Warbird Information Exchange

Gents,

Does anyone know which aircraft 1946 Bendix Racer 22 F-5G NX 33697 was? Does the machine still exist?

44-53184 N33697 later N1502V, then to CF-GKH. Crashed fatally on July 31, 1953 near Dawson, Yukon. A/C was owned by Spartan Air Service at the time.

T J

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Thanks A Million that info checks with the serial number I have, 8439 from the FAA site.

Can one assume that most NX numbers reverted to N if the aircraft was no longer considered experimental or did it happen for another reason?

Thanks again,

Gary

Yes. In those days there was no experimental amateur built category. So an aircraft was experimental for testing, exhibition and racing though racing may have been part of exhibition. When the F5G was used for mapping or any other commercial interest it had to registered in a non experimental category. Those I think are Standard, Restricted and Limited. Limited was only open for a couple of years after the war to allow persons who wanted to to license former combat aircraft for commerical use. The category was only allowed for a couple of years because the manufacturers did not want to have thousands of war surplus aircraft converted to transports and undercut their business. As I understand it if the owner of an aircraft with a Limited registration allowed that registration to lapse then they could not re register it in Limited category. This did not apply to those aircraft that might have been licensed in the standard category usually by the manufacturer or someone that the manufacturer may have sold the design to i.e. Cavalier Mustangs.

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