Ford National Reliability Air Tour

The plane was also used by their new airline the Ford Air Transport Service, which started regular flights in April.

[2] This was called the First Annual Aerial Reliability Tour, sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers, with prizes for completion.

The launch was timed the same day at Ford Airfield with the 22nd Annual James Gordon Bennett Balloon Race.

From Binghamton, the tour is to fly south and west as far as San Antonio, Texas, returning to Ford Airport July 25, 1931.

Colonel Clarence M. Young, assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics, came from Cleveland, Ohio to witness the start.

Leonard Flo, flying a Bird cabin plane, was delayed more than a half-hour when he broke a tail skid just before the takeoff and the two Ford entries were 15 minutes late.

Lewis A. Yancey, who flew with Roger Q. Williams across the Atlantic in 1928, who is piloting an autogiro in the tour; Walter E. Lees, Detroit pilot who holds the world's non-refueling endurance record, and George Haldeman, who attempted to fly the Atlantic with Ruth Elder.

Major Thomas G. Lanphier, former commandant at Selfridge Field, is accompanying the tour as far as Binghamton as a passenger.

The Ford Trophy will go to the pilot whose plane performs most efficiently, as judged by the scoring formula, over the entire distance.

The 2003 tour started and ended in Dearborn, Michigan, circling the eastern half of the United States, with enroute layovers at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina and Jabara Airport, Wichita, Kansas (Friday-Monday, September 12–15).