For many years, service was provided by way of a Ford Trimotor which shuttled mail between the island and the mainland.
The big news for the new airport and the community was the arrival of a Ford Trimotor on December 11.
The wings were all metal with internal stiffeners, rather than ribs, based loosely on the Ford Trimotor, which Towle worked on previously.
In 1926 he became head of Ford's Aircraft Division, which developed and built the Ford Trimotor; he was also responsible for the construction of Ford's pioneering private airport (now the location of a Ford test track) and the first airport hotel (now the Dearborn Inn).
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A Ford Trimotor, an early civil transport aircraft used by commercial airlines in the 1930s is also part of the collection; it has been used in films including the 1930 TWA promotional film, Coast to Coast in 48 Hours, appearing on screen with Amelia Earhart, and the 1984 adventure film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, in which the plane is shown being piloted by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.
LAPE was one of the few airlines that used the Douglas DC-1; some of the other planes used by LAPE are the following: Fokker F.VII, Spartan Executive, Caudron C.448, Breguet 470, Savoia-Marchetti S.74, Northrop Delta, Douglas DC-2, Ford Trimotor, General Aviation GA-43, Airspeed AS.6J Envoy and De Havilland Dragon Rapide.