liberty12a

Here's a contemporaneous photo, showing this aircraft to be an Army Air Corps Douglas O-2H (A.C. 28-139): www.flickr.com/photos/sdasmarchives/16080845802/

Aviator Roy N. Francis next to the modified Martin MB-1 Bomber (Martin GMB-TA or "Martin GMT"; Air Service Serial No. A.S. 62949, Martin construction no. c/n 8) that he was to fly in an attempt of a one-stop (at North Platte, Nebraska) flight between New York and San Francisco in the summer of 1919. Unfortunately, on July 24, 1919, five days prior to the planned start of the flight, the aircraft was destroyed (see photo on Page 21 of cited journal below) when the hanger it was in at Hazelhurst Field (later Roosevelt Field), Mineola, was collapsed by a "cyclone, accompanyied by lightning" on that date. See: "U.S. Air Service," September 1919, "Coastal and Transcontinental Flights," Pages 21-22. For the details on the aircraft, see: Glenn L. Martin Aviation Museum - Martin Aircraft Specifications (1998)

ROY NEWELL FRANCIS
1886-1952
see also
and
www.earlyaviators.com/efrancis.htm

TVL1970 and Art Siegel: Thanks. We will include some of your details next time we update the description.

The New York Times in a page one story reported the cyclone that destroyed the Martin Bomber occurred on July 28, 1919, and the single stop transcontinental flight was to start four days later on August 1, 1919. [1] The Times references the July 24, 1919, date as the day "An army bombing plane [Martin Bomber] carrying a crew of five, commanded by Lieut. Col. R.S. Hartz, left the ground here [Washington, DC] at 10 A.M. on the first leg of a flight of nearly 8,000 miles around the rim of the country." [2]

Marc Mitscher, a naval aviator and officer of historical distinction (to put it mildly). See: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Mitscher

Thanks, TVL1970, I'll add Mitscher's first name to the catalog as well as the other man's who I believe is Louis T. Barin.