Another Gas Station Airplane

[Silverplate]

[lestweforget]

Ok , I give in. What is it?

[bdk]

I suspect that the plane is no longer there...

[Jack Cook]

At least 500 people are searching for it on google earth has we speak

[Jerry O'Neill]

Looks like a late model Fokker F.32 airliner.
Scope of Chocolate, scoop of vanilla!
Jerry

[n5151ts]

[BK]

Looks like a late model Fokker F.32 airliner.
Scope of Chocolate, scoop of vanilla!
Jerry

Correct, it was an ex-Western Air Express NC333N (c/n 1203) retired after two years of service. It stood for a decade on 5453 Wilshire Blvd in LA before ending up as a studio prop on RKO's back lot.

1930
http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac3/Airline/Western%20Air%20Express%20Fokker%20F-32.html

1936
http://content.ci.pomona.ca.us/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Frasher&CISOPTR=1375&CISOBOX=1&REC=16
http://content.ci.pomona.ca.us/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Frasher&CISOPTR=1549&CISOBOX=1&REC=17

BK

[The Inspector]

And, with the engines strapped back to back in the nacelles, Fokker (or WESTERN) had to rig up FOD screens on the nacelles just ahead of the rear props as the forward engines would occasionally toss a rocker box or other metal debris that would ricochet off the rear prop, through the fuselage fabric, and give some unsuspecting passenger a free souvenier of their flight

[airnutz]

Same show...diff'ernt girls...
www.aerofiles.com/fok-f32x.jpg

[Chris Brame]

The F-32 gas station appears in the 1937 movie Stand-In in a scene where Leslie Howard is being driven around Hollywood and sees all the old "themed" buildings. It also appears in the 1942 movie Eagle Squadron as a German transport.

[Jerry O'Neill]

Those Fokkers and other commercial aircraft that didn't have metal wings were not of much value in the early 1930's.
The death of them was the Fokker Universal crash carring the legendary Knute Rockne.
Too bad they were cast off so quickly, it would be great to see one of those big boys today!
Jerry

[Steve T]

Jerry et al--

Coach Rockne died in a TWA Fokker F.VII/3m, not a Universal (though the two designs were very similar apart from number of engines)...A small number of F.VIIs survive, and the Universal series is not entirely extinct either, there being two hulks in Canadian museums for eventual restoration, and Clark Seaborn's Super Universal CF-AAM, which was restored to fly a few years ago and is now in dignified retirement at WCAM, Winnipeg...

S.

[Jerry O'Neill]

Thanks for the correction!
I was only going by memory, since I'm on vacation in the Dominican Republic and don't have all my resources around me.

The New England Air Museum use to own one of those Universals that are now in Canada. It was rescued from a field in NY and only the wing fittings and fuselage remained.
As a former curator, I was involved in the decisoin to sell it.
Jerry

[airnutz]

Too bad they were cast off so quickly, it would be great to see one of those big boys today!
Jerry

I wonder if Greg Herrick wishes he had one or is glad he doesn't...restoration, care and feeding
of those big Fokkers would certainly be demanding. 'Twould truly be a sight and
sound to behold tho!!!

[bdk]

At least 500 people are searching for it on google earth has we speak

Well, there is a building there now- no gas station any longer!