Transcontinental Air Transport  Ford 5-AT-B  NC9606     (c/n   4)

                                       
 
                                        Transcontinental Air transport (TAT) was formed on 16 May 1928 by entrepreneur/financier Clement
                                        Melville Keys.  He had already set up North American Aviation Corporation, the holding company for
                                        the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, the Wright Aeronautical Corporation and National Air
                                        Transport.  Keys was president of the airline with Paul Henderson, of NAT, as the vice-president.  Col.
                                        Charles Lindbergh was retained as a technical consultant giving rise to 'The Lindbergh Line" operating
                                        slogan.  Initially an elaborate transcontinental system of rail-to-air connections was established.  Passen-
                                        gers embarked on Pennsylvania Railroad trains (the Pennsy was a backer of the airline) at Penn Station,
                                        New York at 18.05 hrs.  The train traveled through the night arriving at Port Columbus, Ohio, at 07.55
                                        hrs. the following morning.   From there passengers transferred to a Ford Tri-Motor of  TAT which flew
                                        through the day to Waynoka, Oklahoma.  Here they boarded a Santa Fe train and traveled through the
                                        second night to Clovis New Mexico, whereupon another Ford Tri-Motor was waiting to take them to
                                        Grand Central Air Terminal at Glendale, California, where they arrived 48 hours after leaving New
                                        York.   Free onward passage to San Francisco or San Diego was then provided by Maddux Airlines,
                                        later to be acquired by TAT.   The images on this pages display the two Fords which inaugurated the
                                        flight from Port Columbus to Clovis N.M. on 20 June 1929.    NC9606 was named "City of Columbus"
                                        whilst NC9648 seen below at Port Columbus on that day was "City of Wichita:.
 
                                        Ford 5-AT-C      NC9648                     (c/n  57)