This airplane is a Travel Air 2000, serial number 574. The NASM record does not say when it was manufactured (although the date was probably sometime during 1928). It left the factory as a three-place airplane with a Curtiss OX-5 engine (serial number 1695) of 90HP.

NC6045 visited Tucson twice. The first time was on Wednesday, February 13, 1929. It was flown by Mary Von Mach, carrying passenger R.L. Baumgardner. Based at Detroit, MI, they were westbound from Lordsburg, NM. They remained on the ground overnight, departing for Phoenix, AZ the next morning at 8:30AM. The second visit came on February 19, 1929. This time Baumgardner was flying and Von Mach was the passenger. Their itinerary was reversed, from Phoenix to Lordsburg. No purpose was given in the Register for this trip, but if you refer to Von Mach's link, you'll see the flight was planned at least as early as October, 1928. It was simply a long, cross-country trip from Detroit to California in order to familiarize Von Mach with western airspace. This familiarization would come in handy in six-month's time when she competed in the 1929 transcontinental derby in conjunction with the National Air Races (NAR).

It is difficult to tell the chain of custody of this airplane from the NASM data. It seems to have been sold initially to W.B. Maycock of Michigan on August 18, 1928. Then to Von Mach on October 20, 1929 (meaning the airplane was borrowed during the NAR). Finally, during 1933, it moved with Maurice J. Rondelez of Michigan. There is no detailed information in the NASM file before, after or during its tenure with Ms. Von Mach.

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Dossier 3.1.37

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