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GONE SOUTH
This airplane is a Fairchild FC-2W2 (S/N 533;
ATC #61) manufactured in November, 1928 by the Fairchild Airplane
Manufacturing Corporation, Farmingdale, LI, NY. It came from
the factory with a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine of 410HP
(S/N 888). It was a seven-place airplane which, if rigged
with floats weighed 5,150 pounds, and with land wheels 5,500
pounds.
It was purchased on November 12, 1928 by Interstate Airlines,
Inc., Chicago, IL for the flyaway price of $18,705. A month
later, on December 7th, it suffered an accident at Chattanooga,
TN and was "badly damaged". As of January 8, 1929 it was
repaired and Wasp engine S/N 864 was installed.
On February 11, 1929 NC9702 sold to Scenic Airways, Inc.,
of Phoenix, AZ. J.
Parker Van Zandt was the owner of the
company. Soon, the airplane came to Tucson Sunday, March 24, 1929
flown by Lamar Nelson (he was the Operations Manager for
Scenic) carrying three unidentified passengers. They were based in Phoenix,
AZ and were inbound from Phoenix and headed for El Paso,
TX, probably a scheduled flight of Scenic Airways.
NC9702 was sold on March 31, 1930 to South American Construction
Company, Ltd. of Los
Angeles, CA . South American Construction operated mining
property at Tipuani, Bolivia, with offices in La Pax, Bolivia.
As of June 7,1930, the airplane was rebuilt and overhauled
by Aero Corporation
of California and shipped to Bolivia
for service between La Paz and Tipuani. The U.S. registration
was cancelled as of June 20, 1930. No further information.
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THIS PAGE UPLOADED: 03/15/06 REVISED: 10/12/11
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