Stinson Airliner Explained

The Stinson SM-6000 Airliner was a 1930s three-engined (trimotor) ten-passenger airliner designed and built by the Stinson Aircraft Corporation. The SM-6000 was a high-wing braced monoplane with room for a pilot and a cabin for ten passengers. It was powered by three 215 hp (160 kW) Lycoming R-680 engines strut-mounted one each side above the main landing gear units and one in the nose. A number of variants were built mainly with improved interiors. In 1932 the Model U Airliner was produced which had low-set stub wings with additional two engines mounted on each wing complementing the existing nose mounted center engine.

Variants

Corman 6000

The initial prototypes produced by the Corman aircraft Co. as part of the E L Cord empire.^[1]

SM-6000 Airliner

1930 initial production variant with three 215hp (160kW) Lycoming R-680 engines.

SM-6000-A Airliner

1930 variant available with different interior configurations.

SM-6000-B1 Airliner

1931 all-passenger variant with better interior equipment.

SM-6000-B2 Airliner

As the B1 but with a mixed mail/passenger interior.

Model U Airliner

1932 improved model with three 240hp (179kW) Lycoming R-680-BA engines on stub wings.

C-91

United States military designation for one SM-6000-A (s/n 42-79547) impressed into service in 1942.

Survivors

Only two of these high-wing models are known to exist. One is owned and operated by Mid America Flight Museum in Mount Pleasant, TX, the other by Kermit Weeks and is maintained in airworthy condition at Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida.

^[2]

Operators

American Airways
Boston-Maine Central Vermont Airways
Century Airlines
Chesapeake Airways
Chicago and Southern Airlines
Delta Air Lines
National Airlines System
New York, Philadelphia and Washington Airway Corporation aka Ludington Airline^[3]
Rapid Air Lines^[3]

Philippines

INAEC Iloilo Negros Air Express Company

References

Gradidge . J. M. G. . American Classics: Stinson SM-6000 . . November 1989 . 100 . 18 . 0262-6950.
Book: Taylor, Michael J. H. . Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation . 1989 . Studio Editions . London .
Book: Wegg, John. General Dynamics Aircraft and their Predecessors . 1990. Putnam Aeronautical Books. London. 0-85177-833-X .
Book: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985). Orbis Publishing.

Notes and References

Book: A History in the Making: 80 Turbulent Years in the American General Aviation Industry. Donald M. Pattillo. 10.
As pictured on timetable, March 21, 1934, Boston Maine Airways Central Vermont Airways, and other schedules; pictured in Boston and Maine Airways employee magazine, "Boston-Maine Airways, Inc., Take Air Again in Year-Round Service;" circa 1933; discussed at length by Robert W. Mudge in Adventures of a Yellowbird: the biography of an airline, Branden Press, 1969.
Gradidge 1989, p. 18