This is a Breese 5. the following site has a copy of the original
application for a airworthiness certificate for the airplane. The builder
was Vance Breese who later became a pilot for Lockheed aircraft.
http://www.dmairfield.com/people/breese_va/Breese.pdf There is also a
pretty good drawing of the airplane with much of the known information
written on fairly recent United Airlines stationary. Several were built and
as you will see there was actually two Breese model five airplanes out of a
total of 15 entrants in the Dole Oakland to Honolulu air race of 1927. One
of them Aloha was one of the only two airplanes to actually make it to
Hawaii, although Art Goebel's Woolaroc won the race. The other Breese "5"
crashed on take-off.. A picture of Mr. Breese of Mr.Breese and a short bio
is at:
http://www.dmairfield.com/people/breese_va/index.html
Aerofiles at:
http://www.aerofiles.com/regs-e.html Has a record of the
registration 534E as belonging to: 534E Breese (Wright J5B)
The whole business of why the registration does not have the "N" to denote a
US registered aircraft may be because the model 5 did not meet airworthiness
standards of the day. See the excerpt from Aerofiles below or on their site
listed above.
Tom Inglima
11/29/2006
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FROM AEROFILES:
Long a source of confusion for researchers, the plan for aircraft licenses
and their display was actually grounded in logic, short-sighted though it
may have been. A summary, digested in chronological form from William T
Larkins' work in British Air Pictorial in 1954, is presented in hopes of
clarifying the waters a bit:
1919 = The Convention for the Regulation of Air Navigation, as part of the
October 1919 Peace Conference, created the system of international
identification still in use that sets the first letter(s) as country of
origin: N for United States, D for Germany, G for Great Britain, SE for
Sweden, etc. This system was in use for seven years before it was formally
ratified by our government.
1921 = In July the National Aircraft Underwriters Association, a service
organization for the insurance industry, established a five-letter licensing
code, but this system was voluntary with no governmental teeth in it.
Because of indifference from manufacturers (only 33 planes were registered
by the end of 1922, and it's doubtful if that number exceeded 50). It was
history by 1925, but some aircraft of that period appeared as N-ABCA,
N-ABCB, etc; see below.
1926 = In May the first real attempt at organization came with the federal
Air Commerce Act that went into effect in January 1927. In this system a
class letter C, S, or P was to be added, denoting Commercial, State, or
Private. C specified approved (airworthy) airplanes used in commerce and the
air mail, but this was amended in 1930 to include any aircraft meeting
minimum government airworthiness requirements regardless of its use. S was
for state- or federal-owned planes, with most all states requiring aircraft
operated within their boundaries to bear an NC number (Oregon, where much
flying activity took place, was a notable exception), but this was dropped
in 1937. P only lasted until March 1927 to sort out private aircraft from C
and S (no example of an NP designation was located). A limit of five numbers
seemed adequate at the time for present and future aircraft, but these were
all taken by 1929!
"Identified Aircraft" was the term used to designate aircraft that did
not meet minimum airworthiness requirements, and it was possible to register
such an aircraft until March 1939. These would wear IMA (Identification Mark
Assignment) numbers, usually without the N.
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"Ken Barnes" wrote in message
. ..
Can anyone identify this aircraft? Does anyone have any other photos of
this
aircraft, or other another aircraft of the same manufacturer, and model.
One
of the people in my R/C aircraft club wants to model this aircraft and it
would help to have more photos, specifications, 3 views, etc. The photo
was
taken at the then Palo Alto, California airport located on what is now
Stanford University.
Thanks in advance
Ken