Finally found a use for AI...maybe?

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OldGeezer

Senior Airman
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Dec 11, 2020
Looking into the background of a much larger photo taken at Lambert Airport in St Louis, October 30th 1951, there's this blurry but still recognizable Cessna Bobcat but also a pair of wings and engine mounts with the registration N51192 on the RH wing. The registrations I could find under that number don't fit the wings, which also look Bobcat-ish to me, but that's the best I could do. So I enlisted Google search's AI thingie and it came up with this: "The aircraft you are referring to is a Cessna T-50 Bobcat registered as N51192... This specific airframe (N51192) carries the manufacturer serial number (MSN) 3712. It was built during the high-rate production era of World War II, when thousands were used as multi-engine advanced trainers for military pilots." So that's pretty good info, if it's correct. But you should see what the AI image-generating tools did when I tried to enhance the photo. Cars were added, buildings extended, planes rendered as smeared blobs of gray paint... I deleted all of those without bothering to save them... :)

1779887392903.png
 
It's actually a Cessna UC-78, originally built for the USAAF as s/n 42-58221; post-war it was sold by the RFC but appears to have been earmarked for Joseph A Gubics (born Romania 22Sep03) as early as April 1945; I'm assuming he paid a deposit for it at that time and settled fully later in the year when ownership passed to him:

Registered as NC51192 to Joseph A Gubics of Chicago IL 04Apr45
Sold by Reconstruction Finance Corporation to Joseph A Gubics of Chicago IL 24Sep45 for $8500
Based at "Ravensworth" Airport (probably Ravenswood Airport, near near Des Plaines IL)
Ownership transferred to Alumicast Corporation of Chicago IL 11Apr46 following the death of Gubics in an aircraft accident on 08Nov45
Sold to Skyline Airport, Chicago IL 15Oct46 for $3500
Sold to Hubert A Powell of Danville IL 01Dec47
Sold to FJ Naville, DJ Stair & RJ Vaugn of Lafayette IN 29May48
Sold to Virgil Raridan of LaGrange IL 01Feb49 (as N51192)
Sold to Kenneth Kraska and Lloyd Baldwin of Chicago IL 13Mar50
Registration cancelled 20Oct55 "correspondence returned unclaimed"

I can only assume that at some point between March 1950 and October 1951, the aircraft suffered a mishap at Lambert Field and was broken up there.
 

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