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Today (Oct. 19) in 1942, Stinson Chief pilot put both the Model 76 “Flying Jeep” and the Model 77 Reliant through military pre-delivery trials at Wright Field, Ohio. The following month, the first production models would begin rolling out of the factory at Wayne, Michigan.
With flight recorders installed in both aircraft, Schramm was required to perform 6-turn spins with 1-turn recovery, both left and right. The demonstrations also included loops, slow rolls left and right, Immelman turns (half-loops, rolling out at the top), power-on stalls with flaps up and down, landings and take-offs without flaps, and short-field landings over barriers. Also required were repeated dives and 6-G pullouts for the L-5, and 4.2g recoveries for the AT-19.
All went extremely well except, as he knew would happen, Schramm could not get the L-5 to spin more than two rotations. Al had to repeat the test to convince onlookers that he wasn’t faking it – the L-5 was (and is) that resistant to spinning. Even with the elevator held full-up, Schramm demonstrated that the plane automatically recovered without relaxing back pressure on the stick. That was very good news for the Air Corps because stall-spin accidents were the leading cause of training fatalities.
Below is NX27772, Stinson’s prototype Model 76 “dressed-up” in military livery prior to the Wright Field acceptance demonstration. Note the smaller vertical and horizontal stabilizers that were enlarged on the production aircraft.
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