‘City of Port Clinton’ historic aircraft returns

PORTAGE TOWNSHIP – Just like “snow birds” — residents who fly south for the winter and return in the spring — a piece of aviation history has returned to its home in Port Clinton.

The “City of Port Clinton” 5-AT-B Ford Tri-Motor airplane returned to its hangar at Liberty Aviation Museum at 3515 E. State Road in Portage Township on Monday. Historically known as the “City of Wichita,” the plane spent the harsh winter down in sunny Florida, giving visitors to local air museums and airports a chance to ride on a working “Tin Goose.”

The plane returns to Ohio where it made aviation history, now educating people from around the country and the world about aviation’s Golden Age.

In 1925, Henry Ford, of the Ford Co., bought the Stout Metal Airplane Co., with the hopes of creating America’s first mass-produced airliners. The three-engined planes were all metal, and like Ford cars and tractors, they were well-designed, relatively inexpensive and reliable for the era.

In the late 1920s, Transcontinental Air Transport — which later become TWA — bought 10 Ford Tri-Motors, aiming to create the first transcontinental air and rail service. Regional airports with concrete runways and passenger terminals had popped up across the country, and Ford sold the three-engined planes to the company. The “City of Wichita” was one of the 10 planes, and it is the only one still surviving.

On July 8, 1929, famed aviator Amelia Earhart and twenty others boarded two Ford Tri-Motors (one being “Wichita”) and began the first leg of the cross country air journey from Columbus to Glendale, California.

Traveling by rail at night and by Tri-Motor at day, it took passengers just 48 hours to journey from coast-to-coast, an incredible feat for a mode of transportation created by Dayton’s own Wright brothers less than 30 years earlier.

As aviation technology and demands increased, the plane was passed among several owners and spent time in Central America and Mexico, where aviation travel was coming to fruition. Boeing and Douglas airlines began building their own aircraft, doubling the capacity and the luxury for passengers and crew.

In 1933, Ford ceased its production of the planes and focused on automobiles again. After World War II, regional airports began buying the slightly aged but still sturdy Ford Tri-Motors. Island Airlines in Port Clinton became home to several of the 199 original Tri-Motors.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Island Airlines Tri-Motor planes hauled cargo, farm animals, groceries, fish, wine, passengers and schoolchildren for the people of the Lake Erie Islands. The planes also served as ambulances and hearses.

The “City of Wichita” was damaged while in Mexico in the 1950s and sat for 10 years before being bought by Harrah’s Casino of Las Vegas in 1964. The company invested more than $650,000 into it, using it for high-rollers at casinos before selling it again.

Last summer, it was purchased for $1.5 million from the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, where it had been overshadowed by the museum’s “Spruce Goose.” After not being flown for several years, three new engines were rebuilt and the propellers were rebalanced before arriving at its new home at the Liberty Aviation Museum.

Jeff Sondles, operations director for the museum, said the purchase was the culmination of years of hard work to acquire a flyable model.

“It’s just a great piece of aviation history,” Sondles said Tuesday. “So many people around here remember these planes as the ones they flew in first.”

“We have grandparents bring their grandchildren to show them what they flew in to the islands. It’s just great,” he said.

Working with the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 1247, the museum will be using the 1929 Ford Tri-Motor to promote the museum around the country. This holiday weekend, residents and visitors will be able to purchase flights on the “City of Port Clinton.”

“Neil Armstrong had his first flight on a Tin Goose,” Sondles said. “They mean so much to people.”

jdenton@gannett.com

419-734-7506

Twitter: @jessicadentonNH

If you go

•What: Fly abouard the Ford Tri-Motor “City of Port Clinton,” presented by Liberty Aviation Museum and Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 1247

•When: May 21-25, 2015

•Where: Liberty Aviation Museum, 3515 E. State Road, Port Clinton

•FYI: Visit www.flytheford.org to register. Flight rates are $70 for an adult in advance, $75 for walk-up adults and $50 for children age 17 and younger.