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Export Nippy.

Yet another period photograph to study. An export Nippy possibly just about to be loaded onto an aircraft. Maybe a plane spotter could tell us if it is a plane suitable for car carrying. Were the wind deflectors standard fitment?

Export Nippy.

Location: Deepest darkest Kent.

Re: Export Nippy.

Re: Export Nippy.

Yes Robert wind deflectors are standard fittings as shown but are called wings on most aircraft
Andrew

Location: Hereford

Re: Export Nippy.

Ho Ho

Location: Wessex

Re: Export Nippy.


I've Facebooked a friend re the aircraft, I'm sure he might know what it is. Unusual as it appears to have twin tail fins positioned very closely together.

Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.


Well, as it turns out the aircraft is probably more interesting than the (export) Nippy it happens to form the backdrop to! My aviation enthusiast friend has come back to me and even he's stumped as to the aircrafts identity. He doesn't believe the car would have been transported by plane as this was pretty much unheard of pre WW2. The aircrafts very closely positioned double fin and raked horizontal stabiliser are most unusual. They bear a passing resemblance to those on a 1920's Armstrong Whitworth Argosy Mk1, although the tail on that aircraft was a triple unit and has a number of differences from what we see above, also as far as he's aware, Imperial Airways were the only operators of Argosy Mk1's and the part logo visible / livery is not theirs. The bracing to the tail and stabiliser do suggest an aircraft of the 1920's. He's inclined to think this might be a foreign aircraft, possibly Italian.

I notice that in front and beyond the car are what appear to be sandbags and a tapering white flagpole rising from and below the front headlamp, which give a military base feel to the image. One final thought on the car, did home market or export Nippy's have domed headlamp lens as this car has?

Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

Looks as if my aviation friend and I will have to eat our words concerning cars not being delivered by plane prior to WW2. Purely by chance I've found this photo on the net whilst looking for possible foreign aircraft of the 1920's that might fit the description of our mystery plane - the photo is dated January 1st 1931 and incredibly appears to show an Austin 7 being lifted out of a Junkers G31 in New Guinea. How amazing's that !! However I don't think the mystery plane above is a Junkers G31.



The photo is from the German Federal Archive.

Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

Another shot of the above car being unloaded from a Guinea Airways Junkers G31 at Wau, New Guinea, the caption for this photo suggests a date of 1933 rather than 1931, the car was apparently being delivered to a Dr Ian Dickson - I wonder if it's still in New Guinea?



Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

One more shot from the CAHS/Len Dobbin Collection showing the a steam crane loading the Seven into the Junkers G31 for the flight to Wau in the New Guinea highlands. The rail track connected the Lae Aerodrome with the pier where the Seven would have arrived by ship.



Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

The cargo bay of the Guinea Airways Junkers G31 showing the open roof access - ample big enough for an Austin 7 !



Photo: Junkers Flugzeug A.G.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

Excellent work Jeff and fantastic pictures to boot.

Location: Deepest darkest Kent.

Re: Export Nippy.

I have only read this quickly, but does the Junkers 31 not have twin rudders, could in fact be a Junkers ?

Location: Oakley, Hants

Re: Export Nippy.

Jeff,
I featured the the Austin Seven being delivered by the aircraft in my book AUSTIN SEVEN STAMPS on page 31 and 32 see below.
 photo Image Page 31_zps5bjmawsc.jpg

 photo Image Page 32_zps8j2dagmr.jpg

Copies of the book are still available from me. £5 plus postage.
Please Email for details.

Bryan

Re: Export Nippy.


The aircraft isn't a Junkers, as those had a corrugated skin.

The close-coupled fins and bracing look pre-war.

It appears to have a metal, rather than fabric, skin - relatively uncommon before the early thirties.

The tail is high, suggesting either a tricycle (nosewheel) undercarriage - rare pre-war, or possibly a flying-boat - I think that what appear to be strakes of some sort low on the fuselage point that way, too. No idea what is it, but it doesn't look British.

I'm tempted to send the photo to the Q&A section of The Aeroplane Magazine. I'm certain someone will recognise it.

Location: Herefordshire, with an E not a T

Re: Export Nippy.

This is all absolutely fascinating.
Now I've just noticed thar the Nippy also appears to have 16" wheels.
Which would be right.

Location: Wessex

Re: Export Nippy.

The car being unloaded from the Junkers is surely a 1930 boat-tail tourer.

Location: Wessex

Re: Export Nippy.

Well, I've finally got some answers to the immensely puzzling photo, thanks entirely to some extremely helpful and knowledgeable aviation experts whom I've been in contact with. I now know the identity of the aircraft, the Country in which it's in, the likely State in which the photo was taken, together with two possible locations and a time frame, given the build date of the Nippy.

Sorry to have to disappoint you Robert, but the Nippy was not about to be loaded onto this by then withdrawn from service passenger airliner.

The plane is an American 1929 Fokker F.32 airliner, the first four-engined aircraft to be designed and built in the USA. Only Seven or possibly Ten (no one seems to be absolutely sure) were built at Fokker's New Jersey factory, but they only entered limited commercial service, their high cost and problems with the cooling of the after engines proved prohibitive.
Only two of the planes were actually sold to a commercial airline, namely Western Air Express operating out of Alhambra Airport in Alhambra, California and later Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California, flying to Oakland International Airport, Oakland, California and other West Coast destinations. The two dark stripes on the upper fuselage and the 'arrow tail' logo lower down, formed parts of the from 1930 onward livery of Western Air Express.

Incredibly the two aircraft were in commercial service for no more than two years before being phased out, with the first, NC333N being cut up in 1931, therefore the plane in the photo has to be NC334N. Given the build date of the Nippy, the aircraft by this time would have been withdrawn from service and in open storage - an interesting point worth noting is that the planes tail wheel is not on the ground as it should be, but at least a metre or more up in the air, also through the windscreen of the Nippy you can just about make out what appears to be a guy wearing dark glasses standing on a step ladder just in front of the tail wheel, obviously involved in some work on the aircraft.

As to the exact location, well, I think there can be only two possible contenders A) outside Western Air Express' operating base, said to be Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, California, showing the plane being dismantled for its next move or B) the most bizarre, the plane during re-assembly and installation in its final resting place at Bob's Air Mail Service Station, Wilshire Boulevard, Cochran, Los Angeles - interestingly near to Hollywood and Paramount Pictures. Both Grand Central Air Terminal, Glendale and Alhambra Airport, Alhambra are roughly equidistant from Wilshire Boulevard, so it could have been dismantled and transported to Cochran from either airport I suppose.
The plane became a static attraction at Bob's Air Mail Service station in 1934 but was scrapped at the end of 1939. So my guess would be that the photo was taken in 1934, either at the Air Terminal, the plane being dismantled for the move to Bob's Service Station or having arrived at Bob's being re-assembled - personally I think the buildings in the background look more like the maintenance area of an airport than the surroundings of Bob's Service Station, so I'd plump for the Air Terminal.

As to who owned the car, well that's more difficult, particularly as we can't see any registration plates. I wonder if any of the original export Nippy's currently in the States have any connections to Los Angeles? Maybe the Nippy belonged to Bob Spencer himself, owner of the Service Station or someone connected to Western Air Express or even Hollywood?

Other possible owners of the Nippy may have been the pilots most closely associated with these two aircraft - Silas A. Morehouse and a very colourful larger than life character named Victor E. Bertrandias a one time racing driver, mechanic, pilot and handyman who'd spent time in England in 1928 inspecting aircraft factories - he later became Fokker Chief Test Pilot. Arthur S. Winton was the Western Air Express representative at the time.









Below - man wearing dark glasses standing on a pair of stepladders


Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

Excellent research. Interesting to see the Mobil Flying Red Horse added to the wings and the fuselage arrow logo. A few Mobilgas pumps on Bob's forecourt with their lovely large clockface gauges.

Unusual four engine aircraft with two puller and two pusher radial engines!

Tony.

Location: Malvern, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Re: Export Nippy.

Excellent work, Jeff.
It made me look at the original photo again and I notice that the Nippy has late type wheel centres. I would think this moves the date to late '36 on and puts the location as Bob's.
No idea if those wheel centres were fitted to export wheels earlier than they were used for the home market but I would think not.
Regards, Stuart

Re: Export Nippy.

Jeff Taylor

I notice that in front and beyond the car are what appear to be sandbags and a tapering white flagpole rising from and below the front headlamp, which give a military base feel to the image. One final thought on the car, did home market or export Nippy's have domed headlamp lens as this car has?

Jeff.


Coming back to this, could the 'sandbags' be stacks of old tyres? The new picture at Bobs also shows some nice white lamps.

Andy

Location: Oxfordshire

Re: Export Nippy.

I came upon this picture of Bob's Airmail Service Service Station.
The windows in the background look identical to the one in the original Nippy picture.
There is also a similar looking lamp post.
http://miraclemilela.com/the-miracle-mile/historical-photos/bobs-air-mail-2/

Location: Melrose, Scottish Borders

Re: Export Nippy.

Fantastic work Jeff,
thank you for all your detective work. You can clearly see the end of the arrow on the fuselage. Back to one of my original questions, were Nippy's fitted with wind deflectors or were they an aftermarket accessory?

Location: Deepest darkest Kent.

Re: Export Nippy.

The original Junkers photo appeared in our local VAR mag some time ago. I submitted a caption but they did not see fit to use it...

”The Fuehrer will be pleased. With this captured advanced technology, we will be sure to win”

Bob Culver

Location: Auckland

Re: Export Nippy.



Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.


All we need now is someone in Los Angeles to do some research to see if Bob Spencer did own a Nippy. Unfortunately Bob's Service Station is no more, this tower block, now numbered 5455 covers the site. An old school friend of mine did until recently live and work in Los Angeles but he's since moved elsewhere in the States.

Jeff.

Location: Almost but not quite, the far North East of England

Re: Export Nippy.

Fascinating stuff. And for what it's worth, the car that is almost hidden behind the fuel pumps is a 1935 Oldsmobile.

Ivan
Wellington NZ

Location: Wellington NZ

Re: Export Nippy.

Location: Herefordshire, with an E not a T

Re: Export Nippy.

The picture of the F32 was taken by a famous photographer of the time named F.M. Huddleston on April 17th 1930 at the dedication of the Western Air Express terminal. I have a copy of that exact photo as well as photo's taken by my great uncle the same day. Another photo I have by Huddleston show the F32 with the Goodyear blimp in the background.

Re: Export Nippy.

I owned a left drive Nippy that was once owned but a Lockeed Aircraft in So Calif. Also another left drive chassis and LHD Opal

There were many Austin 7s in the US LHD and RHD. Including a gaggle of little racers imported to the East Coast by the Collier Brothers prewar and run several times including a race at the New York Worlds Fair.

Re: Export Nippy.

This strand is the most interesting one for a longtime and is absolutely fascinating. Full marks to all the photographic and other researchers who contributed.

Just thinking that a Vulcan bomber would make a good canopy for a Filling Station😉

Bill G

Scottish Border

Re: Export Nippy.

Your informative post allowed me to identify the aircraft in an old family photo I just ran across. My clue was the wing number NC334N. The caption in the album where I found this photograph said "Plane at Frisco" --- it shows an airplane parked, with a number of people standing around looking at it. The distinctive cockpit and fore-and-aft engines are visible in my photograph. I'd be happy to send you a copy if you are interested.


Paul McJones

Re: Export Nippy.

To clarify, the all metal aircraft in the photo further up is a Guinea Airways G31. The steam crane is (was) at the Voco Point end of the old Lae airstrip (now closed) and the gantry crane was at Wau. Sadly neither the Junkers aircraft nor Guinea Airways survived but the Austin 7 is an older restoration and is alive and well and currently lives inland of the Gold Coast.

Re: Export Nippy.

Robert - those deflectors on the Nippy certainly look like the style on a 37 Nippy featured on aus7in.wordpress.com, so my guess is that they were... at the end of run. But no proof. We dont have enough 37 Nippies around to use for research. Any one know of anything with defectors who could provide another photo? I've been searching for a really late one to find a really late body number, as they get thin on ground in the Register, too.

Weren't domed headlights just part of the Rubification of the later Nippies?

Bob - if you know this car is in circulation, would you put them in touch, presuming the car is probbly not on any form of register, perhaps? Interesting things are coming out of cars all the time; we have just discovered an early flitch strengthener type on the first 65s which could have been lost to history as cars are tending to be restored to details in things like the Rinsey Mills book, believing such items were"unoriginal"!

Re: Export Nippy.

Looking at the first picture and then the subsequent pictures of the plane at Bob's service station, you can see the staircases leading up to the fuselage doors, both of which look to be open indicating that the interior was accessed regularly. I would propose that the rear of the fuselage was subsequently raised and the tail wheel placed onto a steel structure in order to level the plane out and create a useable flat floor space within the fuselage, rather than a sloping floor. The overall effect would have trimmed the aircraft so that it looked like it was in level flight.

A Google image search on Bob's Airmail Service Station shows a chap attending to the tyre pressure on the nearside rear of a Model A sedan - in the background the fuselage appears to be raised at the tail - the website dates the Ford licence plate to 1938 - http://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/bobs-air-mail-service-station-a-man-a-plan-and-a-really-big-fokker.70880/

My 0.02 pennies worth

Cheers
Greig

Location: Port Elizabeth, Sunny South Africa