A special & Unique airplane

[john]

Does anyone have info or know anything about a special airplane, one of two made, that Preston possibly owned ?
All the Best today,
John

[Tuckeroo]

Perhaps you are referring to the Budd RB Conestoga:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budd_RB_Conestoga

There were actually 20 built, only one is known to survive. According to Pearson, the one use by the Tucker Corp was abandoned in the mud of an airfield after a particularly heavy rainfall. (Will fall up later if I can find the relevent passage in The Indomitable Tin Goose. The above link states that Tucker's was one of the 3 prototypes, and it was abandoned in Oakland, CA after repeated mecahnical troubles.

I don't know what the used for the movie, but it sure looks similar.

[Tucker Fan 48]

The RB-1 Conestoga used by Tucker was aircraft number NC45354. It was one of the three prototypes built by Budd. It was sold by the Trustee for the Bankruptcy on 4/19/1949 for $6,000. It was later used to fly shrimp in from Mexico. It was last seen in Oakland CA around 1980. Efforts to find it or what happened to it have proved unsuccessful. The FAA does not require aircraft owners to report on an aircraft once it is no longer used.

It is believed that other RB-1 Conestoga aircraft may still exist other than the one in Arizona. I tracked one to Hawaii and also one in Brazil but have not been able to confirm they still exist.

Little information is available on the Beechcraft 6 passenger Executive model 1A43 that Tucker bought from Walgreens Drug. It was sold by the Trustee for $21,000 to someone in Fort Wayne IN. Efforts to find any information on the plane after that have not turned up anything. If anyone has photos of the Beechcraft please post them here.

A Dehavilland DHC-4 Caribou was used in the Tucker Movie. It is aircraft number N5463, serial number 119, and was built in 1967. It is currently owned by the Wilmington Trust Company of Wilmington DE.

N5463 DHC-4a Caribou Plane used in movie.jpg (72.62 KiB) Viewed 567 times

[john]

Information contained in some of my files make the statement that the aircraft was hangered at the Snyder airport by Chicago, which later became Mid Way and then O'hara.

That two prototype Stainless Steel planes were built for the Air Force, which they did not take.
Apparently Preston purchased one.
All the best today,
John

[Tucker Fan 48]

Information contained in some of my files make the statement that the aircraft was hangered at the Snyder airport by Chicago, which later became Mid Way and then O'hara.

That two prototype Stainless Steel planes were built for the Air Force, which they did not take.
Apparently Preston purchased one.
All the best today,
John

It appears you are talking about the RB-1 and just have a lot of the facts twisted. Budd made railcars and built the three prototypes during WWII. It was reportedly said that for an aircraft built by a railroad car company, it indeed handled like one.

At the Budd factory and airfield in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, there were construction delays due to cost overruns and problems with stainless steel fabrication. By late 1943, aluminum production had been increased with the construction of new processing facilities, and other more conventional cargo planes (such as the Curtiss-Wright C-46 Commando and the Douglas C-47 Skytrain) were being produced in large numbers. This caused the Army to cancel its order for the C-93 and the Navy to reduce its RB-1 order from 200 to 25, of which 17 were delivered in March 1944.

On April 13, 1944, during a Naval Air Training Command (NATC) evaluation flight of RB-1 prototype U.S. Navy NX37097 at Patuxent River NAS, Maryland, the aircraft crashed, killing one of the crew. The aircraft was damaged beyond repair and written off, but the pilot reported that the stainless steel construction of the plane contributed to saving his life.

Production RB-1 aircraft never entered squadron service with the Navy, but a few were briefly used by Naval Air Stations as utility aircraft. With only seventeen aircraft in inventory, the RB-1 was not feasible to maintain on the active list, and it was retired from U.S. Navy service in early 1945. The RB-1s were then transferred to the War Assets Administration (WAA) to be sold as war surplus. The WAA sold 12 of the RB-1s to National Skyway Freight Corporation which later became Flying Tiger. They sold four of the planes right away and made enough profit to cover the cost of the other eight. In 1947 Flying Tiger received a large contract from the military and replaced the RB-1s with C-47s. They sold the RB-1s of which one went to Preston Tucker.

Chicago Municipal Airport was renamed Chicago Midway in 1949 in honor of the Battle for Midway Island in WWII. O'Hare Airport is a completely different airport and opened in 1955. I could find no Snyder Airport however Mitchell Field in Lombard IL was run by George Snyder. It had two grass runways in the late 1940s so it was not likely used by Tucker. Chicago Municipal was only a couple blocks down Cicero Avenue. Like everything else Preston Tucker did, I'd expect he'd use the closest airport which would have been Chicago Municipal.

[john]

Along the lines of two prototype s/steel "framed" planes, the gentleman that told me about this stated that this plane started the "Tin Goose" name all around Chcago , further said that it could hold enough fuel for thousands of miles of non stop flight
Could any of this be possible?
John

[Tucker Fan 48]

No