ABQ Journal Article: Ford Tri-Motor at Double Eagle
Here’s an excerpt from a recent ABQ Journal article covering the visiting Ford Tri-Motor at Double Eagle airport. The article, a front-page story, features ASM member, and Chairman of the Cavalcade of Wings, Michael Howell.
The full article can be found here: https://www.abqjournal.com/history-on-the-fly-cavalcade-of-wings-dedicated-to-preserving-and-pursuing-story-of-new/article_b2e63f8a-f2aa-11ee-a519-8fe6584e1728.html
Prop wash from the Ford Tri-Motor rumbling to life at Double Eagle II Airport blustered its way into the hangar, threatening to topple the model planes Michael Howell and Fred DeGuio were arranging on a table on a recent day.
Both men hovered protectively over scale models of seven Ford Tri-Motor aircraft and five Fokker Tri-Motors until the real tri-motor plane taxied away.
Howell is board chairman of Cavalcade of Wings, a nonprofit organization dedicated to documenting and displaying the aviation history of New Mexico, and DeGuio is one of Cavalcade’s board members. Their model exhibit detailed the history of Ford and Fokker tri-motor planes and the roles those planes played in New Mexico.
Both Fokker and Ford tri-motors flew into the state during the pioneer days of commercial air travel.
Fokker, a Dutch company, made about 250 tri-motor aircraft in two models, the F-7 and F-10, in the 1920s. Ford turned out 199 tri-motor planes in two variations, the 4-AT and the 5-AT, from the mid 1920s to the early 1930s.
“The Fokkers didn’t survive,” Howell, 67, says. “They had wooden components and were made out of cloth. There are zero Fokker Tri-Motors flying today.
“The Fords were made out of metal. The plane was nicknamed the Tin Goose. Being an all-metal plane makes a big difference. As of 2011, there were 18 Ford Tri-Motors in existence, and eight of them were flying. I don’t know how many are flying today.”
Well, the 1929 Ford 4-AT that came close to blowing the models away for one.
That plane, owned by the Experimental Aircraft Association, took paying passengers up for rides Thursday, Friday and Sunday at Double Eagle II on Albuquerque’s West Side.
