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What Floatplane in "The Wings Of Eagles"?


jcorley

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I'm watching this again and just noticed something about the floatplane John Wayne 'crashes' the Admiral's Tea Party with.
What struck me as odd was what looked to be a standrad Edo centerline float combined with two box floats on the wing tips.

Then I started looking at the plane, itself, more closely. I cannot identify them in my US Navy books, which they should be in. I think they were modified Tiger Moths made to look like 1920s planes. Nothing I could find online or in my references came up with a good match.

Does anybody out there know for sure?

 

wings-eagles-1s.jpg

 

wings-eagles-2s.jpg

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Well I don't know my biplanes very well; someone else who knows them better can identify this more accurately. If I had to hazard a guess; it almost looks like a Curtis Jenny with floats added to it. Don't take anything I say seriously; like I said, I don't know my biplanes very well.

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I think Duke is right. I've always though they used Jenny's with floats added. I can't speak to the authenticity, but it was certainly in keeping with what was often done. Most of the planes produced in the 20's could be used with floats or fixed gear, and were often switched out according to where they were based and their tasked missions.

 

GIL :smiley16:

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It probably is a Jenny, however they did more than just add floats. The rudder is different and the wings are cranked back. Wonder if they had to do that to compensate for the change in center of gravity due to the addition of the floats?

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Just looked around a bit and the "N" was a three bay biplane while this a/c is a two. The tail is right, so it's probably some sort of Curtiss. Back then there were all sorts of sub-types and modifications. The cranked wings are still a mystery.

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It looks most like a Curtiss N-9H. This had a longer wing span than the Jenny from which it was developed because of the weight of the floats. Hence the extra bay. What does not match up is the swept wings and the serial. It does not correspond to any of the serials listed in my reference: " United State Navy Aircraft since 1911." Now these were built by Curtiss, Burgess Company in Marblehead, Massachusetts and, from spare parts by the Navy. I suppose that such modifications as swept wings could have been introduced at any time. Could the serial be a fake for the the movie? I love these little mysteries! Nick Filippone

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I'm certain the serial is just painted on. The roundels are the WW1 & Wead went to Pensacola and was in the first class of pilots (1919) so that bit is correct

 

My first thought was a Jenny but the swept wings threw me. I really doubt they had the budget to cobble together that much of a mod, which is what made me think Tiger Moth.... With a revised rudder and some fakery around the engine to make it look "right"

 

I really think it was something they found at a airport and bought/leased, that'd save a lot of $$

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And don't forget that Ens Price became Adm Price, tech advisor to the film. Pretty sure he intended the plane to look like an N-9H but since there weren't any of them....

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Haven't watched this in a while, but is there any chance it's not real, but rather a special effects model?

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I was chatting with fellow IPMS member and movie enthusiast Art Loder who astutely points out that images of this aircraft posted here lack the very characteristic Tiger Moth upper wing center fuel tank. It is very unlikely that there would have been that much re-engineering to merely create the suggestion of a bi-plane of that era. I think it is either a modification of an extant Jenny with a heavier and perhaps more reliable engine- hence the swept back wings or a reproduction with the wings swept back for the same reason. I favour the former option. Nick Filippone

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Size alone says that it isn't of the Tiger Moth family ...

 

IMDB credits Paul Mantz with the flying sequences, even though the movie does not. Perhaps something in his background/history would give up a clue. I suspect it was cobbled together from spares ....

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Frank Tallman owned as many as six Jenny's starting in the '60s, according to the listing on Aerovintage.com. Four were original, two were replicas. Now Tallman's filmography as listed on this site does not list this movie. But whoever provided the aircraft, there were obviously, therefore, plenty of Jenny's in 1957 to use in the flying scenes. Tallman was notorious for the reproduction and modification of aircraft for movies. Even if he did not do the work for this film, it certainly would have been possible for someone to do with a Jenny what Curtiss did themselves. But just add to the mystery, the four original Jenny's listed were serialed : A-169, A-179, A-186, and A-196. These serials (and the serial on the aircraft in the film) were all in a sequence applied to Curtiss R-6's. This was a twin float, three bay training and scouting aircraft that was developed from the Jenny. It was larger than the Jenny and did not have swept wings. The vertical stabilizer and rudder were also different. I think the airfcraft In the film is a Jenny on floats with a different engine,swept wings (for the reason mentioned above) and a modified vertical stabilizer and rudder.The other possibility is that it is a modified R-6 (different engine, swept wings, single float and also a modified vertical stabilizer and rudder. Perhaps a careful study of the film will allow some estimate of the size- the R-6 is bigger. This latter theory would assume that aircraft listed as Jenny's in the Tallman collection were actually R-6's. But then, the serial on the film aircraft is apparently not one of Tallman's. Nick Filippone

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How about this: Orenco F-4 Tourister

 

While still looking for the subject plane, I ran across this plane from another favorite movie of mine, This F-4 was used to double for a Vought VE in TASK FORCE.

8903L.jpg

 

CAPTION

05/31/2009. Remarks by Gil Halpin (via Aerofiles): "Produced in 1920, this plane was bought by Daughtery and operated at his field in Long Beach, California, he even got married in the air in it! Later sold to Paul Mantz, who modified it for film work, such as a Vought VE-7 in "Task Force" (1949) and others. It has been seen with fake USN markings and fake s/n A-179. Presently it is preserved at the Kermit Weeks/Fantasy of Flight collection, Polk City, Florida.

 

Then I started looking for an A-197 marked plane in a photo. Oddly enough, I was led back to Tallmantz who once owned this aircraft, but with the correct rudder configuration from the movie:

 

tallmantz12.jpg

Still not a match tho.
The only reason I thought Tiger Moth was the semi-swept wings. Modifying the wings on a plane can be a dangerous thing. Then I looked further down the Tallmantz list:

Standard J-1 1598 "A-190" N2826D TM To Larsen Museum, Minneapolis, MN; current: San Diego Air Museum

standard.jpg

It has the right number, the J-1 is kinda sorta the right 'look' but no swept wings. (^this is a sister plane)

Now I'm in need of a photo from either Larsen or SDAM to finish nailing it down.

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After some more searching I stumbled across this photobucket collection

 

J-1-1582.png

 

 

Can't tell the wing is very swept from the angles, but it is definitely the airplane. Now this plane is apparently stripped at Fantasy of Flight hanging fromt he ceiling with none of the movie mods left.

 

Thanks for the leads, guys... now all I have to do is figure out how to model it! It'd be much easier if WNW would do a Jenny

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I wonder how this serial came to be applied as it was initially assigned to a Curiss R-6? Since the modifications were done to depict a Curtiss N-9 why not just apply one of those codes? Perhaps it was a bad guess. The A-190 was certainly not the original code for the Standard J-1!

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I found contradictory info online about the location of the plane. It is, apparently, the skeletal plane hanging at Flights of Fantasy restored to a basic J-1 configuration.

 

As for the A-190 code, it could be that was the plane involved in the stunt depicted.

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It's too bad that John Alcorn can't give us his thoughts on this subject. He's really good on World War I hardware.

 

Mark

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Like I said before, Price or Ford might have decided it was "close enough" but I have found ONE PHOTO of a single float R-6, so there was the possibility of this arrangement being used at Pensacola in 1919.

127-1.jpg

 

They used what they could find, and artistic license allows the film budget to make choices that go against historical accuracy... but in this case 'close enough' may have been closer than we thought a week ago.

The caption says A-193 was the only single float installation, but I have learned not to trust captions very much

Edited by jcorley
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