Stinson Detroiters

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Stinson Detroiters
SM-1F Detroiter of the Inter-City Airline
SM-1F Detroiter of the Inter-City Airline
Type: Airliner , cargo plane
Design country:

United StatesUnited States United States

Manufacturer:

Stinson Aircraft Corporation

First flight:

Detroit: January 26, 1926
SB-1 Detroit: before August 1926
SM-1 Detroit: April 1927

Number of pieces:

Detroiters: 1
SB-1 Detroiters: 26
SM-1/6 Detroiters: 123

Stinson Detroiter was the common name for a development series of cabin airplanes by the American manufacturer Stinson Aircraft Corporation from the 1920s. The Detroit variants were the first designs of the company founded in 1926. In 1928, the SM-1DX was the first aircraft to fly with a diesel engine.

history

Detroiters

Detroiters

In October 1925, Eddi Stinson founded the Stinson Airplane Syndicate with two members of the Detroit Board of Commerce and brought his own plans for a four-seater cabin biplane with him. Peter Altman of the University of Detroit and engineer William Naylor also contributed to the final design . The aircraft was built in a rented warehouse in Detroit in the winter of 1925/1926 and first flew from Selfridge Field in January 1926. The Detroiter already had modern equipment features such as cabin heating, individual wheel brakes and an electric starter and is considered the first aircraft to use this combination. A noticeable external distinguishing feature was the fabric covering of the stems between the fuselage and the upper wing.

After the machine was sold to Horace Dodge's son and a Detroit citizen with additional capital, Stinson founded the Stinson Aircraft Corporation in late May 1926 . This enabled him to produce an improved version of the Detroiters.

SB-1 Detroit

SB-1 Detroit

In August 1926, production of the improved five-seater SB-1 (Stinson Biplane Model 1) began, which introduced a deeper fuselage, modified wing struts and a new stern unit. The structure was very similar to the previous prototype. The fuselage structure consisted of welded steel tubes with a fabric cladding; the wings were made entirely of wood. While the first production aircraft were equipped with Wright J-4 Whirlwind, later machines received a Wright J-5 . The type certification (ATC 24) was only granted to the SB-1 in January 1928, although production of the total of 26 machines had already ended in June 1927. One example was tested with floats and the SB-1 Special was a three-seater approved variant.

In addition to some airlines, Hubert Wilkins also used two SB- 1s on his Arctic expedition in 1927 , one of which had to be abandoned in the pack ice.

SM-1 Detroiters

Although the SB-1 was selling relatively well, Stinson believed that a monoplane version would be more efficient and produce higher volumes. As a result, William Naylor constructed an extended six-seat variant as a monoplane. The SM-1 (Stinson Monoplane Model 1) flew for the first time in April 1927. One of the hallmarks of the SM-1 are the two wide struts between the wing and fuselage, which are essentially made of steel tubes and are clad with balsa wood and fabric. This increases the aircraft's lift area. The two front pilot positions were equipped with double controls. The six wicker seats of the passengers were arranged in three rows, with a 15 cm wide "aisle" between them. There was an entrance door on each side.

With the seats removed, the spacious fuselage could accommodate so many additional fuel tanks that the SM-1 could also perform long-distance record flights. The second aircraft ( aircraft registration number NC857) was sold to Edward Schlee, President of the Wayco Oil Company, and was used in August 1927 by Schlee and William Brock under the name Pride of Detroit for a flight of 12,000 miles with a duration of 145 hours.

The attempt of a non-stop flight from Brunswick (Georgia) to Rio de Janeiro with the Port of Brunswick (NX773), also started in August 1927, failed. After a final sighting over Venezuela and a likely crash in British Guiana , the machine remains lost to this day. The Sir John Carling also disappeared without a trace when she attempted to cross the Atlantic in September 1927. With The American Girl (NX1384), the attempted Atlantic flight also failed in October 1927, but after ditching about 580 km from the Azores, George Haldeman and Ruth Elder were rescued. Elder was the first woman to attempt to cross the Atlantic in an airplane, both breaking records for the longest distance flown over water with a distance of 4,200 km. Further records for the longest flight duration contributed to the popularity of the SM-1 and clearly demonstrated the improved reliability of the engines and cell structure .

Other variants

Stinson-Faucett F-19 in Lima
  • After the end of the SM-1 production, Stinson introduced the SM-1B in late 1928. The changes compared to the SM-1 were only marginal. The production of SM-1 and SM-1B totaled 74 machines.
  • The five SM-1DA built in 1928 also had only minor improvements over the SM-1. At least two machines (NC9600, NX9617) were converted into SM-1D-300 with 300 hp Wright J-6-9-300 (R-975) in 1929.
  • A copy of the SM-1DB with an empty weight 40 kg higher than the SM-1DA was completed.
  • Other variants that were only built once were the SM-1DC (Wright J-4B) as a cargo version for fish transport and the similar SM-1DD with a 10 kg higher payload.
  • The designation SM-1D Special applied to all aircraft with an increased take-off weight of 2040 kg.
  • Equipped with a 225 hp Packard DR-980 , the SM-1DX was the first airplane in the world to be powered by a diesel engine. It flew for the first time on September 19, 1928.
  • The SM-1F, of which 26 were built, was a further development of the SM-1D-300 with a redesigned tail section. From July 1929 onwards, the Chinese Ministry of Communications used four copies as mail planes on the Shanghai – Nanjing route. The SM-1F also flew in passenger service on the Shanghai – Beijing route. Starting with serial number M509, all SM-1F could be equipped with floats. The name was then SM-1FS.
  • The seven-seat SM-6A was introduced at the All-American Aircraft Show in 1929 . With a takeoff weight of 5000 lb and a Pratt & Whitney Wasp C-1 with 420 hp, she could be used for passenger and freight transport. Only two examples of the SM-6A were built, followed by eleven eight-seat SM-6Bs.
  • The last copy of the SM-6B was acquired by Compania de Aviacón Faucett SA , which used it as the basis for an enlarged and more powerful variant. With the designation Stinson-Faucett F-19 , 30 pieces were built in Lima between 1934 and 1946 with a 600 hp Wasp S1H1-G or Hornet S1E3-G. The eight-seat F-19 carried out the first non-stop flight from Lima to Buenos Aires in March 1937 . The F-19 remained on the Tumbes-Talara route until 1964 when it was replaced by the Douglas DC-4 .

Whereabouts

There are likely five Detroiters left in the U.S., two of which are privately owned. The others are the SM-1DX in the New England Air Museum , the Pride of Detroit in the Henry Ford Museum Detroit and the Greater Rockford , which was recovered in Greenland in 1968 and has been on display at the Rockford Museum in Illinois since 1988. There are probably three F-19s left in Peru.

Technical specifications

Parameter Detroiters SB-1 Detroit SM-1 Detroiters SM-6B Faucett F-19
(data for
equipment with floats)
crew 1 1 1 1 1
Passengers 3 4th 5 6th 7th
length 8.54 m 8.79 m 9.76 m 10.47 m 11.79 m
span 10.29 m (top and bottom) 10.93 m 13.98 16.06 m 17.69 m
height 3.13 m 2.52 m 2.95 m 4.37 m
Wing area 32.5 m² 32.52 m² 27.13 m² 31.03 m² 40.49 m²
Empty mass 772 kg 772 kg 894 kg 1587 kg 2622 kg
Max. Takeoff mass 1317 kg 1582 kg 2429 kg 3973 kg
Cruising speed 168 km / h 160 km / h 168 km / h 205 km / h 216 km / h
Top speed 200 km / h 189 km / h 205 km / h 237 km / h 256 km / h
Climb performance 244 m / min 230 m / min 305 m / min
Service ceiling 4120 m 4270 m 5490 m 5490 m
Range 800 km 960 km 880 km 920 km
Engines 1 × Wright J-4 B with 200 hp 1 × Wright J-4 with 200 hp 1 × Wright J-5 C with 220 hp 1 × Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior C1 with 420 hp 1 × P & W Wasp S1H1 with 600 PS
or 1 × P & W Hornet S1E3 with 875 PS

See also

literature

  • John Wegg: General Dynamics Aircraft and their Predecessors , Putnam Aeronautical, 1990, ISBN 0-85177-833-X

Web links

Commons : Stinson Detroiter  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Photo of the Greater Rockford
  2. ↑ Data from Aviation Week April 5, 1926, p. 504