Stinson Airliner

SM-6000 Airliner
Stinson SM-6000B Airliner trimotor circa 1965 when owned by RP Rice of Kennett, MO.
General information
TypeThree-engined airliner
National origin
United States
ManufacturerStinson Aircraft Corporation
Number built53 (SM-6000)
24 (Model U)

The Stinson SM-6000 Airliner is a 1930s three-engined (trimotor) ten-passenger airliner designed and built by the Stinson Aircraft Corporation. The SM-6000 was a high-wing braced monoplane with room for a pilot and a cabin for ten passengers. It was powered by three 215 hp (160 kW) Lycoming R-680 engines strut-mounted one each side above the main landing gear units and one in the nose. A number of variants were built mainly with improved interiors. In 1932 the Model U Airliner was produced which had low-set stub wings with additional two engines mounted on each wing complementing the existing nose mounted center engine.

Variants

Corman 6000
The initial prototypes produced by the Corman aircraft Co. as part of the E L Cord empire.
SM-6000 Airliner
1930 initial production variant with three 215hp (160kW) Lycoming R-680 engines.
SM-6000-A Airliner
1930 variant available with different interior configurations.
SM-6000-B
Stinson U of Mayflower Airlines
SM-6000-B1 Airliner
1931 all-passenger variant with better interior equipment.
SM-6000-B2 Airliner
As the B1 but with a mixed mail/passenger interior.
Model U Airliner
1932 improved model with three 240hp (179kW) Lycoming R-680-BA engines on stub wings.
C-91
United States military designation for one SM-6000-A (s/n 42-79547) impressed into service in 1942.

Operators

 United States
Philippines

Surviving aircraft

Only two of these high-wing models are known to exist. One is owned and operated by Mid America Flight Museum in Mount Pleasant, TX, the other by Kermit Weeks and is maintained in airworthy condition at Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida.

Specifications (SM-6000-B)

Data from

General characteristics

Performance

Notes

  1. ↑ Wegg 1990, p.118.
  2. ↑ Donald M. Pattillo. A History in the Making: 80 Turbulent Years in the American General Aviation Industry. p. 10.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gradidge 1989, p. 18
  4. ↑ As pictured on timetable, March 21, 1934, Boston Maine Airways Central Vermont Airways, and other schedules; pictured in Boston and Maine Airways employee magazine, "Boston-Maine Airways, Inc., Take Air Again in Year-Round Service;" circa 1933; discussed at length by Robert W. Mudge in Adventures of a Yellowbird: the biography of an airline, Branden Press, 1969.
  5. ↑ "Stinson Trimotors - Holcomb's Aerodrome".
  6. ↑ Wegg 1990, p.128.

References

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