Please help identify a USN carrier-based tow tractor

Hello

Could anyone please help me identify a U.S.Navy carrier-based aircraft tow tractor?

Here is a couple of photos:
http://www.a4skyhawk.org/5e/g148435/148541.jpg
http://www.a4skyhawk.org/6e2/va-113_j-kopff.jpg
(note: those photos are property of the Skyhawk Association and are hosted on their web-site)

I know for sure that such tractors were widely used on USN aircraft carriers to tow aircraft across the flight deck. I also know that they were in service between mid-fifties and mid-sixties, up until the Vietnam war when they were replaced by a newer tow tractor which is still in use on all modern American carriers. But I neither know the model name/manufacturer, nor any other technical particulars.

I understand that these are not tractors in the agricultural sense but rather purpose-built aircraft tugs. Still, seeing how many real tractor gurus are on this site/forum, I thought that maybe someone might "accidentally" know something of use to me...

Why am I interested in all this? I'm a modeler – I build plastic model kits, and my favorite theme is the U.S. Navy carrier aircraft. I'm also gathering information to build some "carrier deck" dioramas, but they would look rather plain (and not realistic enough) without supplementary shipboard vehicles like aircraft tow tractors, fire fighting trucks and so forth.

And here lies the problem: it appears that very few factual data on past carrier deck vehicles is currently available. I've got a few photos from an assortment of military history books, and I hope those photos would help me scratch-build the tractors I want. But still I don't have much in the way of technical information, e.g. model/manufacturer name, when entered service, how many built/supplied, when stricken out of service, and so forth.

Any help/advice will be very much appreciated!

PS: unfortunately, visiting any of the excellent US military museums or talking to the USN veterans is not an option for me at the moment, the reason being me living on the other side of the world

Thanks in advance & best regards,
Alex

You need to find someone that was stationed aboard
those carriers that operated those tugs. They were made by a lot of companies including IH. Clark and Coleman built them too. We even ran drawbar on some for the Navy and the Air Force.
Hal

Seems like I saw one like this advertised as a Cushman tug for sale somewhere.

While I know nothing about aircraft tugs, Tamiya has a model with a WWII Corsair that appears considerably smaller and lighter (logical for shipboard) than the one in your 5E etc photo (I couldn't bring the other up).
Tamiya's site says its Ford built; if that's correct, and the one in your pic was used shipboard, more than one model may've been used, which wouldn't be unusual for WWII wartime procurement.
It's my understanding that during those years Towmotor was the primary civilian aircraft tug provider, although I seem to recall a reference somewhere that Chrysler Cptn built some; you might try checking their histories of military work. Good luck.

While in jet fighters in the Marine Corps, I was on both the USS Saratoga and USS Lake Champlain in the late 1950's, and I really don't recall any tugs on the flight deck. As I recall, they relied fully on crews of human plane pushers.

A flight deck is a chaotic and dangerous enough place without worrying about someone going overboard with a tug, or mule, as we called them on a shore base.

That doesn't necessarily mean they weren't used to an extent, just that after over a year total on carriers, I don't remember them.

I think every squadron with aircraft had one of those tugs, I know we had one availabl. I saw someone in our outfit hot rodding one of the tugs, He was popping weelies, and stood the thing up on the hitch, where it stayed with the front wheels hanging in the air. It took several people to push it back down. The good old days. stan

They used the NC-4 on piston aircraft and the bigger NC-5 on the jets. Ford powered.

Allan

Thank you for your reply!

It's true that many different models have served on US carriers as aircraft tugs.

In fact, my own humble research has shown so far that the list of vehicles used as aircraft tugs on carrier decks looks like the following:

1. Willys MB jeep (served from 1942 till early 50's)

2. Clark CT-40/model 42 tractor (early 40's - mid 50's)
pic:


3. Ford BNO-25/BNO-40 tractors (1942 - mid 50's)
pic:

This is the one included into the Tamiya's kit you're talking about.

4. A tractor I don't currently know the model name for (mid-50's - mid-60's)
pic:
<a href="http://www.a4skyhawk.org/6e2/html/va-113_j-kopff.htm">link</a>
That's the one I was asking about in that first post.

5. A/S32A-31A tug (mid 60's - present time)
pic:


Of course, a number of other vehicle models served as aircraft starter units, fire fighting trucks, crash & salvage cranes and so forth.

Thanks a lot again, and have a good day.
Alex

Thank you for your reply & your insight!

I'd add my 5 cents: I've collected quite a lot of photographic evidence that various aircraft tow tractors have been in extensive use on carrier decks since 1942.
They were first introduced because of the combination of two factors:
- higher tempo required for wartime operations,
- the increased weight of newer aircraft (new TBF/TBM Avengers were much harder to manhandle than either F4F Wildcat or SBD Dauntelss).
In those days the Navy started with Willys MB jeeps, Ford BNO-25/BNO-40 and Clark CT-40 tractors for that role. Since then, various models of aircraft tow tractors/tugs are in constant use on carrier decks.

And altough in some cases some aircraft certainly were manhandled (F8F Bearcats, F9F Panthers/Cougars or A4 Skyhawks being rather lightweight), it doesn't seem realistic for birds like 40000lbs F3H Demons, 70000lbs A3 Skywarriors or 55000lbs F4 Phantoms to be moved manually on a regular basis during normal carrier operations.

Thanks again & best regards!
Alex

We tested those fire trucks too. Some for the Navy & some for the Air Force. They had the Detroit diesel engines mounted at the rear. Hal

Hello,
the Tractor is a Hough Paymover Tc-60,Tc-65,
military name: MD-1,MD-1A(with gas turbine compressor)
best regards Arno

Arno,
thank you very much for the precise identification.

Thanks a lot everyone for sharing your information on this!

all the best
Alex