Page 5 - Aerotech News and Review 4-1-16

High Desert Hangar Stories with Bob Alvis
Special to Aerotech News
Working hard at the Los Angeles County Air
Show last month, I found myself in a unique po-
sition the Monday after, when one of the stars of
the show fell on hard times.
One of our mechanical performers blew a
starter that needed to be replaced before it could the chills when realizing what this wing was to
make its way home.
Watching the expert crew from Planes of Fame
handle the Northrop N-9M with kid gloves, you
could see the respect they had for this very rare
piece of American history. Looking on and
touching the wing, I realized that of all the X-
planes that graced the skies over Muroc in the
1940s, this Northrop product is the only remain-
ing X-plane to take to the air on a regular basis.
The N-9M program was implemented to serve
a purpose: Northrop engineers were about to go
into detail design phase of the huge XB-35 and
the decision was made to build four 60-foot scale
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the power plants and propellers, the N-9Ms were
the aerodynamic equivalents of the big bomber.
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Dec. 27, 1942. The craft eventually made about
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would continue on.
The wing we are blessed to have still per-
forming is the fourth wing built and goes by the
designation N-9MB, which had the difference of
two 6-cylinder Franklin motors (rather than the
Menasco engines used on earlier versions) and
early on in its life had one fuel tank removed
April 1, 2016
from behind the pilot to accommodate an ob-
server. This second seat was occasionally occu-
pied by Bill Sears, Chief of Aerodynamics, or
Jack Northrop himself. By 1945, the plane we
VHHWRGD\ZDVUH¿WWHGZLWKDQH[WUDIXHOWDQNDQG and Review, Sept. 3, 2015] about Republic test
the extra seat was removed.
Touching this beauty today does give you
IRUHVKDGRZWKH1RUWKURS%WKDWZHVHHÀ\LQJ would say, but more important a club that took
today and more than likely the next generation
bomber as well.
One thing that many do not know is that the
list of individuals that sat in the cockpit of the
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N-9MB reads like a “Who’s Who” of aviation
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I did an article awhile back [Aerotech News
Pilot Rusty Roth. Thanks to his son John, I have
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good care of a true X-plane relic that survives
today and is piloted and maintained by excel-
lent individuals. They understand this is not just
another airplane. It’s a national treasure and sole
survivor, thanks to Ed Maloney (Planes of Fame)
who saved it from the scrap pile many years ago.
Later that Monday, some of us stood on the
tarmac and watched as this plane taxied out on
its way home. We wondered what it would be
like to sit in that plane with all its history and
at the controls where so many greats tested the
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endary. Needless to say, there are some pretty
lucky guys out there that do live in this world
of the N-9M and we must count ourselves lucky
that we get to see them do it from time to time!
Till next time, Bob out!
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