Jack Northrop is legendary in the annals of aviation history. Less known is that he was an avid outdoorsman and loved trout fishing.
in 1930, on one of his trips to catch the ever elusive Maine lake trout, he realized an untapped and wholly non-existent market for a sports float plane. Upon returning from his vacation, he hit the drafting table and designed a cantilever-winged monoplane with an enclosed cabin for the pilot and four passengers. Powered by the new Pratt & Whitney R-2345-28R twin-row radial engine and featuring a large, central float and two wingtip outrigger floats, the prototype took flight in 1932.
Christened the Nor'easter after the well-known New England storms, the float plane entered production shortly after testing. That summer, Jack Northrop was spotted flying to his favorite secret fishing hole by the chairman of the U.S. Coast Guard's BurProcure or Bureau of Procurement who was also vacationing in Maine. BurProcure bought one Nor'easter off the shelf for testing and was impressed by its flight characteristics.
After getting Northrop to make some modifications such as adding a large RDF loop antenna, the Coast Guard ordered a service-test squadron, seeing the new float plane as ideal for the search and rescue role.
U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was also a frequent visitor to Maine, having a retreat on the island of Campobello. Hoping to impress the Commander-in-Chief, Coast Guard Nor'easters flew over FDR's vacation home every morning, dropping copies of newspapers hot off the presses. No doubt awed by the fine journalism of such local dailies as the Addison Argus, Roque Bluffs Record, and Howland Herald, FDR ordered the U.S. Navy to trial the Nor'easter.
However, the U.S. Navy was too hide-bound in the early 1930s to consider something as radical as a cantilever-winged monoplane for service. Northrop saw no orders for the Nor'easter besides those from the Coast Guard and one purchased by the owner of Marshall Field's department stores.
Still, for a couple of years, the Nor'easter became the highlight of newsreels every summer, filmed while dropping FDR's morning newspapers over Campobello. This would be its only claim to fame.
Hamstrung by tight Depression-era budgets, The U.S. Coast Guard's BurProcure couldn't afford to procure more Nor'easters. The float plane went out of production in 1934 and the entire service-test squadron was wiped out in the terrible 1937 Nor'easter that devastated the Maine coast.
The photos you see here are from the sole survivor, the one purchased by the Marshall-Field's scion which was restored to Coast Guard specs in the 1960s. This aircraft was unfortunately destroyed by a horde of indignant modelers over its inaccurate paint scheme while on display at the Maine Museum of Industry in September, 1977. Entirely forgotten today, for a few brief moments, the Northrop Nor'easter lit up newsreel screens nationwide and only lives on the fading memories of a few very old people.
Brian da Basher