It was one of the last commercial airliners designed in the United States with a fabric-covered steel tube fuselage before the introduction of stressed skin aluminum construction.

[1] Because the waiting lists for either the new Boeing or Douglas aircraft were already too long Airlines of Australia (AOA) ordered three Stinson Model As in January 1936.

[2] On the morning of 31 January 1945 Tokana was on the Essendon to Kerang leg of its regular service when the port wing separated in flight between Redesdale and Heathcote, fifty miles north of Melbourne.

An investigation revealed that metal fatigue had developed in the wing's lower main spar boom attachment socket, the actual failure possibly being instigated by the aircraft encountering a particularly heavy gust of wind.

[2] A non-flying scale replica was built for a 1987 television movie account of the 1937 McPherson Ranges disaster, The Riddle of the Stinson, in which two survivors of the crash were rescued by Bernard O'Reilly.