Phillips "Alouette" (or "Fly") biplane... and a weird unknown glider

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Romantic Technofreak

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Hi Secret Projects,

about ten years ago, on theaerodrome.com I posted the following:

"... these two are the (prelimanary) last strangers from the San Diego Air and Space Museum's Flickr account I found. And probably the two most difficult ones because I can give you nearly no information about them.

The archaic-looking glider with the charaterictic twin-fin is from the Rowell collection. E. G. Rowell sr. was active in the gliding scene in Southern California.

The light motorized aircraft is from the Douglas Kelley Photo Album. Douglas Kelley was a test pilot for Ryan Aeronautical and worked on the Spirit of St. Louis (comments from SDASM). There is some probability that the aircraft is in any relationship with Ryan, but it is not being found in the Ryan section of aerofiles.com. The engine might be a Lawrance, what also rendered no further result yet.

Any idea about them? Thank you for answers + interest!"

I received two friendly, but not further directing comments.

Can you help? If so, please do it. Thanks in advance!

Regards, RT
 

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These two are going to be a lot more tricky, indeed...

I think the best solution for the glider is to start by searching for all the Californian gliders of that era I haven't properly identified:
For instance, a "Ducharme glider" [903Y, c/n 1] was built in 1930 by Rudolph Ducharme, from Englewood, Calif. I'll try and look for more. However, there are also quite a few other unidentified gliders which don't bear any mention of their State of origin, so it's a tough one!

As for the biplane, I've seen it before, but without any clues it's like looking for a needle in a haystack...
 
Are you sure they American ?,the gilder looks like a Mantelli design,and
the biplane is very close to a German concept ?.
 
Hi Hesham,

yes, I am sure. The context of the pictures is purely US-American. Further, the probability that a person in Germany or Italy donates the picture collection of a late relative to the San Diego Air and Space Museum is utterly zero.

Regards, RT
 
Romantic Technofreak said:
yes, I am sure. The context of the pictures is purely US-American. Further, the probability that a person in Germany or Italy donates the picture collection of a late relative to the San Diego Air and Space Museum is utterly zero.
Click to expand...
Not just that, but the cars and the way people are dressed seem very late 1920s/early 1930s American.
I'm actively looking for those two beasts, will keep you tuned if I make any kind of progress, but nothing so far.
 
Might your biplane be the one off machine known as the Skeeter completed in 1924 by a Lieutenant D.B. Phillips with the help of many other members of the U.S. Army Air Service's Third Attack Group, based at Kelly Field, near San Antonio, Texas?

A Google image search led me to http://www.aerofiles.com/_pa.html, under Phillips, where the aircraft is identified as the Alouette or Fly.

The name Skeeter, on the other hand, came from a webpage with a fair amount of information, namely https://www.scribd.com/document/78681301/Air-Force-News-Jul-Dec-1924 (Air Service News Letter, August 13th, 1924, pages 9 and 10, "A new 'flivver' plane" --- pages 57 and 58 of online document)
 
Hi Fortrena,

thank you for identifying it and sorry for late answering. As Aerofiles is King, I am going to store it as "Phillips Fly".

One more case showing Secret Projects can solve even hopeless problems.

Best regards,
RT
 
Here is the Phillips Alouette from my own database:
1752252622629.png

Lt. Donald B. Phillips, San Antonio, TX

Alouette aka "The Fly" 1924 1 built

Small homebuilt biplane, flown with 45hp Lawrance and 60hp Anzani engines, and built by Phillips and Air Service members at Kelly Field. ("Alouette" is French for Lark — ALSO SEE Maer)

NOTE: The fact that the Phillips Alouette appears in a 1925 U.S. Army document as a "Type 10" aircraft seems extremely strange, to say the least. Indeed, the Type X category was for "Two-seater corps observation" types, and the diminutive Alouette hardly fit the bill, obviously (not to mention the fact that the numeral system had recently given way to the letter types).
Click to expand...

Romantic Technofreak said:
As Aerofiles is King, I am going to store it as "Phillips Fly".
Click to expand...
A common misconception. Aerofiles was amazing at the time because it was the first site of its kind, but it contains many omissions, mistakes and approximations. I had been working on an overhaul of the site and had even prepared a draft for a 2.0 version that I meant to present to its founder (whom I had helped identify an obscure Bell helicopter) but he passed before I got a chance to do that, and his heirs just refused for the site to be modified in any way. So I went on creating my own Aerofiles derivative called CODACAM, which contains over five times as many entries as Aerofiles, but it was never uploaded.
 
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Stargazer said:
Here is the Phillips Alouette from my own database:
<snip>So I went on creating my own Aerofiles derivative called CODACAM, which contains over five times as many entries as Aerofiles, but it was never uploaded.
Click to expand...
Why not? it sounds like a useful resource. At the very least, you could probably make it available via archive.org.
 

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