Vintage Aeroplane Registry?

[daveymac82c]

I absolutely love the warbirdregistry.org and I'm curious to know if there's anything like it for vintage airplanes.

If not, I think it would be a great idea, but probably A LOT of work.

Cheers,

David

[wacoykc]

I would be willing to help on it if needed.

[daveymac82c]

Thank you for offering.

I wish I had any kind of skills to put a website like what I'm thinking of together. I'm affraid I'm only an internet user, and not an internet maker.

Maybe we could start with the basics:

- Waco
- Stinson
- Beech
- Cessna
- Piper
- Fairchild
- de Havilland
- Homebuilts
- (Am I missing any?)

Or would it better to put them into categories like:

- single engine (open cockpit)
- single engine (closed cockpit)
- multi-engine

Or

- Single seat
- two seat
- three seat
- four seat

It's not quite as easy as fighter, bomber, recon, etc.

Does anyone have the time/ability to put something like this together?

I think that with the ball rolling a project like this could get done. Maybe just start with Waco and Fairchild and go from there.

Cheers,

David

[wacoykc]

You would have to go by manufacturer. Start with American. Add to the list:

Howard
Laird
Travel Air
Kreider-Reisner
Pitcairn
Dart
Taylorcraft
Flamingo
Aeronca
Spartan
Ryan
Curtiss-Wright
Welch
Swallow
Parks
Simplex
Alliance
American Eagle
Alexander Eaglerock
Timm
Davis
Inland
Stearman
Fleet
Kinner
CallAir
Curtiss
Wright
Star
Wallace
Buhl
Ford

This just gets you started on a MASSIVE project. Plenty more to add.

[daveymac82c]

No kidding,

this will/would be a HUGE project.

But then again, the rarer the airplanes the less you'd have to track them down when you know full well that there's only one in existance.

Anyways, is there anyone else out there that would be interested in helping with this? Or any opinions?

Cheers,

David

[C170BDan]

Hey David & Andy,

It has been started...

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=22938

http://vintage.warbirdregistry.org/

I am working on my lists... We know Scott (editor here at WIX) has a big job on his hands with the Warbird side so I hope to jump in this winter to work on the Vintage side. One of my last notes to Scott was obtaining the HTML templates from him so they could be populated with the aircraft details. I knew a vintage registry was needed when I didnt get very far in my own research of vintage aircraft. So I am glad Scott has made space for it. At this point I will donate my Spartan, Ryan, Lockheed, Curtiss info.

So... I will post progress on here... Look forward to seeing this project thru!

[tulsaboy]

I'm in for the Spartans- already have the list, can send the info to whoever/whenever.

kevin

[wacoykc]

I assume we would only be doing aircraft that are currently registered? I of course can supply all the Waco info. I can also supply thousands of photos of the other antiques that have flown since 1960.

[C170BDan]

I assume we would only be doing aircraft that are currently registered? I of course can supply all the Waco info. I can also supply thousands of photos of the other antiques that have flown since 1960.

Well, the Warbird registry has them listed as...

A for airworthy
R for restoration
D for derilect
S for static

So... eventually it would be as many as survive. I was going to start with registered and low number of survivors and work my way up! Some types like the Cessnas would be a crazy ammount of work!

[gary1954]

Hey David & Andy,

It has been started...

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... hp?t=22938

http://vintage.warbirdregistry.org/

I am working on my lists... We know Scott (editor here at WIX) has a big job on his hands with the Warbird side so I hope to jump in this winter to work on the Vintage side. One of my last notes to Scott was obtaining the HTML templates from him so they could be populated with the aircraft details. I knew a vintage registry was needed when I didnt get very far in my own research of vintage aircraft. So I am glad Scott has made space for it. At this point I will donate my Spartan, Ryan, Lockheed, Curtiss info.

So... I will post progress on here... Look forward to seeing this project thru!

What is the range of age of aircraft, is it wide open to a specific year of manufacture, what do you not want?

[wacoykc]

I think we should stick with pre-1942 to start with. That will keep us from trying to do Aeronca Champs, Luscombes, Taylorcrafts, Cessna 120/140/170, Stinson 108, Cubs, etc. Those could have quite literally thousands. After we got through alot of antiques then we could move to the Classics like above and create a whole another list. Comments????

[rossjools]

It would indeed be a huge and almost never ending project. If you go over to http://www.airwarfareforum.com and have a look five topics down on the main page you'll find the Aircraft Drawings and 3 Views Section, dedicated to the memory of Jon Noble (a personal friend) who passed away just last week. Amongst other members Jon has also listed all of the known aircraft makers in alphabetical order from A-Z. Jon was a teacher and the librarian at Toronto High School so books and learning were a couple of his passions.

If you go over there and have a look you'll see just how huge the manufacturers' list is let alone all the different types of aircraft made by those manufacturers. About 18 months ago I had a meal and drink with Jon and then we adjourned to his house where he showed me his library of books on aircraft. He estimated that there had been about 21,500 different types of aircraft of all makes and models produced, both powered and unpowered. Let's not forget that throughout aviation history companies that produce military aircraft also produce aircraft for the private and commercial market, sometimes from the same design, or adapt a civilian design to military purposes or vice-versa.

Cheers,
Ross.

[wacoykc]

I understand the complexity. I have done quite a bit of work with AEROFILES.COM on their Waco section. If you look, 90% of the Waco photos are from me. They too have a list of U. S. manufacturers. Back in the 1980's, there was a book published about 3 times that was basically just this.....antique and warbird aircraft still on the U.S. registry. Cannot for the life of me remember the name. I know I have at least two copies in my hangar. This was an excellent reference guide as it was cross-referenced by manufacturer, N number and I believe state. I agree with Dan Linn that we possibly start with airplanes that are somewhat obscure and then move into some of the more popular models such as Waco, Howard, Stearman, Travel Air, Beechcraft, Ryan, Fairchild.

[tulsaboy]

I agree on the obscure to the popular approach. For instance, with Spartan there were eight models produced; for two of the models, only one each still exists. For three of the models, no examples are known to exist. And for three of the models, a total of less than 30 exist. So for that manufacturer, it would be fairly simple to document the aircraft and call the registry "complete." I'll bet that there are several other similar manufacturers that could be done in a similar fashion.

kevin

[k5083]

WacoYKC, I think you may be thinking of the "Vintage Airplane Catalogue." I have one of the editions. It was basically a dump of the FAA registry for vintage aircraft, sorted in a few different ways as you note. Useful volumes and an impressive amount of work in the 1980s when availability of the registry in computer readable form and the tools to manipulate it were not as available as now.

Nowadays it is relatively easy (and free) to obtain the entire FAA registry, put it in an Excel spreadsheet, select the vintage aircraft and sort it any way you want. I did this myself for personal use not long ago, and a couple of foreign registries as well. I thought of cleaning it up a little, sprinkling in some photos (like you, I have many thousands of antique photos going back to the 50s) and publishing it on lulu.com as a sort of updated VAC, but never found the time. A very doable project though.

To do a vintage registry like the warbird registry is a more difficult project. The info on individual aircraft owner history, etc. that is so valuable, and info on aircraft that are no longer registered, is much more difficult to obtain. The warbird registry would have been impossible without all the legwork done by Coggan et al. in the Warbirds Worldwide Directory books of the 1980s, which basically entailed being in direct contact with owners and observers around the world. No such effort has been made with respect to vintage aircraft more generally since Leslie Hunt's classic "Veteran and Vintage Aircraft" books of the 1970s, still an indispensable resource but a lot of water has flowed since then.

Even if the vintage registry is not likely ever to match up to the warbird registry, it will still be a very valuable venture.

August