California Coupe
The California Coupe, also called the Royer & Montijo California Coupe, was an early cabin biplane built in California. It was built in part using parts from a crashed Dayton-Wright OW.1, the last aircraft designed by one of the Wright Brothers. The California Coupe flew in early 1924, but the next year it was damaged in a failed stunt on a movie set. Montijo and Royer were not recompensed, so the company folded and the designed was not developed further.
Design and development
In 1923 John G. Montijo collaborated with Lloyd Royer on a four-passenger aircraft, the California Coupe, that would become the first cabin biplane on the United States west coast. Montijo's design closely matched the Dayton-Wright OW.1 Aerial Coupe that he had recently purchased from the Rinehart-Whelan Company in Ohio. The OW.1 had crashed in an air race in 1924, and Montijo purchased the wreck and used parts from it in the new design. The new aircraft was originally ordered on request of wealthy Dodge dealer C.E. Bellows with the intent on using a Liberty engine for power. While the California Coupe was under construction in the Kinner hangars, a client named Doc Young contracted Kinner to build a version for himself. The competing design, the Kinner Argonaut was built at the same time, with the goal to be completed before the California Coupe, with its first flight on 25 May 1924.The California Coupe was an enclosed biplane with conventional landing gear, fabric covered wings and very tall and narrow undercarriage that was built in a hangar rented from aircraft maker and engine producer Bert Kinner at Kinner Field. The Coupe, powered by a Wright-Hisso V-8 engine, was constructed using Haskelite bonded plywood and had a fuel header tank in the upper mainplane, fed by a wind driven pump from a main fuel tank under the cabin.