N2PP and N28PU

These aircraft had me confused and the profiles for the two didn't help any. I have just finished communicating with the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum to sort these.

The bottom profile is the only one which should be linked to N28PU. The aircraft in the Museum was N2PP until retiring from flying status - all photos of this aircraft on the top profile need to be moved to the bottom one. When N2PP went off flying status, a friend/pilot wanted to keep the number active and so had his aircraft registered as N2PP and painted the same, and the Museum's bird is now N28PU.

So, c/n 75-3412 N2PP is the current one and should not be linked to N28PU. The old N2PP, c/n 75-5736 is now N28PU and should be linked to that profile.

Although N28PU shows N2PP on the fuselage, I'm moving my photos to N28PU because that is its actual call sign. But Mark and Daniel's photos should be at least moved to the older profile for N2PP.

I'll try not to be so confusing

First, Look at N28PU: there are two profiles and one is bogus. The N28PU with c/n 75-3412 does not exist and should be de-linked from N2PP. The only N28PU should be with c/n 75-5736. That's where I moved my photos to. Mine are AC120299, 300, 301.

N2PP has two correct profiles. The bottom one, with c/n 75-5736 needs to be linked to N28PU. This aircraft was removed from flying status and is displayed at the Kalamazoo Aviation History Museum. The three photos with the top profile, AC115561, AC92283 and AC54414, should be moved to the bottom profile with c/n 75-5736 or else to N28PU, which is the actual number it was registered as when the photos were taken.

The confusion comes because when they retired the plane they still kept the old number painted on its side, N2PP, as an honor. Another plane painted identically and active took the number N2PP so as to keep the number active. So two planes actually wear the number N2PP, but the one in the museum has not worn it as an active airplane for over a decade. Do photographers may think it should be posted as N2PP as if that was its number when photographed.

It's sort of like the Air Force Museum honoring a plane no longer extant by painting and marking a preserved aircraft as the extinct bird. We post the plane as its actual s/n regardless of what is painted on it. The photos of the Stearman at AZO should really be posted at N28PU regardless of what the fuselage says.

Does that make sense?

Glenn

Well, this is really confusing. I have checked with the Air Zoo site and they still have theirs.

Aerial Visuals site apparently has the two aircraft confused, but they are not the same aircraft, as an internet search shows they are two different places at the same time - and we all know that's impossible!

Several years back someone sent me a copy of a Stearman 75 data base, and it does not show anything with "A" as a suffix.

The odd thing is that 75-5736 was built as a PT-13D, s/n 42-17573, which was possibly transferred to the Navy as N2S-5 61614 (Baugher says this transfer was cancelled). The Air Zoo displays it as the N2S-5. But the other plane was also marked as an N2S-5 for quite some time, by looking at Internet photos, and it had a canopy at that time. More recent shot show it in civilian markings sans the canopy.

If anyone has a clue about how two virtually identical c/ns show up with Stearmans, I'd like to know. I have sent a request to Joe Baugher for his input.