Name that plane

gibbons

gibbons

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iRide
A friend of mine is asking...
 

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Stating the obvious it appears to be an open cockpit two seat low wing monoplane that employed a radial engine. I think that structure behind the front seat is just a head rest/rollover protection. Not being a ragwing suggests the design is rather recent in aircraft history...post -50's maybe? Don't know all the small radial designs out there, but a Kinner was fairly popular for a while before Rotax offered a radial.

If i come across a candidate I'll post it.
 
Steve said:
Stating the obvious it appears to be an open cockpit two seat low wing monoplane that employed a radial engine.
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Sure about that? It looks to me like that structure sticking up between the cockpits could well be a cabane for a top wing.
 
North American O-47 observation perhaps. Rare. We'd like to know where it is?
 
wby0nder said:
North American O-47 observation perhaps. Rare.
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That was my first thought, too, but there are too many things that don't match. The O-47 had a big canopy; this is open cockpit. The O-47 had wing-mounted retractable gear, this apparently has fuselage-mounted fixed gear.

Closest thing I've found is a Kinner Sportster...the fuselage shape is pretty close, and the landing gear looks about right. But the Sportster had a side-by-side cockpit and was fabric covered, and was a smaller airplane than the photos show. The Timm Tutor comes close, but its fuselage is more angular and the turnover structure is different.

There are vague similarities to the Lockheed Orion, and similarly the Northrup planes of the '30s, but in every case there's some characteristic that pretty much eliminates these planes from consideration. I've looked at some French and British planes from the same era, same results.

It's an interesting contrast... open cockpits (with military-style windshields) and all-metal construction. That turnover structure behind the front pit screams of a military contract.

There's some sort of logo in front of the top black trim stripe on the side...anyone recognize it?

Ron Wanttaja
 
Chip, I have no idea about the plane, but that sig of yours is truly the best statement about triathlon I've ever seen. My wife has completed 6 Ironman distance races (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run), 2 of them in Hawaii. Now, after a 15 year layoff, she's gotten the bug again and is encouraging my 10 year old daughter to try an Ironkids event.

The obsession renews itself. :hairraise:
 
Seems like some mighty short struts for an upper wing support. I'd hate to try to climb in if it were. But I don't what it is, so it could be anything.

Ken Ibold said:
Sure about that? It looks to me like that structure sticking up between the cockpits could well be a cabane for a top wing.
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O-47

o47_n.jpg


I think the plane in Chip's photos is too small.

I can imagine seeing that plane with a tightly cowled radial ala Buecker Jungmann with radail, but being all metal it's obviously not.

Could very easily be a one-off individual design.



wby0nder said:
North American O-47 observation perhaps. Rare. We'd like to know where it is?
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Last picture looks like wood structure. Doesn't help me ID it, but just another data point.
 
Ghery said:
Last picture looks like wood structure. Doesn't help me ID it, but just another data point.
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I don't think I agree. If you look inside the tail cone, you see zinc-chromated tubing. You look into the wing-root hole, and you'll dimly see black-painted tubing on the far side. The covering appears to be sheet metal with stiffening creases in it.

This is well and truly giving me the shivering fits. I *know* I've seen that turnover structure with the inverted airfoil before.

I did figure out what the logo is, on the side the the fuselage: It's the old EAA Antique/Classic Aircraft Division logo:
logos.jpg


...so I'd say we aren't looking at a homebuilt.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Maybe one of the Ryan military trainers? PT or ST? Looks a little like the Ryan PT-16, but not exactly.
 
Arbiter419 said:
Just glancing at it, I'd have to guess a PT-19 Trainer.

Just a guess.
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I spent (wasted?) a couple of hours last night trying to figure this out, and the Fairchild PT-19 was the closest I could find as well... no turtledeck behind the rear cockpit, the horizontal concave valleys between the longerons, the "thing" sticking up between the two cockpits (what is that for?!?).

PT-19.jpg


However, the gear and engine don't match, and the PT-19 has a wood (mahogany) center section:

http://www.mapsairmuseum.org/PT-19.asp

Would help if we could see the empennage shape... this thread is a good puzzler!! :yes:
 
2256Q said:
Maybe one of the Ryan military trainers? PT or ST? Looks a little like the Ryan PT-16, but not exactly.
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That's really what's driving me nuts, here...it looks like a LOT of planes, but not exactly.

There are probably about five major design features that, together, make this a fairly unusual aircraft. One can often find two or three on a candidate, but I haven't yet found a candidate with four.

These are:
1. Radial Engine
2. Low-wing open-cockpit design with all-metal construction.
3. Horizontal stabilizer mounted atop the aft fuselage (vs. mid-mounting)
4. Fuselage-mounted landing gear
5. Unusual taper of the lower fuselage forward of the wing

#2 is probably the loosest...after all, it could be an early production aircraft with open cockpits, while most were built with canopies, or a subsequent owner may have metalized the wings.

But it's #4 and especially #5 that eliminate most airplanes. I haven't yet found that strange taper...most of the candidates mentioned (Ryan PT-22, Fairchild PT-23) are round like a barrel, here. The O-47 is somewhat tapered, but it has a mid-wing, not a low wing.

Nor have I yet found a candidate with fuselage-mounted gear... the Ryan, the Fairchild, and the North American all have wing-mounted gear.

The gear is a puzzlement. It obviously can't move, so either it's got bungees or something near the axles, or it's totally rigid like a Fly Baby...and what works on an A65 powered single-seater is probably NOT going to handle a big, all-metal, radial-powered monster. Could this be a temporary structure, in lieu of the normal wing-mounted gear? But there's easier ways to do that than to run tubing deep within the fuselage, and the spar butts don't look hefty enough to handle landing loads.

This one's a toughie.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Pretty sure it is their version of a roll bar. In case of a nose over it keeps the pilots from getting crushed.
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This may get a laugh out of some of you that know better (I don't), but I was remembering the planes that launched and recovered from the Navy blimps. They had some sort of structure in that area. Anybody know enough about those to comment?
 
Well, as I recall, what it was was a way to hook up to a trapeze type arrangement so they could be recovered on the airship. They would fly into the trapeze and when they were hooked up, they would cut the engine and could be recovered into the ship, or where ever they were stored.
 
The low wing Nicholas-Beasleys had fuselage mounted gear and some had that weird sheet metal fillet between the fuse and the wing hiding the top of the landing gear. But the rear fuselage of the N-B does a strange taper behind the wing totally changing shape. The thing that is really throwing me is; in the photos it appears that there is a (fuel tank?) behind the rear cockpit. I can't find another plane of that general configuration that has that. The N-B had a tank that was faired into the nose forward of the front hole. This plane looks like it has been metalized after it's original manufacture, and maybe modified for dusting then converted back to a two holer??? The whole thing seems a little off somehow.
 
2256Q said:
This may get a laugh out of some of you that know better (I don't), but I was remembering the planes that launched and recovered from the Navy blimps. They had some sort of structure in that area. Anybody know enough about those to comment?
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The F9C Sparrowhawk was designed for launching from Navy Dirigibles...the trapeze arrangement was much more complex.
300px-F9C_Sparrowhawk.jpg

I'm sure the structure on the unknown plane is a turnover support. If you look at most of the low-wing trainers/multiseat aircraft of the '30s and '40s, they've got a similar triangular structure. Even the canopy types have something.
Howard Wilson said:
The low wing Nicholas-Beasleys had fuselage mounted gear and some had that weird sheet metal fillet between the fuse and the wing hiding the top of the landing gear.
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It's a pleasurable day when I hear of a new aircraft type, and today certainly qualifies. Never heard of a Nicholas-Beasley! What can you tell us about them?

Gibbons, can you give *any* sort of clue as to where these pictures were taken? I can do a rough "spiral search" on the FAA database, looking for unusual types....

Ron Wanttaja
 
Perhaps the original photographer can more details, too... there should be a dataplate or n-number somewhere on that plane.
 
I would almost be willing to bet that contour on the forward end accomodates an exhaust collector ring that exits the bottom centerline.

What throws me is how close the forward cockpit opening is to the "firewall". Not much legroom. Maybe the photos cause a bit of foreshortening which distorts the true dimensions.

I tend to agree the fuselage looks like someone metallized the skin...or maybe they decided to skin it with aluminum after they built the tube framing. And those grab handles look almost like last minute additions.

There's an sport plane guru out there somewhere that knows exactly what that thing is...

I don't think I'm going to find it in my copy of Jane's.
 
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I did a little digging. An early poster asked if the plane was at "Turkey Mountain." A bit of searching found Turkey Mountain Airport in Shell Knob, MO. None of the planes registered to Shell Knob seemed likely. I started expanding the search using the first three digits of the Shell Knob zip code, then the first two digits.

And there was N887H, a Nicholas Beazley NB-3V. Sadly, though, the Aerofiles listing shows it as having a 60 HP Velie engine...and I think we all agree that 60 HP wouldn't take the unknown airplane very far!

nicbeaz-nb3v.jpg

Looking at the Aerofiles listing, none of the N-B designs ever mounted anything over 100 HP. Note, though, how the landing gear is vaguely similar to the unknown aircraft (OK, I'm reaching :).

Ron Wanttaja
 
Yeah, I was reaching too...:confused:
I've been through the whole set of Juptner's 'U.S.Civil Aircraft' and John Underwood's 'Vintage and Veteran Aircraft Guide'. The only planes that came close were the Emsco's, the N-B, and the PT-23. The plane in the photos is not any 'original' one of them. The rollover structure looks like an add-on as do the handles. Looks like there's additional rollover protection in the front pit windscreen. This is either an amalgamation of two or more planes along with some homegrown ingenuity or a one time military trainer competition loser....

Hmm maybe the tank in the back was for transporting a liquid of a slightly higher octane than aviation fuel:cheerswine:
 
I was going to say the PT23 but the NB was a good guess. It would be nice if there was a better photo of the fuselage in the back. You can't really see if the taper is that that the NB has. This would be a neat project for the History Detectives.
 
My latest guess is either a one off prototype for mail carrier.
(Are there aft baggage doors on the starboard?)

OR

imported Chinese or Russian trainer (circa WWII).



I am very reluctant to believe it is homebuilt.
 
wow ive never seen steve get stumped on a question like this
 
I was leaning with the PT 22 but there seems to be some mods put on. Small radial Kinner or Warner powered?

Just a guess for like many need to see photos from the tail and nose.

John J
 
John J said:
I was leaning with the PT 22 but there seems to be some mods put on. Small radial Kinner or Warner powered?

Just a guess for like many need to see photos from the tail and nose.

John J
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Did Ryan put concavities in the skin?
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Don't think so.

http://www.warbirdalley.com/pt22.htm
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Greg;

The photo is so great for the PT 22. It was such a beauty and I wish I could have flown one. My instructor many years ago thought it was the most beautiful plane in the sky. He had many hours in it. Looking at the photos we have a real mystery on our hands. Maybe an early homebuilt? Or could it be a low wing Fairchild? Definately it is the late or mid 1930's and there was a lot of "home buidling going on" at that time.

Thank you for the pics. The Pt 22 is one of the most beuatiful planes that flew.

John J
 
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