Ford Trimotor

Ford Trimotor — The Ford Trimotor (also called the “Tri-Motor”, and nicknamed “The Tin Goose”) was an American three-engined transport plane that was first produced in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and that continued to be produced until June 7, 1933. Throughout its time in production, a total of 199 Ford Trimotors were produced. Although it was designed for the civil aviation market, this aircraft was also used by military units, and it was sold all over the world.

Design & Development

The story of the Ford Trimotor began with William Bushnell Stout, an aeronautical engineer who had previously designed several aircraft using principles similar to those of Professor Hugo Junkers, the noted German airplane designer.

Stout, a bold and imaginative salesman, sent a mimeographed form letter to leading manufacturers, blithely asking for $1,000 and adding: “For your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: You will never get your money back.” Stout raised $20,000, including $1,000 each from Edsel and Henry Ford.

In the early 1920s Henry Ford, along with a group of 19 other investors including his son Edsel, invested in the Stout Metal Airplane Company. In 1925, Ford bought Stout and its aircraft designs. The single-engine Stout design was turned into a multi-engine design the Stout 3-AT with three Curtiss Wright air-cooled radial engines. After a prototype was built and test flown with poor results, a suspicious fire causing the complete destruction of all previous designs, the “4-AT” and “5-AT” emerged.

That the Ford Trimotor used an all-metal construction was not a revolutionary concept, but certainly more advanced than the standard construction techniques in the 1920s. The aircraft resembled the Fokker F.VII Trimotor, but unlike the Fokker, the Ford was all-metal, allowing Ford to claim it was “the safest airliner around.” Its fuselage and wings were constructed of aluminum alloy which was corrugated for added strength, although the drag reduced its overall performance. This has become something of a trademark for the Trimotor. Although designed primarily for passenger use, the Trimotor could be easily adapted for hauling cargo, since its seats in the fuselage could be removed. To increase cargo capacity, one unusual feature was the provision of “drop-down” cargo holds below the lower inner wing sections of the 5-AT version.

One 4-AT with Wright J-4 200 hp engines was built for the U.S. Army Air Corps as the C-3, and seven with Wright R-790-3 (235 hp) as C-3As. The latter were upgraded to Wright R-975-1 (J6-9) radials at 300 hp and redesignated C-9. Five 5-ATs were built as C-4s or C-4As.

The original (commercial production) 4-AT had three air-cooled Wright radial engines. It carried a crew of three: a pilot, a co-pilot, and a stewardess as well as eight or nine passengers. The later 5-AT had more powerful Pratt and Whitney engines. All models had aluminum corrugated sheet metal body and wings. However, unlike many aircraft of this era, extending through World War II, its flight control surfaces (ailerons, elevators, and rudders) were not fabric covered, but rather, they were also made of corrugated metal. As was common for the time, its rudder and elevators were controlled by wires that were strung along the external surface of the aircraft. Similarly, engine gauges were mounted externally, on the engines, to be read by the pilot while looking through the plane’s windshield. Another anachronism was the use of the hand-operated “Johnny Brake.”

Like Ford cars and tractors, these Ford aircraft were well-designed, relatively inexpensive, and reliable (for the era). The combination of metal structure and simple systems led to their reputation for ruggedness. Rudimentary service could be accomplished “in the field” with ground crew able to work on engines using scaffolding and platforms. In order to fly into otherwise-inaccessible sites, the Ford Trimotor could be fitted with skis or floats.

The rapid development of aircraft at this time (the vastly superior Douglas DC-2 was first conceived in 1932), along with the death of his personal pilot Harry J. Brooks on a test flight, led to Henry Ford’s losing interest in aviation. While Ford did not make a profit on its aircraft business, Henry Ford’s reputation lent credibility to the infant aviation and airline industries, and Ford helped introduce many aspects of the modern aviation infrastructure, including paved runways, passenger terminals, hangars, airmail, and radio navigation.

In the late 1920s, the Ford Aircraft Division was reputedly the “largest manufacturer of commercial airplanes in the world.” Alongside the Ford Trimotor, a new single-seat commuter aircraft, the Ford Flivver or “Sky Flivver” had been designed and flown in prototype form but never entered series production. The Trimotor was not to be Ford’s last venture in aircraft production. During World War II, the largest aircraft manufacturing plant in the world was built at the Willow Run, Michigan plant, where Ford produced thousands of B-24 Liberator bombers under license from Consolidated Aircraft.

William Stout left the Metal Airplane division of the Ford Motor Company in 1930. He continued to operate the Stout Engineering Laboratory, producing various aircraft. In 1954, Stout purchased the rights to the Ford Trimotor in an attempt to produce new examples. A new company formed from this effort brought back two modern examples of the trimotor aircraft, renamed the Stout Bushmaster 2000, but even with improvements that had been incorporated, performance was judged inferior to modern designs.

Operational History

A total of 199 Ford Trimotors were built between 1926 and 1933, including 79 of the 4-AT variant, and 117 of the 5-AT variant, plus some experimental craft. Well over 100 airlines of the world flew the Ford Trimotor.

The impact of the Ford Trimotor on commercial aviation was immediate, as the design represented a “quantum leap over other airliners.” Within a few months of its introduction, Transcontinental Air Transport was created to provide a coast-to-coast operation, capitalizing on the Trimotor’s ability to provide reliable and for the time, comfortable passenger service. While advertised as a transcontinental service, the airline had to rely on rail connections with a deluxe Pullman train that would be based in New York being the first part of the journey. Passengers then rendezvoued with a Trimotor in Port Columbus, Ohio, that would begin a hop across the continent ending at Waynoka, Oklahoma where another train would take the passengers to Clovis, New Mexico where the final journey would begin, again on a Trimotor, to end up at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, a few miles north-east of Los Angeles.

The “grueling” trip would only be available for a year before Transcontinental was merged into a combine with Western Air Service. Ford Trimotors were also used extensively by Pan American Airlines, extending service from North America into Central and South America during the same period. The heyday for Ford’s transport was relatively brief, lasting only until 1933 when more modern airliners began to appear. Rather than completely disappearing, the Trimotors gained an enviable reputation for durability with Ford ads in 1929 proclaiming, “No Ford plane has yet worn out in service.” First being relegated to second- and third-tier airlines, the Trimotors continued to fly into the 1960s, with numerous examples being converted into cargo transports to further lengthen their careers and when World War II began, the commercial versions were soon modified for military applications.

Some of the significant flights made by the Ford Trimotor in this period greatly enhanced the reputation of the type for strength and reliability. One example is of Ford 4-AT Trimotor serial number 10, built in 1927. It flew in the United States and Mexico under registration number C-1077, and for several years in Canada under registration G-CARC. It had many notable accomplishments; it was flown by Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart among many others. It made the first commercial flight from the United States to Mexico City, and the first commercial flight over the Canadian Rockies. After damage on landing in 1936, it was grounded and remained for decades at Carcross, Yukon. In 1956, the wreck was salvaged and preserved, and in the mid 1980s Greg Herrick took over C-1077 and began restoring it. As of 2006, C-1077 is in flying condition again, restored to its December 1927 appearance.

Making headlines became a Trimotor trademark. On November 27 and 28, 1929, Commander Richard E. Byrd (navigator), chief pilot Bernt Balchen, and two other crewmen, the co-pilot and the photographer, made the first flight above the Geographic South Pole in a Ford Trimotor that Byrd named the Floyd Bennett. This was one of three aircraft taken on this polar expedition, with the other two being named The Stars and Stripes and The Virginian, replacing the Fokker Trimotors Byrd previously used.

Franklin Roosevelt also flew aboard a Ford Trimotor in 1932 during his presidential campaign in one of the first uses of an aircraft in an election, replacing the traditional “whistle stop” train trips.

The long-range capabilities of the Ford Trimotor were exploited in a search for the lost flyers of the Sigizmund Levanevsky Trans-Polar Flight in 1937. Movie stunt flyer Jimmie Mattern flew a specially modified Lockheed Electra along with fellow movie flyer, Garland Lincoln flying a stripped-down Trimotor donated by the president of Superior Oil Company. With 1,800 gallons of avgas and 450 gallons of oil in the modified cabin, the Trimotor was intended to act as a “tanker” for the expedition. The Electra was able to transfer fuel in the air from the Trimotor, through a hose cast out the 4-AT’s door. With the first aerial refueling test successful, the pair of pilots set out for Fairbanks, landing first at Burwash, Alaska on August 15, 1937, but the Trimotor ran out of fuel and crashed in inclement weather the following day. The Trimotor was abandoned on the tundra.

One of the major uses of Trimotor after its days of carrying passengers became numbered due to more modern aircraft like the DC-3, was the carrying of heavy freight to to mining operations in jungles and mountains. In this role the Trimotor was employed for decades.

In 1942, during the Battle of Bataan, a Trimotor was used in evacuations of the island. The aircraft would haul 24 people nearly 500 miles a trip, twice daily. The aircraft was eventually strafed and destroyed by Japanese aircraft.

In postwar years, the Ford Trimotors continued in limited service with small, regional air carriers. One of the most famous was the Scenic Airways Ford Trimotor N414H which was used for 65 years as a sightseeing aircraft flying over the Grand Canyon. Characteristically, the aircraft is still in use as of late 2011, mainly for promotional and film work, though one Trimotor operator offers rides.