Warbird Information Exchange

Curtis YC 76 Caravan

Interesting..I've never seen a pic of it in silver (come to think of it, I've only seen one or two pics period.) The plane was made of wood..one of those attempts to come up with an easily mass-produced transport made from "non-strategic" materials. According to Wikipedia, only five were built. The AAF lost interest when the feared aluminum shortage never materialized.


SN

Didn't that thing end up as a gas station in Texas?

The shortage actually did materialize, mostly caused by the government controls. Hence all the scrap drives. The War Production Board was pretty stingy about who got what kind of aluminum. Ingot manufacturers gave high grade processed ore to aircraft production purposes. Everybody else got melted down pots and pans. Indian motorcycles of the period have crappy aluminum. Indian's foundry had to scramble to make decent pours for engine cases, and some of the surviving engine cases for war-production bikes are really bad looking with folds, spalling, and galling from impurities.

Hey Dan, why did they build all those wooden BT wings?

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

a fugly duckling of a bird!! why is it that the most abused / overused word on ebay is the word "rare"?? it's ridiculous!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Hi John - the story that I've gotten over the years is that the US was sweating out a possible bauxite shortage (which I understand never really did materialize) so it was decided that whatever could be made out of "no-strategic material" (ie wood) was. BT outer wings, tailcone, aft fuselage, seats, floorboards, control sticks - quite abit of stuff - as well as phenolic side panels. The older ones like mine (built Aug '41) we're all metal but the late production ones had alot of wood. I have as yet though to ferret out if there was a designator change to it. I used to think that the BT-15's were the wooden ones with the Wright engines but apparently BT-15 only means "Wright engined powered" as alot of the surviving "BT-13's" out there are in fact all metal BT-15's.

The Stearmans were the same way in regards to the wood. My 1942 built N2S-3 had metal sticks, seats, trim tabs and floorboards while the 1944 built PT-13D originally had all of those things made out of wood.

Similiar yet different.

If I recall, they even made a handful of T-6 monocoque tail sections out of wood.

Gary

Holy emergency AD Batman

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Don't touch my junk!!

Here are a couple of shots of the XC-76, 42-86917, in OD paint. Photos from the National Air & Space Museum.

serial # correction: 42-86913. Sorry.

Any idea where the ground picture was taken? Look at all those AT-9s. Must be the factory, but which one?

I think they were built at the main plant in buffalo early in the war.The P-40s were built and flown out from the vulcan street plant which when I was there last was occupied by BFI. Nice people there. Gave us the nickle tour and the rail was still in the floor and you could tell where the torched out the fixtures when they closed the line.

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Hang The Expense

Hey Dan, what is the Vultee S/N of your bird? Ours is 5946, AAC 41-22026. Yours must be fairly close in production to ours?

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Regards,

Jase
www.b26marauder.com
"I'm having a BLAST!!" 2007 CAF Wing Staff Conference

RIP Gary Austin..always in our hearts

Mine's a little earlier but also an A model: BT-13A-VU c/n 1876, USAAF 41-9642. I saw one at OSH a couple of years ago that was I think about 17 airplanes earlier than mine (I wanted his gascaps in the worst way but have since scored a set.) Got any trading stock?