“A Tough Day’s Barnstorming”

Robert S. Fogg was a well known and highly successful businessman in New Hampshire during the 1920s and 1930s. He operated a flying service in Concord, N.H., that included seaplane operations on the many lakes and rivers that dotted New Hampshire’s landscape.

One of his workhorse airplanes was a Travel Air S6000B (serial number 999 registered NC8885) equipped with floats and a 300-horsepower Wright static, air-cooled radial engine. In this photograph the cabin monoplane was tied up on the shore of Merrimack River near Concord. Fogg (center with bathing beauties on either side) was enjoying a respite from the day’s flying at a specific spot on the river known as “The Weirs.”

That was where he built a rail slipway that allowed the Type 6000B to be hauled ashore and exchange its main landing gear for a set of floats to become an S6000B. After the float installation was completed and every detail thoroughly checked, the slipway guided the big Travel Air down the rails until it floated on the river.

The young men and ladies in front of the S6000B were probably basking in the sun on the shore before Fogg showed up with the Travel Air, and he gathered them all together for a group photograph that may have been destined for a page in the local newspaper. A note scrawled on the back of the photograph reads: “A Tough Day’s Barnstorming.”

Robert Fogg was an excellent airman and a friend of Walter and Olive Ann Beech. In 1934 Beech hired Fogg to make initial test flights of the bullish and powerful Beechcraft A17F that was built specifically for the Goodall Worsted clothing company. Fogg flew the ship on business trips carrying company executives to visit various manufacturing sites across the nation.

(Photograph Courtesy Jerry Impellezzeri and the estate of Ralph Nordberg)