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 ---o0o--- 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 It includes across 277 pages previously unpublished photographs and texts, and facsimiles of personal letters, diaries and military orders.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. ---o0o--- 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. ---o0o--- 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. ---o0o--- 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. ---o0o--- 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. ---o0o---
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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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NC685K is owned by Lane Tufts as of the upload date of this page. We have a copy of the official FAA record for the airplane that lists the chain of custody over the years.
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TRAVEL AIR MODEL BE-4000 NC684K
This Travel Air is S/N 1274, manufactured September 2, 1929. It was sold on the same day by the Travel Air Company, Wichita, KS to R. C. Merriam of Azusa, CA. It was manufactured under Type Certificate #188 and left the factory with a Wright J-6 engine of 165HP, S/N 11373. Below, the airplane as it was circa 1929.
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Merriam sold the airplane immediately to Register pilot and aircraft broker/dealer H.C. Lippiatt on September 7, 1929. Lippiatt, in turn, sold it to Roy C. Patten on the same day. Although we are not sure, the current owner, Mr. Tufts (cited, right sidebar), and I think the gentleman in the photograph at right could be Mr. Patten.
While owned by Mr. Patten, we find the airplane cited in the logbook of another Register pilot R.W. Henderson. Please direct your browser to his page and examine the description there of his Logbook #1.
Mr. Patten passed away somewhere near January, 1931 and his airplane was purchased, through his wife, the guardian of his estate, by John Nagel of Arcadia, CA on January 22, 1931. It was during Mr. Nagel's ownership that we find the airplane signed into the Davis-Monthan Register.
NC684K landed three times at Clover Field. The first two times were on Wednesday and Friday, November 13 and 15, 1929. It was flown by Harold F. Brown. He was solo on the 13th and carried a single, unidentified passenger on the 15th. He wrote "LA Eastside" in the arrived from column. The owner of the airplane was cited as Whittier Airways. Brown flew with Transport pilot certificate T3448.
The third landing was logged by LaVelle Sweeley on Friday, May 9, 1930. She arrived among a crowd of 19 women who landed at Santa Monica from Long Beach, CA and identified her destination as Culver City, CA.
There appears in the FAA record a lien against the airplane in July, 1932 for a loan to Mr. Nagel made by the Motor Car Loan Co., Los Angeles. Said loan was satisfied and the lien released on January 22, 1933. Mr. Nagel is unusual among the owners of Register aircraft. He maintained ownership of NC684K for about the next 50 years. The next document in the record is the bill of sale for transfer of the airplane to Mr. Tufts on September 28, 1978. He registered the airplane with the FAA twenty years later on August 25, 1999.
Now comes your Webmaster to Moorpark, CA in September, 2002 to visit with NC684K and its owner. Below, I stand next to the steel tube fuselage of the aircraft, holding part of the horizontal stabilizer. Landing gear parts lie atop the fuselage frame at right. Note the T-shaped attach points for shock bungees. The airplane is stored in a loft under the eaves of a barn roof.
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Below, the fuselage frame.
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The airplane is destined for restoration, but no timeline is forthcoming. It lies snug and disassembled in the loft eaves of its owner's barn in Moorpark, CA. It exists as a fuselage, landing gear and right horizontal stabilizer (no wings), in the planning stages for restoration.
At right, its current owner stands beside the robust fuselage of Mary Charles’ Travel Air in Moorpark, CA, September 22, 2002.
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Dossier 3.1.37.2
THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 08/23/16