This 1929 Buhl Air Sedan Was an Executive Airplane for Packard, Now it's for Sale

The Packard Motor Car Company did so in this plane, a 1929 Buhl CA-3D Air Sedan, an unsung hero of interwar American aviation. A product of the Buhl Aircraft Company of Detroit, Michigan, the Air Sedan single-engined biplane was a world-class airplane.

Powered by a host of different nine-cylinder radial engines from companies like Pratt & Whitney, Wright Aeronautical, and even a few Packard engines, an Air Sedan was the first to complete a non-stop round trip transcontinental flight in 1929. It was also the first airplane to take a sitting Pope for a flight.

With a strong metal alloy airframe and wooden wings covered with canvas, the Air Sedan employed both traditional and, at the time, cutting-edge design philosophies. It made for a plane with a top speed of 140 miles per hour (230 kph) and a range of 720 miles (1,160 km, 630 nmi). Not enough to fly cross country in one tank of fuel, but the plane did at least run trouble-free as it used mid-flight refueling to complete the journey.

This particular Air Sedan, serial code NC-8451, was manufactured in November 1929 at Buhl's Marysville, Michigan, assembly plant. Six months later, it was sold straight from the manufacturer to Packard. A synopsis of the history of this airplane on Platinumfigthersales.com states that Packard purchased the plane for a total of $8,566.67, or $152,254.86 in modern money. The plane was slated to test Packard's new line of diesel-powered radial airplane engines, the DR-980 series.

Once fitted with this engine, the plane spent a period transporting important Packard personnel and taking promotional flights showcasing its engine across the country. In the end, the DR-980 was deemed overall unpleasant thanks to its putrid exhaust fumes and excessive vibrations while in flight. That's in spite of spectacular range and fuel economy; it's like the aeronautical equivalent of an Oldsmobile 350 diesel.

Once Packard had established their attempt at a diesel aeronautical engine had failed, with the Great Depression no doubt playing a role, the plane was sold to Aeroposta Argentina, an Argentine mail delivery service. There, its engine was converted back to a gasoline-powered Wright Whirlwind. The same engine was found in other very early airliners and business planes like the Ford Trimotor.

Sadly, this Air Sedan flipped over in strong winds while its engine was removed for service in the 1940s. It'd take until 1987 for this plane to be touched by human hands again. The plane was slowly mailed in pieces from Argentina back to the U.S. before the remaining airframe arrived in California. Though the airframe was on the brink of complete structural collapse, its restoration team was able to pull it back from the brink.

Today, the plane sports a similar paint scheme and stylized Packard logo it would have had during its time testing diesel engines. As of October 2022, it's the only documented Buhl CA-3D Air Sedan still in airworthy condition.

With the benefit of modern high-definition cameras, we have the benefit of marveling at this unappreciated timeless American classic airplane from a modern perspective. This is a marvelous machine to behold, from the polished-wood control yokes to the gorgeous two-tone black and gold paint.

One would expect an airplane with such a storied and checkered history would sell for a price most normal people have a hard time comprehending. But what looks like a million bucks in photographs only costs $249,000 before all the taxes and fees are taken into account. For the level of cool factor you're getting, that's really not much to ask at all. If anything, getting rid of its stinky diesel engine only makes it more desirable.