Warbird Information Exchange

Yahoo! My father's Air Sedan has finally made it from the museum hangar to Glen Peck's shop at Creve Coeur Airport! Glen also has John Cournoyer's Robin under restoration in the shop right now so Peck Aeroplane Restoration looks like a small version of the Curtiss Robertson factory. Thanks to the folks at the Antique Airplane Association and Greg Herrick from the Golden Wings Flying Museum, there is a chance we will be able to acquire some technical drawing data from FAA storage. What remains of the Curtiss Wright Corporation has for years prohibited the public from getting access to the drawings for old Travel Air planes as well as Curtiss Robertson and Curtiss Wright designs. I tried to get the info back in 1992 but I was thwarted at every turn. I tried again today and met with the same initial results. However, since the Supreme Court has ruled that the documents and drawings should be made available, I will keep pecking away at them. Any WIXers out there had any luck getting this stuff from the New York A/C Certification office? Any help or direction would be much appreciated.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

All the best Al! I'd never seen, let alone heard, of this type before but she's pretty!

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Zac in NZ
#avgeek, modelbuilder, photographer, writer. Callsign: "HANDBAG".
https://linktr.ee/zacyates

"It's his plane, he spent the money to restore it, he can do with it what he wants. I will never understand what's hard to comprehend about this." - kalamazookid, 20/08/2013
"The more time you spend around warbirds the sooner you learn nothing, is simple." - JohnB, 24/02/22

Thanks Zac! Now that the WACO flyin has ended I am returning to my research on the Air Sedan project. Glenn Peck has posted some info on his website if anyone cares to follow along.

http://www.peckaeroplanerestoration.com ... n/CS15.htm

This is going to be a bit of a challenge for several reasons but the biggest hurdle to overcome is the missing drawings and data files for the Air Sedan's type certificate #426. Our Sedan is S/N 1 so it was used as a test bed until being sold "new" as a CW-15C (ATC #426). It was "converted" to a CW-15D (ATC #444) with the installation of a Wright 760-E, probably by Johnson Flying Service in the 1940s. I started searching for the technical data and drawings for ATC #444 (CW-15D) but the box containing that information is currently missing from the FAA ACO office in New York. It may in fact be there but they can't lay their hands on it right now. Their files contain notes saying that the box may be at the Atlanta ACO or maybe at the Lees Summit, Missouri Federal Records Center. Even when and if we locate the data for ATC #426 and or ATC #444, I will still need to start by sending the FAA a FOIA request and even with that I may be in for a long wait. The FAA is trying to sort out how the technical data and drawings for these older planes will be made available to the public. There is no path open yet and no funding in place to get started so it may take one to two years before we can get the data. If we ever get the data.

As a jump ship in WA state, mid to late 1970s?


Factory photo X436W as a CW-15C (most likely?) Note the verticle Stabs "Travel Air" logo.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

This beastie is still my bragging point for the biggest thing I've hand propped.

It'll be strange to see her with out the struts cutaway.

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Lest Hero-worship raise it's head and cloud our vision, remember that World War II was fought and won by the same sort of twenty-something punks we wouldn't let our daughters date.