OGDEN OSPREY PB NC150W

CRASHED BY ITS MANUFACTURER/PILOT

This airplane is an Ogden Osprey PB 2 (S/N 105; ATC# unassigned) manufactured July 25, 1930 by Ogden Aeronautical Corporation, Inglewood, CA.  It left the factory with three Menasco Pirate B-4 engines (S/Ns unidentified) of 90 HP each.  It was a six-place airplane.

NC150W was approved for “NX” registration for testing the practicality of three Menasco Pirate engines in the aircraft.  It was approved for ATC# Gr. 2-295 on October 30, 1930.  The image below, from the Arizona Historical Society, shows NC150W on the ground at Douglas International Airport, Douglas, AZ late in 1930. The pilot is unknown.

We find NC150W landing once at Tucson, on January 10, 1932, flown by Vernon Dorrell.  There is no indication on the NASM record when the registration was changed to “NC”.  Dorrell carried his wife as the single passenger.  Based in Los Angeles, CA, they were westbound from El Paso, TX to Los Angeles. 

NC150W was operated by the “Ogden Shuttle Air Lines", a one-man operation flown by pilot Henry H. Ogden, which began operations in March 1932.  Ogden provided twice-daily service to Palm Springs, CA via Riverside, San Bernardino and Banning. Pilot Ogden had been at Tucson about eight years earlier as mechanic on Leigh Wade's "Boston" World Flight Douglas Cruiser. You can see an image of him, fourth from the left, here.

You can see a moving picture sequence of this airplane on the ground and taking off at Riverside at this link. Scroll down the page a bit to the film viewer on that page. NC150W is at the very beginning of the film. The date of the film footage for NC150W is between October 30, 1930 when the "NX" registration was changed to "NC" and March 20, 1932 (see below). The rest of the film was taken ca. June 14, 1926 (see the information on the linked page).

In the film, you'll see NC150W with the engines running, the pilot in the cockpit with his elbow casually out the window (Ogden or Dorrell?), passengers entering the port door, taxi and takeoff. The narrator describes the use of the airplane by Ogden Shuttle Air Lines, and you can see the Air Line's livery on the fuselage. If you scrub back and forth across the empennage of the airplane as it taxis out, you can see the registration number if you get the framing just right. What happened next to pilot Ogden and the airplane is described by the narrator in the film as well as immediately below.

Mr. Ogden didn’t fly NC150W for long.  It suffered an accident on March 20, 1932 at Riverside, CA.  The airplane was “washed out.”  Pilot H.H. Ogden had his transport license suspended for 15 days, due to failure to take off upwind when it was practicable and possible.  He apparently took off downwind and cracked up.  No further information about the remains of the airplane.

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Ogden shows up in the Register twice more flying Ogden Ospreys NX187N (2/21/1930) and NR398V (8/8/30). 

THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 07/05/06 REVISED: 01/17/08, 02/09/09 (film link), 01/16/20