Aero Vintage Books

I just added a page to my Aero Vintage website Tallmantz section that details history of the A-24B (s/n 42-54682) obtained by Frank Tallman in 1964. There's more to the story: I am awaiting receipt of the AAF aircraft record card to document the military history of the aircraft, which also may add information as to how it ended up in Mexico during the postwar period. Worth a look if you are into such things...

https://www.aerovintage.com/the-tallmantz-a-24b/

I received the AAF aircraft record card the other day. The Tallmantz A-24B, 42-54682, was accepted by the Army on 11/8/1943 and was immediately earmarked to go to Mexico. It was flown to the San Antonio Air Depot where, the card notes, Mexican pilots would pick up the airframe. This pretty much confirms that 42-54682 was one of the 30 A-24Bs transferred to the Mexican Air Force, though its serial does not appear on the only tie-up listing I could find (in Douglas SBD Dauntless by Robert Peczkowksi) showing the Mexican A-24Bs.

Another peculiarity is the record card shows the airplane manufactured by Douglas at Santa Monica, but this is clearly incorrect as no primary or secondary sources show any A-24Bs built at Santa Monica...they were built at Tulsa. Perhaps the airplane was actually 'delivered' at Santa Monica but that really makes no sense. It's hard to understand how a basic reference would be incorrect...the whole batch of A-24B cards were presumably prepared at the same time and they show the wrong manufacturing plant? Mysterious.

In any event, I updated the page at my Tallmantz site: https://www.aerovintage.com/the-tallmantz-a-24b/. A copy of the card is on that page.

MY suggestion is drop Maxwell(tammy.horton@us.af.mil) an e-mail and ask her to e-mail you a copy of CD ACR-60

ACR-60 covers serial numbers 42-52580 ~ 42-55761, which should include all of these aircraft

If she likes you, she should be able to send you a copy of this CD within 2-3 days.

Would be interesting to see the sister ships for this A-24B and where it was delivered and which ones also have the Mexican AF notation

I have a bunch of microfilm reels with aircraft record cards...it is quite difficult to find a microfilm reader these days, even in university libraries. They are usually tucked away in a basement, unused, dusty, and usually broken. The CD is the better, modern (1990s) format (I did not know the cards were so available)...I will give that a try.

aerovin2 wrote: ↑Thu May 06, 2021 1:05 pm I have a bunch of microfilm reels with aircraft record cards...it is quite difficult to find a microfilm reader these days, even in university libraries. They are usually tucked away in a basement, unused, dusty, and usually broken. The CD is the better, modern (1990s) format (I did not know the cards were so available)...I will give that a try.

Using the term CD is just generic.

What she will do is send you a link to a secure AF database with a one week passcode.

Just download the PDF and your good to go.

When you are done downloading, send me the passcode so I can also grab this file.

Generally, now that Maxwell is back-up and running, the turn around time has been about 1-week as long as you have the CD number (I have an online database for these CD's except for the aircraft record cards that was a seperate file)

Interesting state on these cards - mixture of IBM cards as well as none computer generated hand typed.

Noticed a bunch of the USNAF Project numbers end with a -F. Do not know what that means (-R is usually for Replacement)

Is USNAF A-24 sent to the USMC ?

This are the majority action codes used

Nice Walk around on a minor accident with 42-54659