Curtiss-Wright "Waukeegan"

[Brian da Basher]

In the spring of 1933, American Airlines President C.L. Cord was on his annual European vacation. While having cocktails in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, he was persuaded to pay a visit to the Heinkel plant in Warnemünde. It was the depths of the Great Depression and Heinkel was desperate to show their wares to any and all comers. C.L. Cord was shown the brand new He-70 "fast transport" and was immediately hooked, convinced it was just what American Airlines needed for the Dallas to St. Louis route. Upon returning to the U.S., C.L. Cord attempted to import the He-70, but was stopped because the U.S. Senate had yet to approve provisions of the Locarno treaty which allowed Germany to return to building aircraft. C.L. Cord called upon one of his vice-presidents, a chunky little man named B.M. Bord ("Little B.M." to his friends). B.M. immediately contacted the Curtiss-Wright Co. who managed to secure a license to build the Heinkel design, modifying it with a Curtiss Conqueror engine and christening the new aircraft the Curtiss-Wright "Waukeegan" (after B.M.'s hometown of Waukeegan, Illinois). The new Waukeegan set a record for the Dallas to St. Louis run in August of 1934, but soon the Bureau of Air Commerce prohibited the use of single engine aircraft for carrying passengers, and the 13 Waukeegans in the American Airlines fleet were relegated to route timing and executive transport duites, thus ending the final brief flush of success in B.M. Bord's career. B.M. retired to Laxative Springs, New Jersey and died in 1958, a forgotten man save for the sepia-toned photograph in the American Airlines Executive washroom. The sole remaining Curtiss-Wright Waukeegan ("Flagship Oklahoma") is currently on display at the Air Commerce Museum near the Timeline of Aircraft Lavatories exhibit in Senokot, Iowa.

Brian da Basher

[B777LR]

wheres the spats

Uber cool! Looks just right like that!

[Brian da Basher]

Well after the whirlwind of the I Love Spats! group build, I needed to build something a little different. I snagged this lovely 1/72 RoG He-70 "Blitz" from a fire sale at Squadron.com. Along with it, I also got a 1/144 DC-6 for $5. As the DC-6 will be mangled in a future project, that meant its beautiful vintage American Airlines markings were fair game. I built the He-70 pretty much OOB, except that I puttied over the fuselage windows for the decals and replaced the lovely clear canopy (I hoard canopies like spats almost) with the tip of a drop tank. The entire model was brush-painted by hand in acrylics, the main color being Testor's Light Ghost Gray. I used Model Masters Steel on the prop blades and a custom mix of Blue Steel for the exhausts. The orange was mixed from Artists' Acrylics (it actually matches the orange in the decals but the color was distored by my camera). The only major challenge apart from luck with PSR, was cutting the decals with an X-acto knife so they'd fit properly. These last pics show off some of the detail work. I had a lot of fun with this fairly straightforward build and now I need to figure out how to spend the next four days until the Spring Break group build kicks off March 1st.

Brian da Basher

[lancer]

That is an amazing conversion job Brian. She looks a right stunner in those markings. Although in saying that, I have always thougfh that the H3 70 is a very wiffable machine anyway. Again, brilliant work my friend!!

[Sisko]

I love it!

Big fan of this aircraft and this conversion is ACE!!!!

[McGreig]

Another completed model on top of your seventy three entries for the Spats GB!! Where do you find the time 

Nice build though - really suits the American Airlines markings 

[John Howling Mouse]

Ahhhh, NOW I recall where I heard of this!  I checked on Wikipedia (always a dependable source  ) and there was a big to-do over this once the Nazis did their little "we-have-small-wankers-and-so-must-take-over-the-entire-world-to-compensate" bit and Americans remembered C.L. Cord's pre-war business flirtations with the frowny-poorly-endowed-men-in-silly-uniforms.  I recall something about the almost desperate efforts Cord eventually undertook in an attempt to suppress the following photograph, personalized for him by the Heinkel factory PR staff at Warnemünde.  Guess it didn't seem like a career-elevating idea at the time to have one's name associated with an image containing the "we-couldn't-come-up-with-our-own-original-logo-so-we-stole-one-from-the-poor-Buddhists" symbol on the tail.



Fantastic build of a very clever/naughty idea, Mr. Brian!    it

[Maverick]

Brian,

As always, disturbingly 'real' and a super build!

Mav

[BlackOps]

Brian, this one looks like it's right out of an old movie! Dang I miss the thumbs up smiley!

[ysi_maniac]

Absolutely brilliant idea and realization indeed

[jcf]

Very amusing, especially as the He 70 was designed for DLH as a response to Swissair putting two Lockheed Orion 9B into service in 1932 and that AA used the Orion 9D.

Now you need to do a Vultee V1 in DLH or Air France markings. 

Jon