Texaco Northrop Gamma 2D Sky Chief

Additional Information:

The Northrop Gamma was a single-engine all-metal monoplane cargo aircraft used in the 1930s. Towards the end of its service life, it was developed into the A-17 light bomber. The Gamma was a further development of the successful Northrop Alpha and shared its predecessor’s aerodynamic innovations with wing fillets and multicellular stressed-skin wing construction. Like the Alphas, the fixed landing gear was covered in distinctive aerodynamic spats, and the aircraft featured a fully enclosed cockpit.

The Gamma saw fairly limited civilian service as mail planes with Trans World Airlines but had an illustrious career as a flying laboratory and record-breaking aircraft. The Gamma 2D cargo version used by TWA, of which three were built, used a 710 hp Wright Cyclone engine. One of these aircraft was converted into an “Experimental Over weather Laboratory” studying icing, superchargers, radios, and turbulence at altitudes ranging from 20,000–35,000 ft.

When Transcontinental and Western Air, TWA, used the Gamma 2D for “over weather” research flights, senior pilot Tommy Tomlinson flew the aircraft for metrological recording purposes.

TWA had purchased twelve of these Gammas to fly mail and freight when the airline first began service. Seen below is aircraft number NR13757.

TWA later sold aircraft number NR-12265 to Texaco which used it as a company plane. The Gamma made several flights through Albuquerque between 1931 and 1933. The Gamma 2A was the first production aircraft sold to Texaco and flown by Frank Hawks as the “Sky Chief”, with a 785 hp Wright radial engine. On June 2, 1933 Frank Hawks flew his Gamma 2A “Sky Chief” from Los Angeles to New York in a record 13 hours, 26 minutes, and 15 seconds.

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