The 1928 National Ford Reliability Tour Movie Page of the Davis-Monthan Airfield Register Website

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Winners' Viewpoints: The Great 1927 Trans-Pacific Dole Race is available at the link. What was it like to fly from Oakland to Honolulu in a single-engine plane during August 1927? Was the 25,000 dollar prize worth it? Did the resulting fame balance the risk? For the first time ever, this book presents the pilot and navigator's stories written by them within days of their record-setting adventure. Pilot Art Goebel and navigator William V. Davis, Jr. take us with them on the Woolaroc, their orange and blue Travel Air monoplane (NX869) as they enter the hazardous world of Golden Age trans-oceanic air racing.

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You may view other motion picture films on this site by following this link.

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An excellent source for the Ford Reliability Tours is this link. I highly recommend this site, because it is rich in relevant material.

Specific to our pilots and the 1928 tour, you should look at Forden's book (with the yellow cover) that's available from that site as PDF downloads for each chapter (click Read the Book Online to download individual chapters). You may want to consider buying the book, too. Give 'em support for putting together such a useful website!

Chapter 4 of Forden's book covers the 1928 tour, and includes wonderful photos of some of our airplanes and pilots who visited Tucson. Of the 25 entrants in the Tour that year, 14 of the airplanes and pilots are signed into the Register.

The other two small books available to download ("One Two" by John Livingston; "A Four Thousand Mile Trip By Air" by Ralph W. Cram) are also interesting reading.

You'll also learn that the Ford Tour was reenacted in September 2003. Interestingly, six of the aircraft that flew in those Golden Age tours, and that landed at Tucson during that period, were still registered with the FAA in 2002. Refer to aircraft registrations 3947 (Travel Air), 5860 (Buhl), 6079 (Swallow), NC533W (Monocoupe), NC46V (Gee Bee, now a replica), and NC10402 (Laird).

MOTION PICTURES:

THE 1928 NATIONAL FORD RELIABILITY TOUR

The fourth National Air Tour for the Edsel B. Ford Trophy was almost a circumnavigation of the United States. Please refer to the links and references in the left sidebar and this link for a map and tables of additional information about the pilots and their aircraft. The link also exhibits photographs of airplanes and activities across the 34 stops made during the Tour. The Tour rumbled through Tucson on July 10, 1928.

Below is a one-minute motion picture clip of the action at Tucson through the late morning and early afternoon of the 10th. This is a silent film. Use your cursor and the menu bar below the image to control the movie. The player projects the movie as it came from the Wolf film (cited, right sidebar) and installed on the site by your Webmaster. Note the sepia tinting characteristic of old films from the era..

You see the Tour airplanes taxiing into ranks. The camera pans the flight line with a view of the old Airfield hangar and mountains in the background. Support vehicles and personnel move among the airplanes. An airplane flies right to left in the distance about halfway through the movie.

If you look carefully, some Tour numbers and registration numbers are visible. For example, the big Ford 4-AT flown by Frank Hawks shows the registration number (NC3443) under the left wing as the camera pans by. Hawks did not sign the Register this time, however.

Tour number 24, the Fairchild FC-2 (5574) flown by R.W. Pears, is shown with its wings folded and unfolded (look carefully for the latter as the camera pans). Pears did not sign the Register either. Tour #18, the "Baby Ruth" Waco ATO (NX5533) was flown by John Wood. Wood did not sign his airplane into the Register this visit, but he did on two later flights. A couple of the Ryans are identifiable, but not by number.

There was only one Lockheed in the Tour. Vega Model 1 NC4097 was flown by R.W. Cantwell as Tour #23. We can see it taxiing to the line right at the beginning of the film. Below are tabulated the pilots and their aircraft who comprised the swirl of activity that morning.

Plane Type	Plane Model	Plane Number	Arrival Date	Pilot Last Name	First Name
Swallow		NC6097	7/10/1928	Aavang	Mel
Waco	GXE	NX3132	7/10/1928	Beard	M. Gould
			7/10/1928	Breene	R.G.
Ryan		NC5553	7/10/1928	Breese	Vance
Bellanca		6503	7/10/1928	Brock	William S.
Lockheed	Vega	NC4097	7/10/1928	Cantwell	R.W.
Ryan	B-1 Brougham	NC1159	7/10/1928	Cleveland	Ephriam W. "Pop"
Alexander Eaglerock	A-4	NC6505	7/10/1928	Clevenger	Cloyd Peart
Buhl	Air Sedan	NC5860	7/10/1928	Dunn	Harry H.
Buhl	Airster	NC5861	7/10/1928	Graham	Alger
Bellanca	CH	NX4050	7/10/1928	Haldeman	George W.
Ryan		NC5547	7/10/1928	Henley	Al
Ford (not signed in Register)	4-AT	NC3443	7/10/1928	Hawks	Frank
Ryan		NC6586	7/10/1928	Livingston	John H.
Stinson	Detroiter	NC6580	7/10/1928	Lowers	George C.
Buhl	Air Sedan	NC5860	7/10/1928	Meister	Louis G.
Monocoupe		NC5877	7/10/1928	Omlie	Phoebe Fairgrave
Stinson	Detroiter	NC5900	7/10/1928	Stinson	Edward A.
Waco	ATO	NX5533	7/10/1928	Wood	John P.

Have some more fun and download chapter 4 of Forden's book cited in the left sidebar. Compare the table in the chapter beginning on page 84 with the airplanes you see in the film and the ones cited in the table above. How many can you identify? For further comparison, please follow this link to see still images of some of these same competing aircraft on the ground at San Diego, CA the day after their stop in Tucson.

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You may review this and all the film clips on www.dmairfield.org here!

Dossier 4.2

UPLOADED: 04/03/07 REVISED: 02/25/08, 10/28/09, 11/15/10, 12/20/11, 04/19/19

FILM CREDITS

This clip is shared with us through the courtesy of Les Wolf & Family of Tucson. The films come to us through Lt. Col. (RET) Alan Thomas, long-time friend of dmairfield.org. The original film, camera and projector belonged to Les Wolf’s step dad; John Phieffer. According to Mr. Wolf’s late grandmother Mr. Phieffer owned the first 16mm equipment in Tucson at the time. The films, original camera and projector were retrieved during a remodel of the family home in January 1989.

At that time the Temple of Music and Art in Tucson was undergoing substantial remodeling and they discovered footage of its original construction among the film reels. The films were donated to the Arizona Historical Society and to local TV stations, which used them in their broadcast stories about the Temple of Music and Art.

Mr. Wolf says, “My father (… now deceased) was born in Tucson (1917) and [lived] thru all that history [which] didn’t impress him as it did me. Subsequently he “allowed” donation of these materials in our shared name; Les Wolf & family. All my family dearly loves Tucson and its history. On their behalf, thank you for your interest.”

It is we who should thank Mr. Wolf and Lt. Col. Thomas!

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