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Inspired by Lindbergh, China orders Five American Ryan Planes for the New Hankow-Canton Route

Posted: August 20th, 2015 | No Comments »

A good American business success in China here – from 1929. Ryan Planes, founded by T. Claude Ryan in San Diego in 1922, built the Spirit of St Louis for Lindbergh to cross the Atlantic in in 1927. That historic flight certainly inspired early aviators and aviation pioneers in China. In 1929 Carl Crow reported in the American newspapers that China had ordered and received (for the price of US$135,000 in 1929 money) five Ryan planes for service on the Hankow-Canton passenger line run by the Wuhan Aviation Bureau. I think these planes were technically Ryan B-1 Broughams. After Lindbergh’s successful flight Ryan built about 200 Broughams in 1927 for general sale. Clearly the planes were shipped out to China and reassembled after arrival by Earl Baskey of the Mahoney Aircraft Corporation – Frank Mahoney was a partner of Ryan’s who seems to have been the power behind the business.

Ryan-Brougham-sitting

The planes were given great names – The Spirit of Canton, The Spirit of Chukiang etc. Several Ryan planes had arrived in China earlier, bought by another aviation start up – there’s detail of those and a picture here.

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This incredible picture shows Chinese workers (labelled “coolies”) pulling one of the reassembled Ryan Brougham’s through the streets to the airfield (we can assume this was a publicity stunt as otherwise why not assemble the planes at the airfield?)

Baskey is an interesting character in this story as he ended up spending four years in China. He got his wings around 1918 (probably a WW1 pilot – the China Monthly Review listed him as a former Squadron Commander) and then flew mail planes on the St. Louis-Chicago (with a quick stop at Rantoul, Ill for gas and oil) route. In 1924 he enterprisingly bought his own plane to tour round county fairs offering rides and also became the special Aeronautical Deputy Sheriff of Sandursky County, Ohio. In China, after delivering the Ryan planes and reassembling them in Hankow and inaugurating the 700-mile route, it seems he stayed on promoting and selling American aircraft to fledgling Chinese airlines. In 1938 he was called up and flew in WW2 with the rank of Major. He died in the 1980s in Fort Myers.

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