty. With 37 gallons of fuel on board, the payload for pilot, parachute and baggage was 243 pounds. Fully loaded, the airplane had a gross weight of 1,400 pounds. The E Sportster routinely cruised at 127MPH, burning about 7 gallons per hour, yielding a range of over 500 miles. They cost $5,280 with standard equipment at the factory. This was a sizeable investment in the early 1930s, and the Sportsters were owned mostly by sportsman pilots.
Juptner (v. 4, p. 306) stated about the Sportster, "Strong of frame, strong of heart and with playful nature, the little 'Sportster' was best described as a good and even match for the pilot with the same qualifications." Another photograph, below, courtesy of Tim Kalina, shows NC46V warming up at an unidentified location. The man standing by the cockpit appears to be Zantford Granville. The covey of onlookers was common wherever the airplane landed.
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What brought Granville and NC46V to Santa Monica was his participation in the 1931 National Air Races (NAR) held August 29-September 7. He was competing in the Transcontinental Handicap Air Derby, which ran from Santa Monica to Cleveland.
Unique, but not unheard of, for a Register airplane is the itinerary, below. It represents the route followed by Granville and NC46V on the flights that brought him to Santa Monica. I charted the itinerary to show their out and back route from Detroit to Los Angeles and return to Cleveland, with Amarillo being a common stop going and returning. The northernmost route is his westbound travel to the beginning of the derby in Los Angeles. The southernmost track is his route east from LA to Cleveland for the handicap event in association with the 1931 NAR. According to the Aircraft Yearbook for 1932, which documented the results of the 1931 NAR, he did not place in the top five.
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"KDMA" on the chart designates his landing at Tucson, Monday, August 24, 1931, which is described at Granville's biography link, above, over at the Davis-Monthan Register Web site. Please visit that link to learn about the circumstances that allowed us to understand this itinerary. Eventually, two Gee Bee aircraft landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield. The second was NR2101.
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