Whatsit?

Engine type

Just picked up on this thread. I think the engine could be a Bristol Pegasus – or a licence built Alfa Romeo unit.

The rotation is correct and it is a large diameter engine with semi-exposed valve gear. The single pushrod tube is another giveaway as it has the inlet and exhaust pushrods one behind the other in an alloy streamlining sleeve to reduce drag.

Anon.

It may be a film prop, lacking any alternative suggestion, but the struts are sensible enough to me (N-struts between the fuselage and the top wing plus a V-strut to take the landing loads, both attaching to the same fuselage longeron)….

The fuselage shape by itself should be distinctive – even if it was chopped around for a film set it had to come from something looking much like that. The problem is still finding where that cabin/fuselage comes from, and we can decide on the “reality” of the assemblage after that.

Still looking… The fuselage shape seems to have quite a bit in common with the Paramount Cabinaire.

“The Paramount Cabinaire was a 1920s designed cabin biplane, designed by Walter J. Carr and produced by the Paramount Aircraft Corporation. Only eight were completed before production ceased.”

See ‘External links’ for photos-

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

More Paramount photos here-

http://aerofiles.com/_pa.html

Regarding the prop it might be unusual but not unheard of, the HP Heyford and Supermarine Walrus both had two two bladed props bolted through together.

There is a WC Fields fim which features a largish single engined boxy aircraft, (I can’t remember the title of!), maybe this is a movie prop?

Glad we have had a few more replies today! My last thoughts are in agreement with Spartabus, the ‘plane’ should only have a single prop and I think the top wing is highly suspect. Would be happy to be proved wrong sometime in the future! 😀

California Polytechnic College students built “one-off” designs each year in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Could this be one of their productions?

See pages 24 and 25 here-

http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1025&context=catalogs

“…One or more airplanes are constructed in the school shop each year.”

[Notice the two air-foils hanging from the wall on page 25- similar to the airfoil shape in the “Whatisit’ photo?]

More info here-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason_Greater_Meteor

http://www.dmairfield.org/airplanes/NC5278/index.htm

It may be a film prop, lacking any alternative suggestion, but the struts are sensible enough to me (N-struts between the fuselage and the top wing plus a V-strut to take the landing loads, both attaching to the same fuselage longeron). It wouldn’t be the first 4-blader made by combining two 2-bladers as a damage to one blade could be more easily repaired and spares stock is easier to handle.

The fuselage shape by itself should be distinctive – even if it was chopped around for a film set it had to come from something looking much like that. The problem is still finding where that cabin/fuselage comes from, and we can decide on the “reality” of the assemblage after that.

I cannot find anything that matches this at all. The strut design makes no sense and the 4 bladed prop is two props mounted on a single hub. I am almost convinced that this is a fuselage that has been doctored as a film prop

Thread needs a bump! Let’s get our thinking caps on and solve this problem over the weekend (even if you are going to lose an hours sleep). 😀

I had posted something here, but I then realised that I was mistaken and I am an idiot LOL!

The picture appears to have been taken in 1933, given another photo of the DH4 fuselage available. Having zoomed it in, those are two props on one hub. Im wondering if it is actually a film prop? I suggest this as the DH4 was used in a film in 1933, according to the blurb on a photo here :-

http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/U216871ACME/johnny-la-bash-by-old-mail-airplane

I agree, but the way the inner struts go halfway down the fuselage is very similar. There doesn’t seem to have been an earlier Timms design, regrettably.

The fuselage has some similarity with that of the Hamilton H47, although that was a more conventional shoulderwing. I’ve been unable to track down any of the earlier designs James McDonnell did for Hamilton before the H47, but could this be one of them? A bit vague, I’m afraid.

I’m not convinced, as it has an altogether different strut configuration

An intriguing possibility, the Timm Aircoach, photo from an ID contest thread on this forum:

Shown with Roscoe Turner. It was built by Otto Timm in the LA area, close to Balboni’s, and Turner used it to try to set an endurance record, unsuccessfully. Its Menasco-Salmson engine does turn the “other” way round, like the one in the mystery ‘plane, but the front end would have had to be modified after the above photo to match the picture in Balboni’s junkyard.

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Looks like another photo of the plane, but still no identity! :confused:

http://www.godickson.com/Arrigo%20Balboni.htm

Haven’t we an engine expert to identify that rather conspicuous engine (or it might be a motor. :D)

Aren’t there also some struts going downwards below the windows? Almost looks as if they’re to brace a lower wing that’s slightly in front of the upper one. Also might suggest the pilot got in from somewhere near the back, not with his own entry.

It might be a biplane, but I don’t think so. It is not either of the Fairchilds, because Fairchild designs had the wing integral with the fuselage and the attachment points for the upperwing went to the bottom of the fuselage, as usual.

On this aircraft the upperwing is supported at the mid-fuselage point, but the struts for the lower wing only go to a single position. Therefore not a full biplane but possibly a sesquiplane or just a sponson for the undercarriage, supported by the V-strut?

The upper wing is not thick enough for a Fokker. The closed cabin should be a useful guide – I thought it appeared like a Bellanca but there’s no flying struts.

I think it’s a biplane-

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I’ve got to say that parasol wing doesn’t look like it belongs on that plane to me. It looks too flimsy to support that bulky fuselage.

Further research has revealed that the photo was taken in Arrigo Balboni’s famous aircraft junkyard in Los Angeles, around 1933. The man standing with the DH-4 is believed to be Balboni. Still no ID on the mystery ‘plane though-