| Stearman NC8809 landed at the Davis-Monthan Airfield three
times. Each time it was flown by Ross Hadley. He landed on
November 10, 1930, noting "T-3189" next to his
name. His transport pilot license number, no doubt. He was
carrying passenger John E. Pratt northwest bound from El
Paso, TX to Phoenix, AZ.
On
November 24, 1930 he landed carrying May Hadley on their
way from Phoenix to Lordsburg, NM. The airplane was registered
"NR" on this occassion.
On August 22,1932 he was eastbound
from Yuma, AZ to Cleveland, OH carrying one unidentified
passenger. They were probably headed to the National Air
Races, which were held in Cleveland that year between August
27th and September 5th. According to the Aircraft
Year Book for 1933 (left sidebar), Hadley placed way down (33rd) on the list of finishers
of the Pacific Wing of the Cord Cup Race (transcontinental
air derby).
The image above was provided by site visitor Dennis Loep
(cited, right sidebar) of Enschede, Netherlands, whose grandfather took the photograph
when NC8809 visited Europe, probably after Hadley's disastrous
attempts to get NC5310 on
the same voyage during 1929. Ross had an ego, as both this
airplane and NC5310 had his name writ large on the fuselage.
The location of the image is Schiphol,
Amsterdam, which is now the national airport. It was not
much more than a luxury grassfield during the Golden Age.
In his initial email to me, Dennis said on March 20, 2006, "I
have a picture of NC-8809 in two-tone livery with Ross Hollywood
(in a large arrow) USA on the side.... Picture was taken
on a "Vluchtsportdag",
a
sports flying day at Schiphol, Amsterdam. I think 1934. My
grandfather was a pilot and aviation buff and I have a lot
of domestic (Dutch) aviation pictures from him. I guess he
visited the Sports flying day at Schiphol and took this picture
(and a lot more, but Dutch planes). In an old album I found
this picture of NC8809 about 4 hours ago and started a look-see
on internet."
Hadley also raced in the 1938 National Air Races (Beechcraft NC18776, not a Register airplane).
In addition, he was the 6th owner of Pancho
Barnes' Travel Air NC4419.
UPLOADED: 04/03/06 REVISED: 09/29/07, 11/07/07, 08/25/11
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