Middle of Nowhere, 1931. The BuNos for these planes are 8826 & 8827.
With a couple thousand miles of open cockpit flying behind them, the Arizona’s aviators have good reason to grin (or frown).
Davis-Monthan Field registry.
When these Vought O3U-1s of the battleship USS Arizona arrived at the “Fly Field” airport in 1931, there was good reason to take their photo. Namely, the place then called Fly Field (now known as Marine Corps Air Station Yuma) is located in the state of Arizona. The reason for the visit was that these aircraft were factory-fresh from Vought’s plant in Connecticut and were flying cross-country to join the USS Arizona at its homeport in California. Looking at the pilots, one can see by their weather-beaten faces that they have indeed been doing their share of open cockpit aviating. Once the planes complete their journey, their wheels will be replaced by floats, and markings will be applied to the fuselages denoting these planes were now officially part of Arizona’s observation squadron.
Naturally, no local photographer could resist taking a picture of a plane that bore his state’s name and this was especially true in Arizona, where the state’s 1931 population was about 1/19th of what it is today. In other words, seeing the name “Arizona” on anything was a big deal back in the day.
The logbook entry is from another Arizona airport, Davis-Monthan Field. The depicted page shows that these same airplanes had arrived at Davis-Monthan a few days earlier. The page is from a book that can be viewed online at dmairfield.org.
Fact: “Fly Field” was not just an appropriate name for an airport, it was an eponymous one as well – Colonel Benjamin Franklin Fly.
The Jive Bomber 