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There is no data for NC4419 in the archives of the National Air & Space Museum (NASM), Washington, DC because this airplane is still registered with the FAA.

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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. Or use this FORM to order a copy signed by the author, while supplies last.

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http://www.cafepress.com/content/global/img/spacer.gifThe Congress of Ghosts 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 It includes across 277 pages previously unpublished photographs and texts, and facsimiles of personal letters, diaries and military orders.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 is available at the link. What was it like to fly from Oakland to Honolulu in a single-engine plane during August 1927? Was the 25,000 dollar prize worth it? Did the resulting fame balance the risk? For the first time ever, this book presents the pilot and navigator's stories written by them within days of their record-setting adventure. Pilot Art Goebel and navigator William V. Davis, Jr. take us with them on the Woolaroc, their orange and blue Travel Air monoplane (NX869) as they enter the hazardous world of Golden Age trans-oceanic air racing.

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Clover Field: The First Century of Aviation in the Golden State. 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.

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TRAVEL AIR MODEL 4000 NC4419

PANCHO'S (et al.) AIRPLANE, STILL REGISTERED

This Travel Air D-4000 is S/N 379, manufactured February 25, 1928, and purchased in March from the factory by Howard Hawks, a Hollywood movie director. It came with a 220 HP Wright J-5-C, S/N 8286. Hawks registered it as NX4419 (experimental, see below), flew it 156 hours for movie work, and sold it in October to Register pilot H.C. Lippiatt, an aircraft broker and dealer. Below, a photograph of 4419 when it was registered "NX.'

"Speedwing" Travel Air NC4419, Ca. 1928 (Source: Barnstormer's Workshop)
Travel Air NC4419, Ca. 1928 (Source: Barnstormer's Workshop)

Pancho Barnes bought NC4419 from Lippiatt on November 24, 1928. She paid $2,500, plus her old Travel Air in trade. According to the current FAA record, Barnes bought it initially for, “photography and motion picture work”. However, in 1929 she registered it as NR4419 and flew in the Powder Puff Derby that year. She did not finish due to a collision with an automobile on the runway in Pecos, TX on August 22.

Pancho was the third owner and flew NC4419 about three years. On July 3, 1930, she registered her airplane as NC4419 after the factory made, “…changes in fittings to correspond with approved type”. She flew it 359 hours, over half of her 618 total hours before her last use on March 8, 1931 for a 30-minute hop from Glendale to Mines Field.

All totaled through the years, NC4419 changed hands 23 times, including nine times during the years of WWII. It was owned by four Register pilots (Lippiatt, Barnes, Gilbert Budwig and Ross Hadley) and flown to Tucson by at least one more (see below). It is presently being restored by the staff of Barnstormer’s Workshop in Williamson, GA. Your Webmaster published an article in Sport Aviation in 2004 that describes NC4419 (PDF, 1.6MB).

NC4419 visited Tucson at least three times. The first two landings were made by Leo Nomis. Nomis was a personal friend of Barnes, and a member of The Motion Pictures Pilots' Association. He was killed in February, 1932. He is cited in at two Barnes biographies, Cf. Barbara Schultz' "Pancho" p. 106 and Tate's "The Lady Who Tamed Pegasus" p. 49.

Nomis' first visit was on Tuesday, August 21, 1928. Based at Santa Monica, CA, Clover Field, he carried Bob Moore as his sole passenger. They were on an itinerary westbound from El Paso, TX. Curiously, they cited their destination as New York. They noted in the Remarks column of the Register, "Ferrying." Note that he identified the airplane as registered "NC." According to the FAA record, it was NC until October 5, 1928 when it was changed by Howard Hawks.

Nomis' second visit was on Tuesday, September 11, 1928. He identified the registration as "NX" this time, which precedes the official date for the conversion to the experimental classification. This could simply be due to the lag in U.S. mail at the time, with the date of conversion tied to the date the correspondence was logged in by the Department of Commerce. Regardless, he carried Bob Moore again as passenger, westbound from El Paso to Yuma, AZ.

The third and final landing at Tucson by NC4419 was flown by Pancho Barnes. She carried Bert White as her single passenger. They were westbound to Los Angeles and home after a harrowing east-west journey. Please direct your browser to Barnes' biography page for a description of the circumstances surrounding this flight, and for a chart of her and White's itinerary. According to her pilot log, she landed at Tucson October 15, 1930. The dates in Barnes' pilot log and the ones in Schultz' book do not agree. Cf. pp. 82-83 of "Pancho" by Schultz (op. cit.).

On January 6, 1933, Pacific Airmotive Corp. confiscated NC4419 to satisfy a $1,649.38 material and labor lien for repairs that Pancho defaulted. They must have had it for sale for a while, and it was purchased by Register pilot Gilbert Budwig on May 9, 1934. He applied for an "R", restricted, license for "sky writing operations." The FAA record states, "Oil tank installed in front cockpit and lines running therefrom to exhaust pipe." Budwig next sold it on March 26, 1937 to Register pilot Ross Hadley (6th owner), who used it for sky writing. The airplane was reacquired by Pacific Airmotive Corp. on September 16, 1942 for satisfaction of a labor and materials lien of $1,546.10 against Hadley. This is odd, because at one time in the early 1930s Hadley was president of Pacific Aeromotive Corp.

Between then and 1963, NC4419 was transferred via numerous sales from California to Colorado to a number of locations in Texas. On May 13, 1963 it sold to Arthur V. Whidden of Cochran, GA, then to Lowe Aviation, Macon, GA on February 16, 1966, and then to its current owner who registered it on June 15, 1994. Below, three views of the restoration project as of November 15, 2002 when I visited with the airplane. The first view is of the bins containing individual original parts.

NC4419 Parts Bin, November 15, 2002 (Source: Webmaster)
NC4419 Parts Bin, November 15, 2002 (Source: Webmaster)

The second view is of the steel tube fuselage frame.

NC4419 Fuselage Frame, November 15, 2002 (Source: Webmaster)
NC4419 Fuselage Frame, November 15, 2002 (Source: Webmaster)

The third view is of the original wing structure.

NC4419 Original Wing Structure, November 15, 2002 (Source: Webmaster)
NC4419 Original Wing Structure, November 15, 2002 (Source: Webmaster)

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Dossier 3.1.37.1

THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 03/23/10 REVISED: 08/25/11, 09/14/11, 09/02/12, 01/06/23

 
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NC4419, is still registered with the FAA. It is being restored in Georgia.

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We have the FAA record for this airplane, which details the chain of custody and maintenance activities.

Site visitor Tom informs me that this airplane appears in "Traveling Saleslady" from 1935, a movie starring Joan Blondell. She sells a line of toothpaste with various cocktail flavors. The airplane is skywriting.

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