Oil, Mapping And Teaching

This aircraft is a Fairchild 71, S/N 646 (ATC #89), manufactured in May 1929 by Fairchild Airplane Manufacturing Corp., Farmingdale, NY. It left the factory with a 410 HP Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine, S/N 1527 as a seven-place airplane. It weighed 5,500 pounds. The airplane came equipped with flares, electric starter, battery, generator and landing lights.

It sold on 5/31/29 to Lionel T. Barneson of Los Angeles, CA for $19,996. Barneson was President of General Petroleum Corp.). In a corporate exchange, the airplane transferred to Bankline Oil Company of Los Angeles (John Barneson, President) on 2/1/31.

We find NC9174 at Tucson on 1/30/1932 piloted by Pat Farris carrying L.T. Barneson and other unidentified passengers. They were eastbound from Santa Monica Clover Field on their way to “Florida”. Undoubtedly a vacation flight.

Bankline owned the airplane until 1935. They flew it for 1930 hours, re-covered it, and cut a camera hole in the floor as of 4/9/32. It suffered an accident on 9/25/34 requiring repairs to the left wing and landing gear.

Bankline sold it to Fairchild Aerial Surveys of Woodside, NY on 5/22/35. The same month, the fuselage was adapted for two cameras, three chairs were removed and a seatbelt installed for the cameraman. During 1937-38 it received authority to perform mapping flights over Mexico and Guatemala. On 3/22/38 it was recalled to the U.S. and Fairchild NR8016 was substituted for mapping in Guatemala.

It performed aerial survey duties until 1940, accumulating 3,184 flight hours. On 3/1/40 it sold to a broker at Metropolitan Airport in Van Nuys, CA. On 9/3/42 it transferred to the California State Board of Education at Sacramento, CA, “to be used by Glandale Unified School District for ground school instructional purposes.” And so it was used for that purpose until 1949. Its registration was cancelled 9/27/49.

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UPLOADED: 08/16/05 REVISED: