Henry Ford mobilized millions of Americans and created a new market with his Model T “Tin Lizzie” automobile from 1909 to 1926. After World War I, he recognized the potential for mass air transportation. Dutchman Anthony Fokker had designed a range of aircraft that were just starting to find a use in passenger carrying, including a "Tri-motor" with three engines. Fokker's aircraft were built of wood, however, and a number of structural failures made people less than enthusiastic about travel by Fokker. William Bushnell Stout thought he could do better. Borrowing heavily from prof. Hugo Junkers' use of corrugated metal in aircraft construction, but retaining the basic shape and layout of the Fokker, the appropriately named Stout designed a family of all-metal transport aircraft.
In the early 1920s, Henry Ford, along with a group of 19 other investors including his son Edsel, invested in the Stout Metal Airplane Company. Stout, a bold and imaginative salesman, sent a mimeographed form letter to leading manufacturers, blithely asking for $1,000 and adding: "For your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: You will never get your money back." Stout raised $20,000, including $1,000 each from Edsel and Henry Ford. For later bought out Bill Stout and the aircraft became known as Fords.
Ford’s Tri-Motor aircraft, nicknamed the “Tin Goose,” was designed to build another new market: airline travel. To overcome concerns of engine reliability, Ford specified three engines and added features for passenger comfort, such as an enclosed cabin. The first three Tri-Motors built seated the pilot in an open cockpit, as many pilots doubted a plane could be flown without the direct “feel of the wind.”
From 1926 through 1933, Ford Motor Company built 199 Tri-Motors. EAA’s model 4-AT-E was the 146th off Ford’s innovative assembly line — the 76th model 4-AT-E — and first flew on August 21, 1929. Days later, it was sold to Pitcairn Aviation. When Pitcairn’s management changed hands later that year, NC8407 became the first airplane belonging to Eastern Air Transport, whose paint scheme is replicated on EAA’s Tri-Motor. Eastern Air Transport later became Eastern Airlines.
After a checkered history in Latin America, and later working for a variety of crop spraying businesses, EAA’s Tri-Motor moved to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1964, where its new owner flew barnstorming tours. During this period, it had a variety of roles, including serving as the primary setting for the Jerry Lewis comedy, "The Family Jewels."
In 1973, the aircraft was still being used for air show rides, including an EAA chapter’s fly-in at Burlington, Wisconsin. While at the 1973 fly-in, a severe thunderstorm ripped the plane from its tiedowns, lifted it 20 feet into the air, and smashed it to the ground on its back. EAA subsequently purchased the wreckage.
After an arduous, 12-year restoration process by EAA staff, volunteers, and Ford Tri-Motor operators nationwide, the old Tri-Motor took to the air once again, having its official re-debut at the 1985 EAA Fly-In Convention in Oshkosh.
