The N-3PB: a photographic journey through its history, recovery, restoration and rollout [Northrop team in-house pre-publication souvenir albums with an additional 35 photographs]. by [AVIATION -- NORTHROP, Jack] - 1979-1980].

[Hawthorne, CA: Northrop Corporation, Aircraft Division, 1979-1980]. Two vols. 4to. [54 pp (some plates numbered); 68 pp (unpaginated).], With 64 photographs, nearly all 8 x 10 in. photographs, many dry-mounted on plates, all others inserted in archival mylar sleeves, many w/ annotations either on verso, or text w/in negative, most are drawn from Northrop factory photo archive printed on 1979-1980 era Kodak black & white and colour glossy photo paper stock, while a couple appear to be earlier Northrop in-house factory press photos. First vol. in 20-ring faux leather binder, grass cloth endpapers, printed label on front pastedown, brass plate mounted front cover, rounded corners, 2nd vol. in 3-ring brown simulated calf, all images in excellent condition, NF, from the library of David H. Kenyon (1918-2011) former Lockheed engineer & military sales manager, as well as aviation consultant for Pan American, TWA, and the Venezuelan Airlines, and later President of the Southern California Wing of the OX5 Aviation Pioneers. An extraordinary pre-publication souvenir album for the Northrop Corporation’s recovery and restoration of the N-3PB floatplane, which was Jack Northrop’s first produced aircraft after he had established his company upon leaving Douglas in 1939. March 12, 1940 the Norwegian government had contracted with Northrop to build 24 seagoing patrol bombers, and he was able to design and build the prototype in less than eight months, unfortunately test flying Nov. 1, 1940 at Lake Elsinore, CA 6 1/2 months after the Nazi German invasion and occupation of Norway by the end of June, 1940. These exceptional images show the prototype N-3PB, the flexible machine gun in the rear cockpit, flight operations in Iceland, and Wolford’s photos of test flights on Lake Elsinore. The first album’s photos include a list of plate captions detailing the photo showing Nos. 321, 324, 320 (the restored plane), and 315 in flight; N3PB’s packed on the beach; ground crew handling an N-3PB at the dock in Fossvogur, and more. Although never delivered to Norway, Norwegian pilots in the 330 Squadron flew out of Iceland, controlled by Britain at the time, and flew missions and fought against German Focke-Wulf FW 200 long range reconnaissance bombers, and Blohm & Voss BV 138 Flying Boats. The remainder of both albums focus on the discovery, recovery and restoration of No. 320 (GS-U) an N-3PB from 330 Squadron’s satellite base at Budareiry which was caught in a heavy snow shower and forced down in 1943. Discovered and then salvaged in 1979 through the efforts of a team of Icelandic, Norwegian, British, and American volunteers led by Ragnar J. Ragnarsson, vice president of the Icelandic Aviation Historical Society. These images show the lifting of the plane, the restoration after its return to Northrop’s Hawthorne Factory where over 300 volunteers of the Western Museum of Flight’s staff, and former Northrop employees rebuilt it to its 1943 appearance and rolled it out Nov. 10, 1980. Many of the images included here augment those mounted within the souvenir albums, showing more stages, and some include black & white as well as colour images. The floatplane was displayed in Reykjavik at its’ former Icelandic home base, and finally installed at the Norwegian Armed Forces Museum at Gardermoen Airport. It was believed to be the only known survivor until 2003 when another was discovered in the waters off Reykjavik, and may eventually be recovered. Roy Wolford (1915-2013) began as an aircraft mechanic, and followed Northrop when he set up his corporation becoming the company’s official photographer, and head of the photography department. Although unsigned, many of these images are attributed to Wolford. No similar examples located in Worldcat; See: Back Matter, Aerospace Historian, Vol. 28, No. 2 (1981); Robert Guttman, Northrop’s Norwegian Floatplane Faced the Nazi Invasion, Aviation History, January 2011;