Ford Trimotor

Only 199 trimotors were ever built. Today, just 8 remain airworthy.
Yet this quirky aircraft, with its externally mountes engine gauges which pilots could only check by looking out of the window, left unique markts in history.
In 1929, the trimotor was the first plane to lfy over the South Pole. And in 1932 Roosevelt flew in one during his 1932 presidental campaign, in one of first uses of aircraft in an election.

Between 1926 and 1933 only 199 Trimotors were built in Ford’s own factory. Corrugated metal on great thick monoplane wings was a German development, used in Junker JU-52 planes that were flying the Berlin-Rome-London route. Trimotors were flown by airlines, oil companies and wealthy individuals. The Ford Trimotor and Junkers JU-52 were pioneering airplanes that led to generations of Douglas and Boeing fleets of aircraft, soon to criss-cross the world.