Having seen a few glider instrument panels by now, I’m convinced that your panel is from a glider. There could not have been many gliders equipped with oxygen systems, so it must be from a fairly limited selection of gliders and a glider that is documented somewhere.

Next step should be to find the earliest production date for the “oxygen blinker”. Then we might be able to get a rough timeframe for the construction – at least it can’t be earlier.

Not really a part, but aviation has adapted the distinctly maritime ”starboard” and” port”. For English speakers it might not sound very maritime, but “starboard” comes from the Norse word “stýriborð” (in modern Danish it’s called Styrbord), meaning the steering side: styr is steering and bord is the side of a ship – Vikings used to steer their longboats from the right hand side, not from the middle like a rudder.

“Port” is a bit more obscure. It comes from “larboard”, which is the docking side of the ship (you can’t dock a longboat at starboard, as the oar will get in the way). It was later changed to the simple “port”, as starboard and larboard sounds too much alike.

I just found this story which illustrates why such archives need to be available online (not AC related, but a good story anyway).

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122810679

Its an imaginative CGI drawing of an aircraft related to Kalinin K-7.
Kalinin himself had dreams of a very large aircraft (although nothing like the the size of the CGI aircraft), but it never materialised and Stalin killed him before more could be done.

Its for heating someones home. We used to do that, when large quantities of fuel was drained from aircraft

Yes, but don’t count on it. The best we can hope for, is for it to be made available for researchers, but I’m almost sure it has been vetted already. Don’t think there are too many unturned stoned in that story.

Does not look like aircraft to me. The bus door idea seems about right.

Your saying July 54, but Dargie recounts June 53… Different incidents? :confused:

IMHO not two different incidents, an actual incident (july 1954) and a fantasy incident (summer 1953). I have been unable to find any referance to the 1953 story outside UFO websites, despite that aircraft geeks (like us) keep good track of USAF/ANG aircraft. The 1953 story rests entirely on the Dargie interview in 1975 – nearly 20 years after the purpoted incident.

Otis AFB had two F-94C accidents in june 1953 (serial 50-1062 on the 24/6 and 50-1040 on the 28/6) then there was no F-94C accidents untill september. The one lost 24 june can be seen in the newspaper cutting below. The second aircraft 50-1040 suffered an engine fire with pilot Raymond Waski at the controls. However, the aircraft landed and Waski survived – 50-1040 was involved in a landing accident in october 1953, so clearly it did not dissapear. Its noteworthy that Dargie in his interview states, that the public was informed about the crash (in the full interview).

However, in august 1952 an unidentified aircraft type “dissapeared” in the sense “crashed into the sea”(see cut from Cape Cod Standard Times below). Debris was found and a witness saw the crash (Cape Cod Standard Times 12/8 1952 which i can’t find). It was most likely the F-94B serial 51-5442. Certainly it was not a Captain Suggs.

So a plane goes “missing” in 1952 and 20 years later, someone cooks up a UFO story about 1953. Always the same!