Bach Air Yacht
The Bach Air Yacht was a ten-passenger trimotor airliner built by the Bach Aircraft Company, which L. Morton Bach founded at Clover Field, Santa Monica in 1927 and moved to Van Nuys in 1929. First flown in 1927 on Wikipedia's account — Aerofiles dates the type from 1928, a disagreement kept under disputed — it was a high-wing monoplane built almost entirely of wood, with one large engine in the nose and two smaller wing engines whose makes changed from model to model. Twenty-one were built in all. West Coast Air Transport and Pickwick Airways were among its operators, and in July 1929 Waldo Waterman set the first altitude record achieved by a trimotor in one. The Depression ended the company in 1931, and the type's later life was single-engined conversions and second-hand work.
Why It Mattered
The Bach Air Yacht was a ten-passenger trimotor airliner built by one of the smallest American firms to attempt such a machine, the Bach Aircraft Company of Santa Monica, California. L. Morton Bach had founded his company at Clover Field in 1927 for the single purpose of building tri-motor airliners, and the Air Yacht was the result. The type's claim on the record books came on 26 July 1929, when a 3-CT-9 flown by Waldo Waterman carried a 1,000 kg payload to 20,820 ft, setting an altitude record that was the first ever achieved by a trimotor. Within two years the Great Depression had ended both the aeroplane's development and the company behind it.
Design Notes
The Air Yacht took the standard form of its day: a high-wing braced monoplane on a fixed tailwheel undercarriage. Its construction was the anomaly, being almost entirely of wood — steel was confined to fittings, the undercarriage and the struts — at a time when legislation barred passengers from wooden aircraft. Three radial engines powered it in an uneven arrangement: one large engine in the nose and two smaller ones in nacelles slung beneath the wings on struts. Bach never settled on one engine fit, and the successive 3-CT models mixed Wright, Ryan-Siemens, Kinner, Comet and Pratt & Whitney engines in varying combinations. The 3-CT-6, the model Pickwick Airways bought five of, spanned 58 ft 5 in and combined a 525 hp Pratt & Whitney Hornet in the nose with two 130 hp Comet engines. The range closed with a single deluxe 3-CT-9S of 1930, an executive version with cowled engines, wheel spats and a customised interior.
Operational History
The company began at Clover Field, Santa Monica in 1927 and moved across Los Angeles to Metropolitan Airport, Van Nuys, in 1929. Waldo Waterman was its chief test pilot, and the chief engineer, Max B. Harlow, had been brought in by Waterman. The models followed quickly, from the first Air Yachts of 1928 to the 3-CT-9K of 1931, and the production total verified against Air Commerce Bureau and FAA records is twenty-one aircraft. West Coast Air Transport heads the type's list of operators, and Pickwick Airways took the whole five-strong batch of 3-CT-6s. Other operators included Gilpin Airlines, Grand Canyon Airlines, Transportes Aereos Centros-Americanos and the United Fruit Company. The summer of 1929 brought the type its publicity: Waterman's altitude record in July, and first and second places for two Air Yachts in the multi-engine speed competition at the 1929 Nationals.
Afterlife
The Depression destroyed the Air Yacht's market: the Bach Aircraft Company succumbed to it, and development of the Air Yacht stopped after the 3-CT-9. In 1931 the business was reorganised as the Aircraft Production Corporation, which manufactured no further new designs. The surviving airframes drifted into alteration and second-hand work: three were converted into single-engined T-11Ps, one of those assembled from spare parts, and Aerofiles dates the T-11P conversion to 1933. One 3-CT-6, NC219H, was among the conversions Aerofiles records, while another ended up in Honduras in 1933 with the United Fruit Company, rebuilt with an added smaller lower wing as a sesqui-wing banana-duster.