Warbird Information Exchange

Morning all;

Periodically I see a reference to some BT-13's having been built in Nashville, but to my knowledge all of them were built in California at Downey. Can anyone confirm this for me one way or the other; whether or not all the BT-13's came out of the Downey plant or were in fact some of them built in Nashville? It's my understanding that only the Vengeances were built in Nashville.

thanks,
Dan

Hi Dan,
I did a pretty thorough search of the library of Congress online photo selection. They have hundreds of photos of the Vultee BT-13 production lines at Downey, CA, and a similar number of the Vengeance production lines in Nashville, TN (some amazing color ones too). However, I found absolutely no references to BT production in Nashville. Mind you, the photos are all from 1942, so it is possible that when Vengeance production shut down in Nashville they got started on BT's. That being said, I think that you will enjoy looking through these photos.... here's the link.

Hope you enjoy them... Cheers. Richard

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/f?fsaall:0:./temp/~ammem_m5EM:

Thank-you Richard,

Information like this on WIX makes my day!

Yes - thank you very much. The Rosie the Riveter pictures are very interesting becasue as you probably know it was Vultee that pioneered that proram.

Thanks again, I'm off to Congress!

Dan

You're very welcome... I'm glad that I could help. There really are some fascinating shots in there. I live just down the road from the LoC and should really pay a visit myself!

All the best. Richard

Vultee - Nashville TN This is where they built the A-31 Vengence

Maybe this can shed some light. Last month I was talking with a guy in North Carolina about a Cessna and he revealed that he had 4 Stinson 10's and 3 Aeronca Sedan basketcase projects he had just picked up. One of the 10's was supposed to be an L-9 and possibly manufactured in Nashville. I did a little research on the Stinson's and the Nashville plant. Here is an excerpt from the email ;
"Stinsons were manufactured in Dearborn Michigan until Stinson landed a large military contract in August 1941 to build 1046 L-1 Vigilants. Thereafter all military production was switched to their new Nashville plant. The last few Stinson 105's were built in Nashville. Nashville built the Stinson 105/10A/HW-90's, the L-1 Vigilant and the L-5. The Michigan plant continued to build the "big Stinsons" like the Reliant.
Stinson merged with Vultee in 1943 and then merged with Consolidated in 1943. Thus came about CONVAIR. "
I have seen may pics of the L-1's , the 105's , the V-31 Vengeance and even a contract to build the "droop snoot" P-38 in Nashville but cannot remember seeing any photos of BT-13's rolling down the line.
Back in the 1980's and 90's there was a bare metal BT-13 restored in Tullahoma, Tn. that had on it's left landing gear a brass plate that said Consolidated Vultee, serial # built in Nashville Tennessee. Also, if you look at the military accident records there were about as many bt-13's "pranged" at or around the Nashville (BNA) airport as there were the Vengeances and this suggests they were indeed manufactured here. Amazingly, I have never ran across anyone that worked at the Nashville plant during the war!
Also, the San Diego Consolidated plant built a lot of PBY Catalina's and there was a Consolidated plant in Louisville, Kentucky and they built mostly B-24's. Hope this gives some clues.
Regards,
Marine Air

Actually, L-5's were built in Wayne (actually Romulus), Michigan. The Aircraft Record card for my 1945 Stinson OY-1 (L-5E-1) states that it was accepted in Wayne, Michigan on 6/14/1945.

Detroit Industrial Airport is where Stinson was based at. It is currently a General Motors Powertrain Facility, and the remains of the airport can be seen in satellite photos. The cool thing is, I base my OY-1 just down the road at Willow Run Airport, of B-24 Fame. If Detroit Industrial was still open, I would love to base it there.

You can find the Former Detroit Industrial Airport at these Coordinates:

42* 15' 41.02" N
83* 24' 13.06" W

The Nashville plant was purchased and tooled up for the Vengeance, but then Northrup took over part of the production for the V72 project. The L-1 and L-9 were built at Nashville, but Stinson built most everything at the Wayne plant. The Wayne Michigan (not Indiana) was their last plant built. The Nashville plant was used for Vengeance and P-38 production for the remainder of its life, but I don't know if they made complete aircraft there or just subcomponents. Some of this information is from Vengeance by Peter C. Smith.

Hi John,
The Nashville Vultee plant was definitely used for Vengeance assembly lines, as you will see in the Library of Congress photograph collection I listed above. You should really check out the photos... some of them are really fascinating! Thanks for all of the details on the factory operations by the way.

Cheers,
Richard

I had an L-5B VW. VW=Vultee Wayne, Michigan I believe.

It's remarkable that sixty some odd years later many (most?) people are still under the impression that Consolidated bought Vultee when really it was the other way around. It wasn't until I started reading Jonathon Thompson's book "Vultee Aircraft 1932-1947" that I realized that was the case. I also remember reading awhile ago that the old Downey plant still remained.

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Dan

Current status of the Downey plant:

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_fre ... htm#vultee

You can Google Earth the factory site as well; N33 55 25.17 W 118 07 47.79

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Dan