Dating to the 1930s, this silent 16mm home movie contains various family scenes, as well as footage apparently shot at the National Air Races in Cleveland, and at the Boston Airport. First at the head of the film is footage shot during what might be a vacation at a rustic cabin in the woods. At 1:27 is footage shot of what is probably Lake Erie waterfront near Cleveland, Ohio. At 1:34 are shots from the National Air Show including biplanes flying in formation to form the letter “A” in USA. An autogyro is visible at 2:18. It’s not clear what year this is, but the presence of the autogyro may mean it’s 1932. At 2:49 a well dressed woman walks towards camera. At 2:52 two girls pose for the cameraman, and then push a baby carriage down the street. At 3:16 the occupant of the carriage is revealed to be a doll. At 3:38 is footage shot at Boston’s Jeffrey Field, renamed Logan Airport in 1943. Jeffrey opened on September 8, 1923, and was used mainly by the Massachusetts Air Guard and the Army Air Corps. It was then called Jeffery Field. The first scheduled commercial passenger flights were on Colonial Air Transport between Boston and New York City in 1927. First around 3:46, you’ll see a Sikorsky S-38 or possibly an S-41. (If it is an S-41, it would likely have been one of those operated by Boston-Maine Airways in this era. The S-38 and S-41 also successfully operated for Pan American Airways and the U.S. Army.) At 4:37 a Colonial Air Transport passenger plane, a Ford Trimotor, is seen. Colonial also operated Fokker tri-motors. The company was founded in 1926 in New York City by Juan Trippe, who also founded Pan Am. Colonial operated pretty much exclusively between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts. At 4:47 the Sikorsky flying boat gets the signal for takeoff and clears the tarmac. At 4:58 the Ford Trimotor follows. At 5:30 is a sweeping panorama of the airport, and at 5:59 the hangar of the Boston Airport Corp. is shown. At 6:24, you’ll see a Curtiss Model F biplane / seaplane. The Curtiss Models F made up a family of early flying boats developed in the United States in the years leading up to World War I. Widely produced, Model Fs saw service with the United States Navy under the designations C-2 through C-5, later reclassified to AB-2 through AB-5. At 7:04 another Colonial Air Transport plane lands. This one appears to be a Fokker F.VII, also known as the Fokker Trimotor. This was an airliner produced in the 1920s by the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker and under license by Fokker’s American subsidiary Atlantic Aircraft Corporation.

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com