Alliance Test Pilot

[Scott]

HI All
I've been trying to identify people involved with CF-CLR over the years. The first flight entry in the first log book was of course the test pilot, but I only have the initials, and I can't even identify what the letters are. NJN perhaps? I've found a few names for Alliance test pilots but nothing that seems to fit.

Anyone have any ideas?

Here's page one:

[woodmw]

Scott...

I think the initials are WJW

[Hank Jarrett]

Middle initial could be an F or a T based on the letters in the remarks. The curse of messy penmanship!

[3Dreaming]

Middle initial could be an F or a T based on the letters in the remarks. The curse of messy penmanship!

The writing in the remarks was made by someone else. Take a look at the dates on the first two lines.

Also the T in test is different than the middle initial.

[Robert Lees]

Then between July 2 and July 4, someone did 16:30 in two days, so that was a delivery flight to a distributor. Probably west coast, with that flight time.

I do love the flowing script...my original Taylorcraft logbooks are very similar. Mine was first flown by Paul Dietz, Licence No. 323593 April fools day 1946.

[Scott]

It was actually ferried to Lubbock Texas buy a gentleman named Clent Breedllove, who was also the manager of the airport there.
Here's what we found so far:

[LostnSpace]

I am not so sure to call that messy penmanship, my mom, born long, long ago wrote like that, it was some type of older penmanship, she and I were in a museum, again long ago, there was a document there written in some handwriting I couldn't make out, she step up and read it like it was newspaper print, thanks for the memories, also from mom's writing, it's an F, also the F in Ferry, looks like the middle letter in the initials, even though probably written by someone else, but the same age, gary

[M Towsley]

I would suggest Forrest but even when I was out there in-person in 2011 I couldn't get him to take the time to look-up who test flew mine.

[Scott]

We've spent some more time trying to analyse the handwriting and we think the initials are HTH or possibly HFH. No other clues so far

[woodmw]

I will bet large sums the first and third letters are "W". I've seen my name written by others and the W looks just like that. And I would not call it messy penmanship. It's just not lettering as done by engineers.

[Hank Jarrett]

Just to clarify, when I said messy penmanship I was talking about MY penmanship! Mine is messy AND hard to read. Just ask Forrest sometime, and he is pretty good at reading bad penmanship. (By the way, I am an engineer and in general we write a lot like Doctors. Only other engineers and our wives seem to be able to read it.) ;-)

Hank

[Scott]

I will bet large sums the first and third letters are "W". I've seen my name written by others and the W looks just like that. And I would not call it messy penmanship. It's just not lettering as done by engineers.

Wow! Thanks, that does look close

unfortunately i haven't found a test pilot whose last name begins i w either. Yet!

[Mark Bowden]

Scott, you might contact the Alliance library to do a search for "test pilots" or the Alliance Historical Society to see if they could do the same.
The public library link https://www.rodmanlibrary.com/

There is also the Alliance Memory site, they may be able to do a search. They have a good collection of Taylorcraft photos and in the past year they have actually done a mammoth effort to display and identify all the photos. You used to go insane looking at the collection as it was randomly presented.

http://www.alliancememory.org/digital/

Have you gone though Chet Peek's book?

Mark

[Mark Bowden]

In the Alliance photo collection there is a photo of Bill Ward, Test Pilot.

Bill is often short for William. Also he could have gone by his middle name possibly J for James, Jim, etc...

A quick check of the airman registry doesn't come up with a William in the right time frame but a couple Billy's that got their commercial in 1945. A search often comes back with more than 50 results and asks for more fields to reduce the results.

FAA doesn't search or publish airman certificate #'s. Which of-course is the key.

Newspaper search in Alliance is likely best bet to find anything. As he is likely deceased maybe a call to the airman branch and ask based on cert #, can't hurt to ask.

[Scott]

Thanks Mark!
I thought I'd looked at every photo in the Alliance collection... apparently not. I'll. Eed to look again. If you have a link it would be appreciated.
S