1/72 Greenbank Castle Ryan M-1 converted to M-2 completed

Here is the boxy beauty. I am very glad I decided to build this kit, t needed just some little TLC, but was a very nice material to start with and an enjoyable building all along.

Again my thanks to Jim Schubert from Pugetopia for kindly gifting the kit, and to Vic Seeley, its creator.

As many of you know this design evolved through many steps to become (among others) Lindy’s plane, the Ryan NYP.

I hope my Canadian modeling friends will like this winter endeavor, together with my Alaskan modeling friend who loves anything on skis and floats.

For the step-by-step, detailed building article, see here:

http://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2013/11/greenbank-castle-ryan-m-1-172-kit.html

I am adding now (November 1st 2014) a very interesting and well-written text on this subject by
Diana Trafford, niece of Quebec bush pilot Howard Watt, who piloted and owned this very plane. She is a member of the Canadian Aviation Historical Society:
(Diana's text starts):

Ryan M-2 (G-CAJK)

Only one Ryan M-2 was ever licensed in Canada. That plane landed in Toronto on March 5, 1928, with Howard Watt at the controls. The flight from Buffalo took 80 minutes, following the 125-mile route around the shore of Lake Ontario. The plane had been purchased by Manitoba Basin Mines and would operate out of The Pas, Manitoba. Howard was hired as manager of air operations.

The Ryan’s arrival in Toronto was greeted by headlines in the Toronto Star proclaiming “Plane Like Lindy’s Lands at Leaside.” Just a year earlier, in May 1927, Charles Lindbergh had made his solo flight from New York to Paris in a modified Ryan M-2, the Spirit of St. Louis. Not surprisingly, the Canadian Ryan was nicknamed ʺThe Spirit of the Pasʺ.

The earlier model Ryan M-1 monoplane was developed in 1926 to carry the U. S. mail between Seattle and Los Angeles. The M series featured a wooden parasol wing mounted above and directly onto the fuselage. This arrangement gave a clear view ahead and to the sides. The pilot sat in the rear cockpit, while 2 passengers and luggage – or 4 or 5 standard mail bags – could be carried in the front cockpit. The fuselage was made of steel tubing covered with fabric. The dappled effect of the metal cowl and covered wheels became a trademark of the Ryan M-1s and M-2s.

Some 19 Ryan M-2s were produced, a couple with glassed-in cockpits. Alan Renga of the San Diego Air and Space Museum told me that it is hard to give an exact number because the two models went through production at the same time. In any event, G-CAJK was construction number 22. It was built in 1927 by B. F. Mahoney Aircraft of San Diego and was originally powered by a 180 hp Hisso engine, giving an airspeed of about 105 mph.

NASA engineer Fitz Walker called the Ryan M-2 “one of the most successful civilian aircraft of the mid-1920s… (It) was so cheap to operate that freight and passenger service companies could actually turn a profit. It proved that there was a future in commercial aviation.”

In January 1930, Manitoba Basin Mining sold the Ryan M-2, and in June that year Howard bought it from the dealer with some 300 hours on its log. Howard was tied up flying air mail on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, but he managed to install a new engine, a 9-cylinder, 200 hp Wright-Whirlwind J4B – the same engine used by Pacific Air Transport in their Ryans on their West Coast U.S. air mail route. This gave the plane a cruising speed of 115 mph. But Howard did not get around to registering the plane.

On Sunday afternoon August 30^th, 1931, a sharp-eyed government aviation inspector spotted the plane flying at the Canadian Air Express field on Dufferin Street, Toronto. Watt had his knuckles rapped. He was forbidden to fly the Ryan until it had been inspected and a certificate issued. Desperate to fly the plane in the Ontario Air Derby a week later, he appealed to the authorities in Ottawa. He was lucky. A permanent license for G-CAJK as a private aircraft was issued dated August 31, 1931.

Once winter came, the Watt brothers – Howard and Bruce – were working in the Lower St. Lawrence, where their specialty was transporting bush workers between the pulp and paper operations on the North Shore and their home villages on the South Shore. In early 1932, Bruce was flying the Ryan M-2 for Howard. For example, an entry in the airport register for Rimouski, Quebec, shows that G-CAJK with Bruce Watt as pilot arrived from Montreal on January 29, 1932, and departed on February 2 for Anticosti Island.

Just two weeks later, Bruce was in hot water. Or more to the point, he was very nearly in the frigid February waters of the St. Lawrence River.

On Tuesday February 16, he took off from Matane on the South Shore at 8:30 am and flew across the wide St. Lawrence to Clarke City on the North Shore, west of Seven Islands. The trick was to get enough altitude that you could glide to shore or shore ice if your single engine failed. Sure enough, as he was flying back to Matane around noon the engine began missing, and the plane lost altitude. Bruce made a forced landing on the pack ice about 7 miles off Les Méchins. This village is on the Gaspé coast, about halfway between Matane and Ste-Anne-des-Monts. Abandoning the plane, the pilot and passengers jumped from one ice floe to another trying to get to shore. After two hours of grueling effort, they were rescued in a rowboat by a daring man from Les Méchins who had seen their predicament.

Now Bruce was really in hot water. This time with A. T. Cowley, Superintendent of Air Regulations for the Canadian government. Bruce’s commercial pilot’s license was suspended until May 31, 1932, for undertaking commercial work when the plane had only a private license. Bruce admitted that he had been carrying passengers at $30 an hour in a plane which Cowley himself had refused to license commercially when it was owned by Manitoba Basin Mining. Bruce must have been a charmer. Apparently his commercial license was reinstated before the term of suspension was completed. There is a letter on file from him thanking Squadron Leader Cowley for this.

Meanwhile the Ryan continued its voyage down the river on its own little ice pan. Recovery efforts were thwarted by the ice pack blocking most of the Gulf and by heavy squalls blowing in the area. The last sighting of G-CAJK was by Hubert Auclair who telegrammed Ottawa to say: “We saw the lost plane passing by on February 29 at 8 am about two miles from Rivière-à-Claude.” Like many a sailor, Canada’s only Ryan M-2 was lost at sea, and went to a cold and watery grave.