Interstate L-6

[RB-18B]

After completing the monograph on the lowly Curtiss O-52 for MMP (soon to be in production - same folks who did the AT-9 and O-47 - yes, another "unloved" aircraft) I became interested along the way in the all-but-forgotten Interstate L-6, only 250 of which were acquired by the USAAF. Actual in-service images of these aircraft during the war are virtually non-existent, it would seem. I am particularly interested in locating at least one decent image of one of the 20 that went to the Escuela de Aviacion Civil '5 de Mayo 2' in Puebla, Mexico, as XE-100 to XE-120 under the auspices of the Lend-Lease program in 1943. Any help would be greatly appreciated, as always.

[bdk]

Not answering your question but the following 5 aircraft are identified in the FAA registry as an L-6:

N52756
N47319
N46141
N40270
N47093

Some may have been licensed as an S1 (the civil designation) rather than an L-6.

[Pogmusic]

I believe that most of the US L-6s went to the Civilian Pilot Training Program. My father trained in L-6s while at LSU.

[JohnB]

In many books, I have seen photo credits or acknowledgements to the air attaches of various governments
You might try the Mexican Embassy.

You might also try museums which have a L-6.

A favorite regional museum is the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum in Hood River, Oregon...on the Columbia east of Portland.

They have a rare complete set of the small "L-bird" Grasshoppers...L-2/6.
They even have two of the three glider trainer variants, a Taylorcraft TG-6 and Piper TG-8, both of which fly.

[RB-18B]

Thanks folks. In fact, of the 250 L-6's produced starting in 1942, not less than 164 were distributed to active USAAF observation/reconnaissance units, plus the 20 that went to Mexico. The 70th Reconnaissance Group received 30 by March 1943, the 26th a total of 47, the 76th (49), 60th (21) and 74th (17), sufficient to equip at least one or more of the three subordinate squadrons of each. I have reviewed the histories of each of these, such as they are, at the USAF Historical Research Agency, but, as usual, these are very light on hardware and heavy on promotions, awards, O Club shindigs and bios of commanding officers. It appears these 164 aircraft only remained with these units until the end of 1943, when replaced with other types or the units morphed into something else, but serve they did.

[Noha307]

I am not aware of any picture sources, but you may be interested in a book about the company about the company that bought the rights to the Cadet, Call Aircraft, titled CallAir Affair. Vintage Aviation News also had an article about flying the L-6 a while back. Lastly, I uploaded a 3-view of an L-6 to Wikimedia Commons the other day that might be useful.

If you get into it, I would be interested in learning how Interstate ended up with the L-6 contract. They had never built complete airplanes before (although they did build parts) and never did again after the L-6, so what motivated them to start building airplanes and why did the military go along with it? To be fair, we all know that plenty of manufacturers retooled for military production – and did so successfully – during the war, but what mystifies me is why didn't the military approach one of the other companies with light aircraft manufacturing experience? (It does strike me that the L-6 was the last of the original batch of liaison airplanes to be so designated. Whether or not that indicates it received a contract later than other manufacturers or not I'm not sure of, but if it did maybe it is evidence of some hesitancy on the part of the military to enlist a company with no experience building complete aircraft.) For example, Porterfield seems like it would have been the perfect fit. Their Collegiate was very similar to the other L-birds and the company was not engaged in any other military contracts at the time, so it's not like they would have been overextending themselves. As a matter of fact, according to a newspaper article, the company even submitted an entry for the liaison competition, but lost. So, if anything, the company closed because it didn't secure any production contracts during the war. My best guess is that the military saw something in their analysis of the company that they didn't like. Given the fact that, as far as I can tell, the company collapsed following the loss of said contract, maybe it was that the government realized they wouldn't be able to maintain production. However, Portefield was not the only one either. Bellanca or Spartan, while not having any liaison-type aircraft in production at the time, were relatively or completely underutilized as well.

[RB-18B]

Thanks for your comments Noha, but Interstate had actually built at least 332 S-1A Cadets (and received a coveted Approved Type Certificate) before they got the L-6 contract from the USAAF. I want to assure that the article I am nearly finished with will address all of your excellent observations and, hopefully, shed just a little more light on yet another unloved aircraft!

[Noha307]

Thanks for your comments Noha, but Interstate had actually built at least 332 S-1A Cadets (and received a coveted Approved Type Certificate) before they got the L-6 contract from the USAAF.

Oh, my mistake. My knowledge of the L-6 is unsurprisingly limited and I must have just assumed that the S-1 designation applied to the postwar CallAir production. Thanks for the correction!

You did make me think of one other question though: Why was it designated the "S-1" and not the "I-1" for "Interstate"? Wikipedia doesn't name who designed the aircraft, but I'm willing to bet that it was the president of Interstate, Don P. Smith, and from this hence the "S" for "Smith". Is this correct?

Also, it would be interesting to know how the company came up with the name "Interstate". (Origins of aircraft manufacturer names is a bit of an interest of mine, being something I touched on in a different thread a while back.) However, I did notice that: 1) the L-8 production went to the Bolivian Air Force, 2) the rights to the S-1 design were purchased by Harlow in 1945, which also had an export focus with their PC-5 (I assume the sale was part of Interstate's postwar refocus on appliance production.), and 3) Harlow was owned at one point by the Intercontinent Corporation in 1941. All of this seems to suggest to me that there was a predisposition toward foreign sales and maybe the name was a reference to that? However, I am also not clear on the timeline of all of the above and depending on when it happened, it may have been due to the influence of Harlow rather than anything by Interstate itself.

I want to assure that the article I am nearly finished with will address all of your excellent observations and, hopefully, shed just a little more light on yet another unloved aircraft!

Awesome, I can't wait to hear your conclusions. (I actually added a good deal to the Wikipedia article on the company a while back, but it was mostly pulling from various newspaper articles, so your article should be a good reference should I ever get back to it again.) Where will the article be published?

[RyanShort1]

The Interstate is one of the older taildraggers I still have yet to fly and really want to. It seems like everyone I've talked to that has flown them loved them, and I know that the Jelly Belly Interstate demo is quite a good one on the airshow circuit.

[RB-18B]

Looks like the article will be published in the Journal of the AAHS in due course. Still struggling to find a decent image of one of the 20 L-6's that went to the Mexican Escuela de Aviacion Civil '5 de Mayo 2' in 1943 as XE-100 to XE-120.