The Ford Trimotor (also called the "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed the "Tin Goose") is an American three-engined transport aircraft.

In the early 1920s, Henry Ford, along with a group of 19 others including his son Edsel, invested in the Stout Metal Airplane Company.

Stout, a bold and imaginative salesman, sent a mimeographed form letter to leading manufacturers, blithely asking for $1,000 with the line, "For your one thousand dollars you will get one definite promise: You will never get your money back" to convince them.

The aircraft resembled the Fokker F.VII Trimotor (except for being all metal which Henry Ford claimed made it "the safest airliner around").

[6] Although designed primarily for passenger use, the Trimotor could be easily adapted for hauling cargo, since its seats in the fuselage could be removed.

Unlike many aircraft of this era, extending through World War II, its control surfaces (ailerons, elevators, and rudders) were not fabric covered, but were also made of corrugated metal.

As was common for the time, its rudder and elevators were actuated by metal cables that were strung along the external surface of the aircraft.

[5] The rapid development of aircraft at this time (the vastly superior Boeing 247 first flew at start of 1933), along with the death of his personal pilot, Harry J. Brooks, on a test flight, led to Henry Ford's losing interest in aviation.

[1] From mid-1927, the type was also flown on executive transportation duties by several commercial nonairline operators, including oil and manufacturing companies.

While advertised as a transcontinental service, the airline had to rely on rail connections with a deluxe Pullman train that would be based in New York being the first part of the journey.

Passengers then met a Trimotor in Port Columbus, Ohio, that would begin a hop across the continent ending at Waynoka, Oklahoma, where another train would take the passengers to Clovis, New Mexico, where the final journey would begin, again on a Trimotor, to end up at the Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, a few miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Ford Trimotors were also used extensively by Pan American Airways, for its first international scheduled flights from Key West to Havana, Cuba, in 1927.

"[12] First being relegated to second- and third-tier airlines, the Trimotors continued to fly into the 1960s, with numerous examples being converted into cargo transports to further lengthen their careers, and when World War II began, the commercial versions were soon modified for military applications.

Some of the significant flights made by the Ford Trimotor in this period greatly enhanced the reputation of the type for strength and reliability.

This was one of three aircraft taken on this polar expedition, with the other two being named The Stars and Stripes and The Virginian, replacing the Fokker Trimotors that Byrd previously used.

[5] In February 1930, a Ford Trimotor was used for the flight of Elm Farm Ollie, the first cow to fly in an aircraft and to be milked mid-flight.

[13] Franklin Roosevelt flew aboard a Ford Trimotor in 1932 during his presidential campaign in one of the first uses of an aircraft in an election, replacing the traditional "whistle stop" train trips.