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Registration Number NC6505
A Brand-New Airplane In The National
Air Tour, 1928
This aircraft is an Alexander Eaglerock A-4, S/N 564 (ATC#
pending). It was built with a center section of “new
type.” It was manufactured in June 1928 by the Alexander
Aircdraft Company, Colorado Springs, CO. It came from the
factory with a 180 HP Hispano-Suiza “E” engine
S/N 49236. It weighed 2,230 pounds.
It was expressly made, “to be flown in Ford Air Tour.”
Engineering data for the airplane had been received by the
Department of Commerce, but it was not examined as of 6/24/28.
That is why the ATC was pending.
We meet the airplane at Tucson on 7/10/1928, flown in the
Air Tour by Cloyd
Peart Clevenger. He was inbound from El
Paso, destination unspecified, but he was headed west with
the Tour. He carried a passenger who was unidentified in
the Register. They eventually placed 18th in the Tour.
Image, left, courtesy of Ruth Richter Holden. See reference
in left sidebar. Date unsure, but it was certainly between
June 1928 and April 1930. Please follow this link for another
image of NC6505 on this site.
Image below, from the Hudgin Family
Collection, shows his airplane and its pertinent data as
published in the Alexander Aircraft Co. house magazine, The
Alexander Aircrafter.
The airplane must have been owned by the factory during the
Tour, since its first record of sale was in August to J.O.
Eychaner of Kaycee, WY. It had a new Hispano-Suiza engine
installed, S/N 47496. It was sold for, “cross-country
and coyote hunting—sheep ranch business.” Pilot
Eychaner (limited commercial license #1949) crashed the airplane
in Casper, WY on 12/21/29. he and a passenger were uninjured.
The landing gear strut failed and the airplane nosed over
damaging the landing gear, lower wings, center section, fittings,
and twisted the fuselage. He must have waited until the winter
was over to repair the airplane, because four months later....
The registration was cancelled 4/4/30 after the, “ship
burned 6 mi. south of Cheyenne on Denver Highway, while being
transported to factory at Colorado Springs, CO for repair,
motor salvaged, ship a washout.”
UPLOADED: 07/09/05 REVISED:
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