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Registration Number NC8187
Plane Vanilla
This aircraft is a Swallow TP-W, S/N 202 (ATC 2253), manufactured
9/23/29 by Swallow Airplane Co., Wichita, KS. It was powered
by a Warner Scarab 110 HP engine, S/N 425. As a two-place
aircraft, it weighed 1,739 pounds. It landed twice at Tucson.
It sold on 10/2/30 to Robert Grayson Crooks, Winslow, AZ,
who was the sole owner of record.
Swallow Model TP, NC8187, Location Unknown
(Source: Redden via Woods)
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It landed first at Tucson on 5/15/1930 piloted by Nick Galloway
carrying an unidentified passenger. Based in Santa Monica,
CA, they were westbound from Lordsburg, NM to Yuma, AZ. Pilot
Galloway was a friend of Bobbi
Trout, as indicated on page 29 of the reference at left.
The second landing of NC8187 at Tucson was between 10/14
and 10/17/30 piloted by George Willis Tyson. He was carrying
passenger Barclay Brandingham, but they did not specify their
homebase, where they came from or where they were going.
The airplane suffered an accident on 12/24/30. No record
of damage. Pilot N.S. Thompson had no license. The registration
was cancelled on 1/22/31, although owner Crooks continued
to send mailing address updates through 1933. One could
conclude the airplane was damaged on 12/24/30 and Crooks
chose not to repair it. In the record Crooks was reported
deceased as of 3/25/33.
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Oakland Tribune March 10, 1933
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Site visitor C. Crier provides the news article at
right from the Oakland Tribune of March 10, 1933.
She provides the following information about Robert Crooks,
the sole owner of NC8187. "My mother's cousin Robert
Grayson Crooks was killed when his plane crashed while running
rum from Mexico."
And, further, "He
was born 1902/3 in Colorado to Nancy O. (Conaway) and James
Elsworth Crooks. His funeral services were held at 10:00
a.m. Monday Mar 13, 1933 at Pierce Bros. Chapel In L.A. according
to the LA Times or Examiner Vital Records."
The airplane he crashed was not NC8187. Had Crooks
lived another nine months, he wouldn't have had to run rum,
as Prohibition was repealed in December 1933.
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UPLOADED: 07/28/05 REVISED: 01/26/07, 10/25/07
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