Stinson L-5 Sentinel

Well LBA has been tried without luck , file is destroyed.

I have found the frame number and James Gray is 99% sure that the aircraft is 42-99252.
That plane was manufactured in March 1944 and delivered to the 12th Air Force in Italy. It was condemned for salvage in April 1946 and sold to an unspecified entity via the foreign Liquidation Commission (FLC) that was a branch of the U.S. government which handled disposal of military assets after WWII. This certainly accounts for the airplane surviving in Europe after WWII without it being scrapped as many of them were.

And yesterday I also got some history over the phone from Flying Club Nürnberg.

So at present that is it for now.

……….

I thought by the way that were relatively many in Italy, having survived post WW2 as glider tugs?

……….

I have been at Varese with my father at “Centro Volo A Vela Alpino Varese” in 1964 or 1965. At that time they operated at least 3 or 4 Stinsons as Glidertugs, maybe there were even more airframes for spareparts / as replacement as well. Additionally a Do 27 was there too. Unfortunately I have no registration nor any serial numbers. Only thing I remember is, they all were painted a silverish lightgrey.

Michael

Mail has been send to LBA in german ….. Check

A number 76-30500 has been found on the aircraft …..Check

Lets us hope it will bring me a bit further……Check

Jacob

Actually I did think about it and I all too well know the “datenschutz” law.

I will give them a call next week to check if they still have some info about D-ELKO in their files, sadly the logbooks also disappeared over time.

At the moment I am going through all the big IF’s and MAYBE’s in the progress, have to be damn sure it can get into the air also paper wise or should I say all paper wise, the correct papers are what matters today.

Jacob

Another possibility would be to contact the Luftfahrtbundesamt in Germany:

https://www.lba.de/DE/TopService/Kontakt/kontakt_node.html

You’d have to argue why you need the information (data protection laws) and pay for it as well though:

http://www.lba.de/DE/Technik/Verkehrszulassung/Hinweise/Auskuenfte.html

Hi Kenneth.

Tak for henvendelsen på den tyske side, loooong road ahead of me before it will be airborne , but it deserves it , with approx. 125 airworthy L-5’s left globally it needs to be saved.

I contacted Fliegerverein Nürnberg the other day and asked if they had any info from the time D-ELKO was in the flying club , they promised me to take a look.

Regards,
Jacob

Hi Chumpy.

Thanx , that is excactly the one I am dealing with….

Hi Tom.

I am already in contact with James Gray, but he is presently on a tour in Alaska with an C-170 , but will be back shortly and then he will investigate, I will go monday and dig deeper , had some tips from James where to look for numbers, so hopefully I am lucky.

Jacob

@Jacob: I’ve taken the liberty of posting your query in a very large German aviation forum. You can find the thread here: http://www.flugzeugforum.de/threads/78894-Stinson-L-5-D-ELKO?p=2062847#post2062847 .

Held og lykke med projektet, det ville være godt med endnu en Stinson i Danmark.

Scan from the 1989 edition of European Wrecks and Relics, D-ELKO to be found at Egtved, Denmark at the time

[ATTACH=CONFIG]231783[/ATTACH]

I would give Jim Gray of the Sentinel Owners and Pilots Association a go, he has a whole host of references that might help you.

Hi Viscount.

Well I thought I had a breakthrough yesterday , when I received a USAAF number 44-17220 , but the joy only lasted a very short time because that number belongs to a L-5B model and not an L-5 as it is supposed to be.

Just to clarify.

On a L-5 Sentinel, any 76-(four numbers) identity will be the manufacturer’s number (or construction number) allocated by Stinson. Stinson called the design the Model 76, the USAAF the L-5, the US Navy and Marines the OY-1. Other designations included O-62 and survivors in service became U-19 in 1962. The official USAAF designation would be presented as L-5-VW, L-5B-VW, L-5C-VW, L-5E-VW (these being the main production marks).

The USAAF serial/registration reflected the ‘fiscal year’ during which the aircraft was ordered, in the case of the L-5 series mainly in 1942 and 1944. The main big blocks of USAAF serials falling between 42-14798 to 15072, 42-98036 to 99753, 44-16703 to 18202 and 45-34911 to 35025. The presentation of such a serial on the fuselage or tail was likely as a six figure number, so 44-16703 would be presented 416703, but there were widescale variations to the presentation ‘rule’.

My statement regarding 76-2453 as a manufacturer’s construction number for your aircraft is speculation based on your VW-2453 number stated in the opening post and needs confirmation from either the airframe or a paper source.

The construction number could well be on paper documents linked to D-ELKO. I have looked through the ‘World Civil Registers’ section of Air Britain ‘Digest’ 1964 to 1971 but found no mention, however after the change of magazine format I do not have Air Britain ‘News’ for 1972 – which should include the registration cancellation!

As mentioned in an earlier post, back in 1986 I researched, with limited success, N8035H when it arrived at Liverpool Airport. It had been registered using the USAAF serial as a constructor’s number 44-17328 a L-5C-VW, which helped. We did not locate a constructor’s number on the accessible bits of fuselage, however subsequent research by someone has uncovered the Stinson number as 76-3615, This aircraft later briefly became G-BNUM before export to Germany as D-EONH in November 1987. Although the German owners have changed, the still airworthy and active aircraft is a frequent fly-in attender – still painted (confusingly) as a U.S.Marines OY-1 in the two-tone ‘Pacific Theatre’ blue colours it had been restored into pre 1986 export to Europe.

Good luck with your search for numbers on the airframe. I’m looking forward to reading the results of your search. Please report all numbers (even if nothing like those mentioned above) and their location on the aircraft. What sort of condition is the aircraft in, it is a very long time since registration cancellation in 1971?!

Thanx , I know it was cancelled as D-ELKO 13 november 1971, maybe I should search for the USAAF number 76-2493 and see what I can find

If it’s of any help, the 1974 A-B Civil Aircraft Register for West Germany has no entry for D-ELKO.

Hi all.

Viscount , thanx for the answer , I will go and have a look at the airframe and logbooks one more time before I make a decision , see if I can find another number , nice to see that it actually is possible to dig up a little history.

Jacob

A picture of it (in 1968) is available through MAP: http://access-developer.co.uk/photo-list.asp?category=12&Sort=Info1&Limit=10&Start=79680

Googling “Stinson D-ELKO” comes up with a 10 year old issue of KZ&V’s magazine, in which a regular poster in this forum claims to have heard that its remains are in Denmark and would its wing struts be for sale.

Note that the German civil register available to the public, due to data protection laws. The lists that exist are spotters’ compilations.

I thought by the way that were relatively many in Italy, having survived post WW2 as glider tugs?

Edit: “Delivered” 08-1968:http://www.airframes.org/reg/delko

Stinson D-ELKO
in 1972 it was registered to Fliegerclub Nurnberg e.v.

DH83

There is also a Champion with registration D-ELKO. http://bernairnews.blogspot.nl/2011/05/d-elko-champion-7gcaa-may11.html