3 Point Landing

Individual Aircraft Record Card from the AFHSO

Paul — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:46:55 +0000

A response from the Air Force Historical Studies Office (AFHSO) came back much faster than I had anticipated. Surprisingly, it took less than a week. Maybe people who work at the DMV should be required to attend some kind of militaristic style boot camp to learn about efficiency and courtesy. Anyhow, they scanned the actual card and emailed me a PDF file. They aslo composed a text description decoding the card. I’ve posted their message as well as some screenshots of the PDF they sent me.

As a note, there was no charge for this. I just had to send an email with the request. Check out this post if you want to find out how to submit your own request. If anyone at the AFHSO happens to stumble across this blog post let me say thank you very much for the quick response.

I still haven’t heard back from the National Air and Space Museum. If I do I’ll post their response as well.

From the AFHSO

The aircraft was shipped via New Orleans to Kisarazu, Japan for assembly
then returned to the USA. There is no addition information on the aircraft
after the entry for San Monica. San Monica did have an aircraft sales
organizations so it the aircraft may have been dropped from the USAF
inventory after arriving there

6408 MAINTENANCE AND SUPPLY GROUP (SUB DEPOT) ACTIVATED ON 16 JUL 52 AND
BASED AT KISARAZU AIR BASE, HONSHU, JAPAN. MISSION OF 6408 MAINTENANCE AND
SUPPLY GROUP (SUB DEPOT) TO ERECT/DISASSEMBLE AND PREPARE FOR SHIPMENT OF
AIR FORCE AND ARMY AIRCRAFT TO ZONE OF INTERIOR.

Finding your aircrafts service history

Paul — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:59:19 +0000

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.

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.

Serial Number 21789

Paul — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 07:01:23 +0000

According to the Cessna records published in the book “The Lovable One Niner” by Minard D. Thompson Jr., my birddog was born on August 27th, 1951 at the Pawnee plant in Wichita Kansas. The military’s proposed original assignment was for this plane to be sent to Korea. According to the notes in the Cessna records the last known location was “USA” which most likely means that it was brought back here after the war.

This is a photograph that I took of the data plate prior to beginning the restoration. Below are the full notes from the Cessna production records.

Cessna Serial #: 21789
Military Serial #: 51-4897
Built under military contract #: AF33(038)-17136
Date of Manufacture: 8/27/51
Drawing #: D620
Assignment: Export
Model: L-19A
Plant: Pawnee
Notes (Last known location): USA

Restoring L-19 N300VH: Day One

Paul — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:58:38 +0000

I’m going to start at the beginning and document the restoration of my L-19. It would have been nice to do this as it happened but as it happens I was just lazy about writing. Fortunately, I wasn’t lazy about taking photos.

I agreed to purchase and restore this L-19 in October of 2007. That’s me in just before Christmas sitting in the back seat wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. When it comes to making mistakes I’m usually my harshest critic but in this case I think I had some stiff competition from my future wife and father-in-law who, I’m sure, thought I was crazy. To be honest, looking back, I think they were right.

It was too late though, I had jumped in with both feet, so damn the torpedos … full steam ahead.

Flying with Lonestar Birdogs in Paris Texas

Paul — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:59:25 +0000

Was in Paris the other day and shot some video with a few guys from Lonestar Birddog

L-19 Birddog Ride from PaulWhitaker on Vimeo.

Props Behind the Scenes

Paul — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:23:50 +0000

After filming in the back of the plane this weekend I took some time to play my favorite iPhone game “Flight Control”. Problem was that in the middle of the game Tom started doing dutch rolls and I almost got sick looking at that little screen, playing the game, and getting slid around on the back seat.

Props Behind Scenes with Flight Control from PaulWhitaker on Vimeo.

Starting Over

Paul — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:06:28 +0000

A long time ago I started this blog about flying in the Bay Area. Over the past couple of years I’ve just been so busy with work and other things that I’ve let things become a bit stale. Now I’m starting over with a whole new set of ideas and some really fun stuff.

The video below is a short clip from a documentary that I’m working on with some friends that have been nice enough to dedicate time, equipment, and sometimes money.

Guneet flying with Ben Freelove from PaulWhitaker on Vimeo.

HD Aerobatics at Tutima Academy from Trevor Meeks on Vimeo.

I’m really looking forward to getting back into this.