The Ryan M-1 was a

mail plane A mail plane is an aircraft used for carrying mail. Aircraft that were purely mail planes existed almost exclusively prior to World War II. Because early aircraft were too underpowered to carry cargoes, and too costly to run any "economy class" ...

produced in the United States in the 1920s, the first original design built by

Ryan Ryan may refer to: People and fictional characters *Ryan (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) *Ryan (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) Places Australia * Division of Ryan, an elector ...

.Taylor 1989, p. 774. It was a conventional gear parasol-wing

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

with two open cockpits in tandem and fixed, tailskid undercarriage."Ryan M-1"

Design and development

The follow-on M-2 was substantially the same as the M-1. The prototype M-1 was originally powered by a

Hispano-Suiza 8A The Hispano-Suiza 8 was a water-cooled V8 SOHC aero engine introduced by Hispano-Suiza in 1914, and was the most commonly used liquid-cooled engine in the aircraft of the Entente Powers during the First World War. The original Hispano-Suiza 8A ...

, but production examples featured a variety of engines in the same general power range, with the

Wright J-4 The Wright R-790 Whirlwind was a series of nine-cylinder air-cooled radial aircraft engines built by Wright Aeronautical Corporation, with a total displacement of about and around . These engines were the earliest members of the Wright Whirlwin ...

B chosen for nine of the sixteen M-1s built, and the prototype later refitted with this engine.''Museum of Flight News''

Operational history

A M-1 was flown in the 1926

Ford National Reliability Air Tour The Ford Reliability Tour, properly called "The National Air Tour for the Edsel B. Ford Reliability Trophy", was a series of aerial tours sponsored in part by Ford from 1925 to 1931 and re-created in 2003. Top prize was the Edsel Ford Reliability ...

Pacific Air Transport Pacific Air Transport was an early US airline, formed in 1926 for carrying mail as well as passengers. It was acquired two years later by Boeing Air Transport. Early history Pacific Air Transport (PAT) was formed in January 1926 by Vern C. Gorst ...

operated J-4B-powered M-1s and M-2s on their demanding

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

–

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

–

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

mail route,Munson 1982, p. 128. while Hispano-Suiza-powered machines flew with

Colorado Airways Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

between

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...

and

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

and

Yukon Airways Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

between

Whitehorse Whitehorse () is the capital of Yukon, and the largest city in Northern Canada. It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1426 (Historic Mile 918) on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas ...

and

Dawson City Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yuko ...

. One M-2 (named ''Bluebird'') was built with a fully enclosed cabin for the pilot and four passengers, foreshadowing Ryan's highly successful

Brougham Brougham may refer to: Transport * Brougham (carriage), a light four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage * Brougham (car body), an automobile with a similar style Automobile models * Cadillac Brougham, 1987–1992 * Chrysler New Yorker Brougham, c. 1 ...

series. The standard M-2, meanwhile, was

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

's first choice for his transatlantic flight.Hall 1927, p. 1. His list of requirements for the aircraft soon made it apparent, however, that rather than modifying an M-2, it would be more effective to build an all-new design along the same general lines, which resulted in the

Ryan NYP The ''Spirit of St. Louis'' (formally the Ryan NYP, registration: N-X-211) is the custom-built, single-engine, single-seat, high-wing monoplane that was flown by Charles Lindbergh on May 20–21, 1927, on the first solo nonstop transatlanti ...

''Spirit of St Louis''.

Operators

; *

Aircraft on display

The M-1 prototype was restored to flying condition between 1980 and 1984 and is preserved in the

Museum of Flight The Museum of Flight is a private non-profit air and space museum in the Seattle metropolitan area. It is located at the southern end of King County International Airport (Boeing Field) in the city of Tukwila, immediately south of Seattle.< ...

. The seventh aircraft is preserved in airworthy condition in Pacific Air Transport markings at the

Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum The Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum, located at Creve Coeur Airport in Maryland Heights, Missouri, United States, is dedicated to restoring and preserving historical aircraft. The airplanes in the collection are all fabric-covered, and most ...

at Creve Coeur airport, Missouri. A replica of an M-1 using a small number of parts from serial number 11 was built by Andy King in 2001, powered by a Lycoming R-680 and also painted in Pacific Air Transport #7's scheme. Serial number 11 is owned and faces a full restoration by John Norman, who crafted the most accurate reproduction of the ''Spirit of St. Louis'' ever built. A replica M-1 is exhibited in the

San Diego Air & Space Museum San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM, formerly the San Diego Aerospace Museum) is an aviation and space exploration museum in San Diego, California, United States. The museum is located in Balboa Park and is housed in the former Ford Building, ...

."Collections"

Specifications (M-1)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Hall, Donald A
"Technical Preparation of the Airplane 'Spirit of St Louis'."
''www.charleslindbergh.com'', July 1927. Retrieved: 3 March 2009. * ''The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft''. London: Aerospace Publishing, 1985. * Munson, Kenneth. ''Airliners from 1919 to the Present Day''. London: Peerage Books, 1982. . * ''Museum of Flight News'', January/February 1991. * Ogden, Bob. ''Aviation Museums and Collections of North America''. Tunbridge Wells, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 2007. .
"Ryan M-1."
''The Museum of Flight''. Retrieved: 3 March 2009.

''Aerofiles''. Retrieved: 3 March 2009.
"Collection."
''San Diego Air & Space Museum''. Retrieved: 3 March 2009. * Taylor, Michael J.H. ''Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation''. London: Studio Editions, 1989. .

External links

Dawn Patrol Aviation- Ryan M-1 archive
{{Ryan aircraft 1920s United States mailplanes M-1 High-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1926