Interesting info about these photos

Here’s another airplane that showed up in Port Washington; it was manufactured by the Consolidated company which at the time was located in Buffalo, New York.  So why was it in Port Washington?

The owner of Consolidated was Reuben Fleet.  It was said that he was not fond of the Buffalo winters because they hampered his seaplane testing because of ice.

From the book, “The American Flying Boat”, “The new Navy flying boat, called the Ranger, was a sesquiplane, so named because, in addition to the 100-foot parasol wing, it had a smaller lower wing of slightly less than half that span attached directly to the fuselage. This mini-wing provided extra lift as well as support for the two stabilizing floats.”

At left, on the tail of the X201.

OK so what’s with that insignia on the tail of this airplane?  Mouse over the image below.

A guy named JULIÁN ROSERO QUINTERO from Brazil wrote me and said, “the photos of Consolidated Comodore the plane are a Consolidated P2Y1C Ranger for the Colombias Air Force.”

What??  This picture taken in the 1930’s was of a plane bound for the Colombian Air Force??!!

Julian is correct.  From “The American Flying Boat” book, once more, “…Six P2Y aircraft were sold to Argentina, one to Colombia, and another to Japan. Altogether, forty-eight P2Ys were built for the U.S. Navy. These were some of the most reliable aircraft ever procured…”

The Ranger was the forerunner of the Commodore used by Pan Am for passenger service.

This is the only picture I have of the Commodore.

Julian was correct and had more to say about these photos.  Read on.

That insignia on the tail is the Colombian Air Force identifier.

From Julian: