The airplane is Richard Archibold's Fairchild 91 built special for an expedition to New Guinea for the American Museum of Natural History. The airplane had a short career being accidentally sunk in a storm and eventually sunk again intentionally to avoid having to pay customs duties on it. "Kono" means Duck. Archibold named his next airplane , a PBY, after the type of storm which sunk Kono, "Guba."
Fisher Island resident Gar Wood also owned a Fairchild 91 which he mainly used to fly to vacations in Canada.
The Fairchild 91 was originally designed for Pan American which operated two in South America. I have seen pictures of one at Dinner Key.
Alfred Gassner, the designer of the F-91 served as one of the initial designers of the Junkers Ju-88 bomber of WW II fame. He returned to Fairchild and did notable aeronautical engineering work into the late 1950s.
Mark Lincoln
25-Apr-2015 17:14
This is either the two Fairchild 91 Baby Clippers built for Pan Am for use in Brazil or the Fairchild 91B built for the NYC Museum of Natural History.