Early U.S. Navy individual aircraft record cards

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airplane176

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I have been researching manufacturers serial numbers (MSN) or constructor numbers (C/N) for American companies that supplied aircraft to the US military services. Some are easy - Boeing, North American, Douglas. Others are more difficult, such as Curtiss. I have numbers for a few early Curtiss aircraft such as Army Signal Corps numbers 2, 6, and 8, respectively D38, D-E39, and E62. These are from Casari's "Encyclopedia of U.S. Military Aircraft Vol.2". From Curtiss, the Hammondsport Era, I have USN N.6 (?) A-63 to 65 as msn 231-233. The next four numbers are from manufacturer's plates shown on the Aerodrome.com forum: N.9 5304, JN.4A 5507, R.9 6571, and JN.4HG 11571. These are neither SC numbers or BuNos. Bowers Boeing Putnam has a Chilean Hawk II at 11767, and a Hawk III demonstrator at 11894. Serial information then begins abruptly at 11922 with the Army's XA-14, continuing to a cancelled P-40N at 34740. If you add up the numbers of Curtiss aircraft built to the end of WWII, including some cancelled aircraft, these numbers might make some sense. It appears to me that Curtiss decided to more officially serialize their aircraft about 1935, perhaps along with the retrospective model numbers that are discussed in previous posts. Some biplane hawks have their own H- and SH- numbers, Falcons seem to have random numbers. Other divisions have their own numbers, such as St. Louis. Can someone out there shed some light on this, or have a more or less complete list? Any information would be welcome. Thank you.

Roger
 
I have a whole series of files of all of the Individual aircraft record cards, in PDF form. (I tried to attach one of the smaller PDF files, but it was way too large to be accepted here) Many thousand of aircraft serail and bureau numbers and much more, for each individual aircraft, Mfr, and type, and date, and its history etc.Theeshoulds be available through some archives search in Wash DC I think. I do not remember where my files came from, years ago. There is no indication of source origin on my PDF files.
 
memaerobilia said:
I have a whole series of files of all of the Individual aircraft record cards, in PDF form. (I tried to attach one of the smaller PDF files, but it was way too large to be accepted here) Many thousand of aircraft serail and bureau numbers and much more, for each individual aircraft, Mfr, and type, and date, and its history etc.Theeshoulds be available through some archives search in Wash DC I think. I do not remember where my files came from, years ago. There is no indication of source origin on my PDF files.
Click to expand...

Need I say that if you ever find a way to upload it somewhere, I'd be deeply interested in this data!! ;)
 
I did find aircraft record cards for US Navy A-001/3599 on http://www.history.navy.mil/a-record/ac-hist-card/a51-a9206/a52-9206%20listing.htm This was some years ago so it might not be there anymore. The pdf files are, as memaerobilia stated, too large to post.
 
Hi Roger;
If you send me your regular email address, I will email you one of the PDF files with LOTS od Curtiss aircraft.( #s 100-199-heavy with Curtiss planes) It will keep you busy for hours. You can then decide if these are the files that are of use to your puposes, and we can try to find the source of the complete digitial listings. I have A-52 to A-3599, in 35 large pdf files. They ARE on the Internet SOMEwhere..! Example: after the A-63-65 that you have, A-66 & 67 are Curtiss R3.
GREAT! I see Jos has found and provided the source link. Excellent!
 
From the link provided above by Jos:

 
Well done, now we can all share this info.
To cancelled numbers were:
A-199/200: Burgess Speed Scout
A-1479/1548; Standard HS.2L
A2845/2929: Goodyear Kite Balloon
A3201/3204: Goodrich Kite Balloon.

It is a shame the rest is still 'under construction' - I doubt it will ever change.
 
Jos Heyman said:
Perhaps you should split this topic off from Curtiss Aircraft.
Click to expand...

Done. A moderator with more powers than I have will now have to apply the title change to all the replies above (then erase this here message when it's done!).
 
I apologize for the late reply. My employer does not look kindly upon extensive personal internet usage, and I have a busy schedule.

Thank you extremely for the outpouring of information. I have now downloaded all of the record cards and am perusing them. I noticed something in a large number of cards that is another one of my projects: Navy engine serial numbers. These are nearly impossible to find otherwise. Also, most of the published aircraft serial lists have some erroneous information according to the cards. I thought that my list was fairly complete and accurate, but now I need to look some things over again.

I am still searching for Curtiss manufacturer/constructor serial number information that is missing until about 1930, and after that what is available is often contradictory.

Thank you all again. You might wish to take a peek at my website here: http://aircraft.list-of-domains.org/

Roger
 

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