Douglas Sleeper Transport delivered on 6 August 1937 and reportedly named State of Utah. Impressed as a C-48B, 42-56099, in 1942. Written off after a taxiing accident on 9 February 1943 at Del Valle Army Air Base near Austin, Texas, shortly before that was renamed Bergstrom Field. Photo by: Carl Mydans / Life

0627 was a BT-1 converted to the XBT-2, the progenitor of the Douglas SBD Dauntless. Its first flight as the XBT-2 was on 22 April 1938. It was assigned to NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in February 1939 for full-scale wind tunnel tests. The XBT-2 had the characteristic perforated flaps, but here they appear to have been replaced. Photo by: Carl Mydans / Life

The 64 SON-1s built by the Naval Aircraft Factory were essentially Curtiss SOC-3 Seagulls. The 3-O-3 code indicates the third aircraft of the first section (red lower half of nose) of VO-3 (blue tailfin), thus assigned to the first ship in the 3rd Battleship Division, USS Idaho. See photo 422633 for more on this and note that VO-3 was converting to the OS2U Kingfisher around this time. Idaho sent to Atlantic in 1941 but returned to Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Photo by: Carl Mydans / Life

Destroyed in May 1934. Photo from: The Peter M. Bowers Collection/The Museum of Flight

Lost in a accident off Corfu on January 25, 1929 as the result of a heavy landing. Photo from: The Peter M. Bowers Collection/The Museum of Flight

Korean War photo. VX730 was damaged in a forced landing on to Currarong Beach NSW on March 9, 1959. The Australian War Memorial has a Sea Fury displayed as VX730. It has extensively researched this aircraft and says it is basically VW232. It believes the real VX730 was accidentally scrapped and VW232 substituted with its identity before delivery to the Sydney Technical College. Because VX730 had been a combat veteran and VW232 had always been an instructional airframe with the RAN, the Sea Fury is displayed as VX730. Photo from: Imperial War Museums

Zürich's airport at Dübendorf in 1935, with the tail of Swissair's first DC-2, HB-ITI, on the left. D-AXUT built in 1934. To Iberia in 1938 as M-CABO. Later EC-AAG, crashed in Morocco in 1944. Ju 52 D-ADEF Adolf Schirmer (c/n 4070) built in 1935. Used by Nazi bigwig Julius Streicher for some time. To Luftwaffe in August 1939. Blown up by German troops in Ukraine in 1944, then administratively bought from DLH for one Reichsmark. Fokker F.VIIb-3m I-AAXZ built by Meridionali in Naples for ALI in 1931. Crashed in 1936, presumably near Turin on 15 April. Photo from: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich

Aircraft from the HMS Glory. WB264 written off in 1953. Details not known. Photo from: Imperial War Museums

Imagine flying a strategic air raid in an Avro 504. It happened in November 1914 when three machines took off from Belfort with four 20-lb bombs each to attack the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance, 200 km (125 miles) away. Although the raid was an RNAS affair, the planes were RFC serials 873, 874 and 875. RFC 179 failed to get airborne. Some of the pilots had never flown a 504 before. 873 was shot down and Squadron Commander Edward Briggs was taken prisoner. The raid caused little damage, but was successful in that the Germans took extensive defensive measures. Belfort - Fontaine was then an airship station. Photo from: KB - National Library of the Netherlands

An apron full of Fokker airliners in Amsterdam, all foreign vistors except the twin-engined F.VIII of KLM in the foreground, PH-AED. Lufthansa clung on to the old Fokker-Grulich F.III for a very long time, and another example, probably D-701, is visible top left. Top right is a Danish F.VIIa, OY-DAC. The other three are trimotor F.VIIb-3ms: CH-163 of either Balair or its successor Swissair, OO-AIG of Sabena, and OK-ABN of ČLS. Photo from: KB - National Library of the Netherlands

This photo is believed to show VH-EAD on a charter from Sydney during the grounding of TEAL's flying boat fleet with engine problems. The four-month loss of the Short Sandringhams was mainly covered by DC-4s chartered from Trans-Australian Airlines and Australian National Airways. The Qantas charter was one-off and why it went to Ohakea instead of Whenuapai (Auckland) is not clear. The flying boats and the DC-4 charters used Auckland, Mechanics Bay and Whenuapai respectively. Photo from: National Library of New Zealand/Alexander Turnbull Library

There were two Q.6s allocated VH-ABL - Q.25 and Q.34. Neither was taken up. Q.25 had fixed gear initially. Retractable u/c later fitted but an accident five days after the first flight saw fixed gear refitted. It may have had test serial X-1 at this time. Q.34 was built with retractable undercarriage and according to historian Geoff Goodall, was test flown painted as VH-ABL. It would be delivered to the RAF as P5638. Msn Q.34 has been used for this photo as it is known it flew as VH-ABL with retractable gear. That is not known about Q.25. Photo from: National Museum Australia

This was the second DC-2 in Europe, bought by the Austrian government, but little used and sold to Swissair in March 1936. Perhaps Swissair did not like the condition of the aircraft as it was resold to Spain before the end of the year. It served as a bomber in the Civil War on the Republican side, but also carried a delegation to Ankara in 1938 for the funeral of Atatürk, as EC-AGA. To EC-AAA. We have photos of this airframe as PH-AKF in 1934 and as EC-AGA. To see them, you can click on the yellow construction number link as always on AirHistory. Photo from: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich

Sold in December 1953. Became ZK-BCP, later VH-BGP. Photo from" National Library of New Zealand/Alexander Turnbull Collection

Used as a VIP transport with 82 Wing. It would be the last B-24 is RAAF service when withdrawn in January 1949. Sold for scrap. Photo from: National Library of New Zealand/Alexander Turnbull Collection

Swissair's fifth DC-2, delivered several months after HB-ITO (c/n 1332). It was originally destined for Spain according to Douglas records, and used by the European agent, Fokker, as a demonstrator. During a demonstration at Croydon it wore 'X-1331', apparently a fake American NX registration, because it could not fly abroad under its temporary PH-AKF mark. HB-ISI destroyed in an American air raid at Stuttgart, Germany in 1944. Photo from: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich

The fourth, second and third DC-2 of Swissair, HB-ITO, HB-ITE and HB-ITA, gathered at Croydon. Winter photo from 1936 according to the source. Occasion unknown; maybe ski charter flights? Photo from: ETH-Bibliothek Zürich

One of three J7s built by Junkers as a private venture fighter. After extensive modification, it went into production as the Junkers D1 aka Junkers J9. Photo from: Imperial War Museum

The aircraft was salvaged following a forced landing at Orfordness, Suffolk, on November 11, 1940. It was used by the Air Fighting Development Unit until autumn 1942 when it went into storage. Now part of the RAF Museum collection. Photo from: Imperial War Museums

L1951 was forced down after being damaged in a dogfight with He115 seaplanes. It was recovered and repaired. Suffered three subsequent accidents. The last, when it struck a hedge on takeoff at Chipping Sodbury on February 2, 1942, proved to the end of the road for L1951. At the time of this non-fatal accident it was with a training unit. Photo from: Imperial War Museums