Hanriot HD.1 fighter plane, Ocean Park Pier, Santa Monica, 1928

Description

Handwritten at edge of negative: 2168 P[2?], Hanriot HD.1 fighter plane with skull and heart emblem on fuselage, once flown by Charles Nungesser, on display on Ocean Park Pier, Santa Monica, with Patsy Mamar and Shirley Widman posing with flags in cockpit and visitors on and around benches on pier below, with ocean in background, Charles Nungesser was a successful French WWI fighter pilot, performed in air shows and movies in the United States after the war, and disappeared, with his navigator Francois Coli, during an attempted trans-Atlantic flight in 1927., Photograph was probably taken in 1928. Cf. uclamss_1300_1444i, Nungesser's Hanriot HD.1 was owned by Jim Granger or his widow from 1927 to 1951 (vandalized 1931 at Clover Field, Santa Monica; put in storage 1933), when it was purchased by Edward T. Maloney, restored, and put on display at the Planes of Fame Air Museum in Chino, California, Text from nitrate negative sleeve: 2168, Ocean Park, Nungesser Plane, 1931, Nungesser Plane, Access to this collection is generously supported by Arcadia funds.