Finding your aircrafts service history

I have restored an x-military aircraft and I want to know if it was used at home or abroad. The manufacturer’s record will only tell you what the initial assignment was. For example, it notes that my aircraft was initially assigned to the Korean War, but that’s where it stops. Now the question is, how do I find out if it was actually deployed?

First stop… Google, and after a lot of searching for the wrong things I finally ran across something called “Aircraft History Cards”.

According the the National Air and Space Museum, An Aircraft History Card (or the USAF “Individual Aircraft Record Card”) is a compilation of the inventory history of a single aircraft, showing the location or controlling unit and status of that aircraft at a given time. In most cases, this history covers the period from the acceptance of the aircraft by the controlling service until it is removed from that service’s inventory.

You can read more about these and how to obtain them here.

It seems that the NASM only has AirForce records from the late 1920’s through 1953 and Navy records through September 30th 1986. However they do provide physical addresses that you can send requests to for information about aircraft not in their archives.

Another option is to contact the Airforce Historical Research Agency. I found the following exerpt on this page.

Individual Aircraft Record Cards
We and the AFHSO maintain individual aircraft record cards for almost all aircraft once or presently in the United States Air Force inventory. The records for many aircraft of the early 1920s and for aircraft in highly sensitive reconnaissance programs are not available. Each set of aircraft records has its own unique characteristics, but for most planes one may learn the manufacturer, place of production, date of entry into the inventory, units of assignment, duty stations, and something of the final disposition.

I’ve sent a request for my airplane to both the National Air and Space Museum and to the Air Force Historical Research Agency. I’m anxious to see what comes back and I’ll share it as soon as I get it.