Mr Widgeon wrote:
To the best of my knowledge PAA never got a new Goose... but I have no listing for a NEW Goose going to PAA.
Before he flew for McDermott my Dad flew for PAA out of Dinner Key and the PAA Airport in Miami. He was a check pilot and as such flew just about everything in the inventory and I don't remember seeing a Goose listed in his logbooks during that time (1941 - 1948)
Hey Bill,
My latest Goose research project involves a photo I found in the WIX Long Island Aviation thread qutie a while back. It shows what essentially seems to be a new Goose sitting on its belly on a runway. Somebody screwed up and landed without first extending the wheels - better than putting the wheels down before landing in the water of course! The photo is labeled "G-21 Roosevelt Field" but I am trying to determine its actual registration and serial number.
The only identifiable markings on the Goose are the words "1st Air Squadron" over "Florida Defense Force" on the nose. I eventually was able to find a history of the CAP in Florida during WWII here:
http://flwg.us/archive/floridawinghistory.asp It says that the 1st Air Squadron of the FDF was formed at Morrison Field, West Palm Beach in May 1941.
I also eventually found a photo of the members of that CAP squadron posing in front of what seems to be the very same Goose. A small version of it can be found as a Flash pop-up (no. 52 out of 53 at the bottom of the page) here:
http://www.pbchistoryonline.org/go/photo.gallery/for/world-war-ii I need to figure out where I got a bigger and better copy of that same photo and post that link. (Note: I just found a download link for a better copy of that group photo here:
http://sercap.us/page8220741.aspx) In any case, it was supposedly taken on July 4th, 1941 in West Palm Beach. Mr. Cecil Z. Cornelius was identifed as one of the people in the photo and as being the owner of one of two Gooses operating with the FDF before they were absorbed into the CAP. He was also listed as a county commissioner in West Palm Beach County at the time.
So far, I haven't been able to tie a specific Goose to Mr. Cornelius of West Palm Beach in 1941. By eliminating every Goose not built until after July 1941 as well as every one built specfically for the military up until that point (including the four for Peru and all of the G-21B flying boats for Portugal, it had to have been an actual civilian model G-21 or G-21A (not an Air Corps
OA-9 or Navy
JRF series) with a serial number lower than 1085. Eliminating the ones that I'm pretty sure it can't be based on known histories, I'm actually down to 9 possibilities.
Another book I found on the history of West Palm Beach up through 1950 included a copy of that same group photo in front of the Goose, except it mistakenly identified the aircraft as a Sikorsky amphibian. That made me wonder if possibly they were confused by the fact that it had once been owned by Sikorsky's chief test pilot, Boris Sergievsky - in other words, Grumman G-21 s/n 1006, registered as NC16915.
In any case, the fact that your dad was flying seaplanes out of Miami around the same time makes it just a long shot that you might have absorbed some relevant information about Gooses in south Florida at the time, but that long shot is what I'm down to at this point! Any ideas?
And from the other end, are there any other means by which additional information about the original "G-21 Roosevelt Field" photo can be obtained?