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THE “TEXAN”
This airplane was a Fokker F-7A single-engine, (S/N 617;
ATC unidentified), manufactured during September 1928 by
N.V. Nederlandsche Vliegtuigenfabriek, Holland. It
was assembled and sold in the United States by the Atlantic
Aircraft Corporation, Teterboro Airport, Hasbrouck Heights,
NJ. It left the factory with a single Pratt & Whitney
Hornet engine (S/N 224) of 525HP. An image of this airplane is here.
For the modelers reading this page, regarding the color of this airplane, Burt Cosgrove states that the wingtips were red or red striped. For 7888 the fuselage and vertical stabilizer were red except for the nose, which was silver. The wings/ailerons and horizontal stabilizer/elevators were silver.
Also, the wide stripe down the side was yellow. The “STANDARD AIR LINES” lettering is red, except the first letters (S,A,L) are black. On “The Texan” there was a black and white stripe at the top and bottom of the yellow fuselage stripe. The black stripe was outermost, nearest the red of the fuselage; the white innermost next to the yellow. The B&W stripes were about an inch wide. The yellow stripe ran thru the window area. This was, indeed, a handsome airplane.
It sold on December 15, 1928 to the Aero Corporation of
California, Los Angeles, CA. Aero was the operator
of Standard Air Lines, which was founded in 1927 by Jack
Frye, Paul
Richter and Walter Hamilton. There is little
in the NASM record for this airplane beyond the basic information
above. We learn nothing about its maintenance or travels.
However, from the Davis-Monthan Register, we do know NC7888
landed four times at Tucson between January 23 and January
29, 1929. Each time it was flown by Hap
Russell, Chief
Pilot for Standard. In all of Russell’s visits
to Tucson (he holds the distinction of having more landings,
83, than any other pilot in the Register) he was punctual
and detailed in his Register entries, especially regarding
passenger numbers (if not names).
For example, on January 23, 1929, Russell landed at 4:45PM
with 1 passenger from Phoenix, AZ. He remained overnight
departing at 8:00AM the next morning with four passengers
outbound to Los Angeles, CA. Similar details and timing
are recorded for his flights with NC7888 on 1/25, 1/28 and
1/29/1929.
It was Russell’s (and other Standard pilots) careful
documentation of times and passenger counts that enabled me to write this
article about
the business economics of Standard Air Lines as measured
by traffic through the Davis-Monthan Airfield. This
article was published in the American Aviation Historical
Society Journal, April 2006.
Alas, NC7888 met an early end. It crashed in fog near
Beaumont, CA two months to the day (3/30/29) after Russell’s
last visit with it at Tucson. The airplane was totally
wrecked and burned. The pilot (not Russell) and three
passengers were killed. No further information.
A DIGRESSION
In addition to the four documented flights
and landings at Tucson, from the collection of Ruth Richter
Holden, Paul’s
daughter, we find a letter written by Paul on February 10,
1929 while aboard NC7888. The stationery he wrote
on was for use in-flight on Standard airliners, and featured
a line drawing of NC7888. The purpose of Richter’s
voyage (to Denver this trip) was to pick up an Alexander
Eaglerock airplane from the factory in Colorado Springs.
It doesn’t take much detective work to piece together
the entire round-trip. We find the Eaglerock, NC6376
(C/N 748, A-1 model, J-5 engine), cited in the Register on
Sunday February 17, 1929 just after noon. Pilot Richter’s
photographer, Robert Spence, mentioned in the letter, is
his passenger this day. Undoubtedly this is the westbound
ferry flight for this brand new airplane, albeit running
a day or so behind (weather?).
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UPLOADED: 07/07/06 REVISED: 07/16/08, 07/30/08
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