Cessna UC-78 Restoration

[SaxMan]

The folks at Warbirds News were nice enough to run a story on the continuing UC-78 restoration:

http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-ne ... eborn.html

[SpaceRanger1]

The record card for this aircraft shows it was assigned to Project "Epic" 25 August 1943. "Epic" was apparently the overseas destination code for Noumea, New Caledonia, 13th AF POA. What was "POA"?

The record card has some illegible entries and contains some unidentified codes.

[SaxMan]

I think we may have a case of mistaken identity, or the plane was never actually deployed -- I do know that this plane never left the ZOI.

[SpaceRanger1]

I think we may have a case of mistaken identity, or the plane was never actually deployed -- I do know that this plane never left the ZOI.

You're probably correct; the record card is hard to decipher, and I am by no means an expert on reading Individual Aircraft Record Cards. What appears to be "Epic (?) 8-25-43" is typed on the card, but it abuts the previous line so closely and is so blurry it's difficult to be sure what it really is. There are also two handwritten lines which indicate the aircraft was condemned 30 April 1945, and diverted/transferred to a non-USAAF organization (unspecified), 6 Jan 1945 or 10 October 1946.

I'll be happy to send you a copy of the card if you'll send me your email address.

[Chris Brame]

Thought you might find this interesting. I went through all the old Chicago Vocational High School yearbooks that were available online, and got every photo I could find of their UC-78:















Note it has a civil registration in the 1965 photo: N5013?. Also note the Hellcat and Wildcat in the 1957 photo; I believe Earl and Ray Reinert got them. I'll do a separate thread on the school's warbirds...

[JohnB]

Neat photos.
Any idea what the fuselage (?) is just below the "1957"?

Also in the same shot. what the wing with N25332 is from?
N25332 is now assigned to a Cessna 152...

[SaxMan]

Wow! These pics are great! Can't wait to show the guys up at the hangar all of this.

Would love to find some of the guys who worked on her while she was at the school. I'm sure they'd get a kick out of knowing that the plane is going to fly again.

[SpaceRanger1]

Thought you might find this interesting. I went through all the old Chicago Vocational High School yearbooks that were available online, and got every photo I could find of their UC-78:

There are at least two different UC-78s in those photos. Most are of N5013?, but the 1959 photo shows a different aircraft; note the large pitot/boom extending from the nose and the different color scheme trim.

I have examined all the Cessna T-50 files I could find in the FAA's Aircraft Registry, including many that had to be recalled from storage. I have recorded only three T-50 N-numbers that could be a possible match for N5013?, and there is no record of any of these as having been sold or donated to the Chicago school system:

N50136, c/n 5946. Reported scrapped by a Missouri owner, June 1949.

N50137, c/n 5075. Could be the aircraft shown in the 1959 photo, as records indicate it had an alternate pitot/static head installed at tip of nose in 1952, along with other mods. Its owner at the time was William Crawford Eddy, a collaborator with Philo Farnsworth in early television engineering and the developer of the first commercial TV station in Chicago. He sold the aircraft to his company, Television Associates Inc. of Michigan City, IN, in 1952. Registration was cancelled in 1965; at the time of cancellation, Television Associates claimed no knowledge of the aircraft. Was it donated to Chicago schools?

N50138, c/n 5824. Last owner Skymotive Sales, Inc., Park Ridge, IL. Reported dismantled/salvaged September 1948; reg’n. canc'd. 23 May 1955. Could Skymotive have possibly donated the aircraft to Chicago schools?

N25332 was never assigned to a T-50, based on my findings.

On my next visit to Oklahoma City (my mother is in a nursing home there), I'll arrange a visit to the Aircraft Registry and see if I can find anything further. I've contacted the Chicago school system in the past, but they could produce no info on any T-50s that they might have owned.

[Chris Brame]

I think at some point the students refinished the aircraft as part of their classes; look very closely at the 1967 and 1981 photos and you can see the pitot tube in the nose. These are all the photos I could get from the yearbooks; couldn't find any that showed more than one T-50.

[SpaceRanger1]

N51037 is also reported to have had a special left rear cabin window added for photography, and the plane in the photos appears to have some modification in that area.

I'm betting that this Bobcat is indeed N51037, the airplane owned by William Crawford Eddy. I think I have located his grandson, an airline-rated pilot, and I sent off a letter of inquiry to him in today's mail. I'll post here if I get a reply.

[SaxMan]

Just to muddy up the waters a bit more, when the plane was received by Jack, the instrument panel had a tag that said "Radio Call 37555". The 37555 number doesn't seem to correspond to anything military related on this airplane. We do know that parts of other Bobcats ended up getting mingled into the project over the years.

I also reached out to the school, now called the Chicago Vocational Career Academy to see if we could put the word out to their alumni that their old teaching aid airframe is being restored to airworthy. You never know what might happen when you throw something out there...

[SpaceRanger1]

Just to muddy up the waters a bit more, when the plane was received by Jack, the instrument panel had a tag that said "Radio Call 37555". The 37555 number doesn't seem to correspond to anything military related on this airplane. We do know that parts of other Bobcats ended up getting mingled into the project over the years.

Ah, but 43-7555 was the USAAF serial number of c/n 5075, which became N50137 post-war, and '37555" is how the radio call would have been placarded. This pretty much confirms the identity of the airplane seen in the photos from the Chicago Vocational School. William Crawford Eddy's grandson will no doubt be thrilled to hear that a part of his grandfather's airplane is being used to restore another.

[Chris Brame]

Add one more part to the list - check out the stencils on the nose case:

[SpaceRanger1]

Interesting. I did not record engine serial numbers in researching the FAA's records; perhaps I should have.

[JohnB]

Are they serials or model numbers?