The Commemorative Air Force’s Coyote Squadron in Corsicana, Texas, has recently added a former Royal Navy Stinson Reliant Mk.I to its small fleet, having acquired it from another CAF squadron in North Carolina.
The aircraft, bearing its original Royal Navy serial number, FB605 is essentially an uprated version of the Stinson AT-19/UC-81 which served in the US military during the war, and itself a derivative of the civilian Stinson Reliant. Stinson’s factory in Detroit, Mich., built 500 of them exclusively for the Royal Navy under the Lend-Lease program. The type served in many roles from liaison to reconnaissance.
According to the CAF, FB605 made many trips over the English Channel to look for German U-boats. By November 1944, FB605 was in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) as part of the Ferry Flight at the Royal Navy Aircraft Repair Yard in Coimbatore.
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Photo by CAF
