by George A. Hardie, Jr
The manufacturer of thi s aircraft was well known in the 1930s. The photo was submitted by George Goodhead of Tulsa, Oklahoma , date and location not given. Answers will be publi shed in the April, 1989 issue of THE VINTAGE AIRPLANE. Deadline for that issue is February 10, 1989. The Mystery Plane in the October, 1988 issue brought some interesting re sponses . Jack McRae of Huntington Station, New York identified it as fol lows: "When I saw the October Mystery Plane I couldn't resist looking it up in the Civil Register. From January I , 1935 li st it seems to be the Landis Earle , 2 PCLM Ser. No. WI Mfg. 1934; Engine Cirrus 90 HP , George L. Landis, 4633 Cramer St. , Milwaukee , Wi s. I couldn't find it in the 1936 Re gister so it may not have been around very long ." John Underwood of Glendale , California submitted the following : "The mystery plane featured in the Oc tober issue is the Landis & Earle 101, built in Milwaukee in 1934. It had a 90 Cirrus and accommodated two side by side. No washout in the short span tapered wing must have made for a worrisome stall. "R" could have been applied for a number of uses other than racing, such as ag work, predator control, topo/sur vey, etc ." (Actually "R" stood for Restricted, which covered a multitude of uses as John points out. "X" stood for Experi mental, and numbers without a letter prefix were for Unlicensed Identifica tion .) But there 's more to the story . Ed Effenheim , a Milwaukee mechanic builder, recalls driving a truck to Fond du Lac where a wing and other parts were picked up , probably from a Pheasant Traveler, a single-place monoplane being developed by the Pheasant Company. The wing was cut in half and a center section inserted to accommodate a wider fuselage for
side-by-side seating . The new fuselage was welded at the Milwaukee Parts Corp. by Earle Blodgett , a partner in the project (hence the Landis-Earle name). George Landi s was a photo grapher and intended to use the airplane for aerial photo work . As John Underwood surmi sed, its performance was marginal and eventually the airplane was sold. Cliff Gould of Mil waukee remembers the airplane was unofficially named the "Quivering Quail." He'd like to locate the present address of Earle Blodgett since he worked with him at Milwaukee Parts. Incidentally , the photos were ac quired at a local flea market and given to the EAA library. No one could inde ntify the airplane , so by publishing this column another mystery was solved . Additional answers were received from C.R. Foster, Wayne, Maine. More on the Viking biplane which was the Mystery Plane in the July issue. John Underwood writes: "Re the Kitty Hawk's "designer": This was actually an unauthorized spinoff of the Kinner Airster , produced here in Glendale during the 1923-27 period . Long story. Suffice to say a then unknown airwoman, who was representing Kinner in the Boston area, was a witness to what Bourdan & Company ·were up to and warned Kin
ner that he should take steps to protect his designs. Kinner, preoccupied with hi s engines, took no action, possibly because he had already sold the Airster design rights to Crown Coach . The young lady was none other than Amelia Earhart. The Airster had an all-wood air frame and Bourdon wanted steel tube fuselage and a more reliable engine. Frank Kurt, newly graduated from MIT , was hired to replicate the Airster. He was also the test pilot and sales manager. Frank went on to greater things under the aegis of Robert Gross, who reorganized the Bourdan Com pany under the Viking label. Seaplanes were always Frank 's great love and he had a long and distinguished career at Grumman . Pete Bowers, in his Kitty Hawk writings, refers to an engineer named John E. Simmons . No matter. Simmons or Summers, it was Frank Kurt who did the deed ." landis and Earle 1
VINTAGE AIRPLANE 35