Want it short and sweet? This is it.

This aircraft is a Travel Air 2000, S/N 296 (ATC 30), manufactured December 6, 1927 by Travel Air manufacturing Co., Wichita, KS. It was purchased for $2,385 by Beacon Airways, 233 Patterson Bldg., Fresno, CA. It left the factory with a 90HP OX-5 engine, s/n 4510 (built by Willys-Morrow). It was a three-place airplane that weighed 2,180 pounds.

NC3750 landed at Tucson on December 29, 1927. Pilot Ted Braley arrived solo from Wichita, KS enroute to Fresno, CA. For what was obviously a ferry flight from the factory, what a challenge and thrill it must have been to fly this brand new airplane cross-country during those times.

Unfortunately, NC3750 touched the life of another Register pilot. According to the NASM data card, it suffered an accident, April 4, 1928 in Fresno. Pilot George W. Faw (transport license #1648) and passenger R.E. Dustin were killed and the airplane destroyed.

Please direct your browser to Faw's link to learn about this dedicated pilot, and to note his obituary at the bottom of the page. The date of the obituary is April 21, and it states that Faw and his passenger will killed on that day, not the 4th. The true date is the 21st. Cause of the accident was undetermined. The aircraft registration was cancelled May 24, 1928, barely six months after it was issued.

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UPLOADED: June, 2005 REVISED: 07/14/09