Registration Number NC4533
A Short Life
This aircraft is a Travel Air 2000, S/N 388 (ATC30), manufactured
March 14, 1928 by Travel Air Manufacturing Co., Wichita, KS.
It left the factory with a 90 HP Curtiss OX-5 engine,
S/N 5584. It weighed 2,189 pounds.
It sold for $3,207 the same day to C.B.
Cosgrove of Tucson.
It appears from the record that Mr. Cosgrove was forming Southwest
Air Service, Inc. based in Tucson. He signed the register
twice with the airplane. Both times he was carrying passenger
H.W. Durham. Durham was Cosgrove's partner in Southwest Air
Service. They landed on June 11 and 25, 1928, inbound from San
Diego and Phoenix, respectively.
NC4533
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Image, above, courtesy of the C.B.
Cosgrove Photographic and Document Collection. Left to right, C.Burton Cosgrove, Mrs.
Cosgrove, Burt's mother, and H.W. Durham.
Cosgrove kept NC4533 only nine months, and on December 6, 1928
sold it to Harry Marcotte, manager of the Montezuma Hotel,
Nogales, AZ. On February 3, 1929 the airplane was “stalled on
takeoff”
at Nogales by unlicensed pilot B.M. Cole. It was called a
“washout” and the registration was cancelled.
However, it was sold on March 15, 1929 to Donald F. Payne back up
in Tucson without its engine. The nose and wing were repaired
and OX-5 engine S/N 5077 was installed. It was inspected and
approved for flight June 10, 1929, and a temporary license was issued “to
enter Kansas Air Tour.” The NASM record is confusing here, stating that it suffered an accident in Wichita, KS on June 2, 1929, a week before it was approved for flight.
Regardless, sometime during that summer it was struck by a windstorm and suffered, "mashed struts, one lower wing and one aileron." Repairs were made (new right wings sent from factory), it was inspected and approved for flight by August 20, 1929.
NC4533 sold the following year on April 10, 1930 to Dr. F.A. Brewster of Holdrege,
NB. It suffered an accident in Scotts Bluff, NB on May 31, 1931
and pilot Harold B. Lyman (no license) and passenger Roy H.
Libby were killed. It was later reported that the aircraft
was sold to Lyman before the accident, although no bill of
sale exists. Its registration was cancelled July 10, 1930.
I heard during August, 2010 from the granddaughter of Roy H. Libby. She says the following about him,
"My grandfather was one of the CEOs of Nebraska's Consumer Public Power
District. He was living in Holdrege, NE at the time and was on a business trip
to Scottsbluff when they crashed. My mother was only 16 or 17 at the time. He
had been to her Baccalaureate ceremony and left for his trip and never
returned.
"Although he was not a pilot, he was always ahead of his time. He was
a very accomplished artist and was so interested in new technology. I'm sure he
would have eventually learned to fly. The plane was owned by Dr. F. Brewster
from Holdrege. He was deemed the first flying physician. He would fly over
parts of NE and Kansas to see patients and perform surgery. He was good friends
with my mother's family.
"My mother worked for him and his physician brothers a few years after the crash. She was headed to art school in CA after graduation. She spent about 6 months there and then had to come home to help take care of her younger sister and help her mom. Her mom ended up working for Consumer Public Power for the remainder of her working years."
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THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 1/06 REVISED: 11/19/06, 09/04/10
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