Aircraft or Another Toy at Lori's Restaurant?

[Romantic Technofreak]

Hi all,

Lori's is a stylish reaturant in San Francisco, I googled and found there ar branches in other cities as well. But the picture attached was made in the Bay City. You still can find it in Airliners.net, but still nobody was able to identify it.

So I wonder if this is an aircraft at all or only a ceiling decoration. E.g. the undercarriage looks very feeble to me (there is another picture in the net with undercarriage removed). It is told there is a registraton "D-25-NA" but also this proved not to be helpful. Lori's left a request unanswered.

So, if you know anything, please tell it.

Best regards,
RT

 

[riggerrob]

The main landing gear legs appear to be spring steel or spring aluminum, which clashes with the rest of the World War 2 theme.
Steve Wittman might have invented spring steel landing gear during the 1930s, but it did not reach production until Cessna introduced their 120 series, 2-seater trainer after WW2.

The rest of the airframe looks like a sub-scale, stand-off scale, single-seat replica of a USN Navy N3N trainer. The paint job reminds us of a US Navy trainer circa 1940.
The propeller looks a bit crude and the engine looks like it is missing a few exhaust pipes, etc. So my guess is that it is a one-off homebuilt that was soon relegated to display status.

 

[Apophenia]

It looks very much like a Smith Miniplane homebuild - a few of which were given Cessna-like main gears. But I've never seen a Miniplane with a 5-cylinder radial!

 

[Romantic Technofreak]

I googled for the Smith Miniplane, and I found it is not rare. The accordances between the aircraft at Lori's and Miniplanes (except the engine) are 99 %, to say least. Even one picture shows the main undercarriage configuration.

So I think Apophenia is quite right. It looks like somebody retired a Miniplane, sold the original engine and redesigned the front end with a phantasy "motor", then had it put into the restaurant. I am going to label it as "Smith Lori's Miniplane".

Thank you for your answers!

Best regards,
RT

 

[Apophenia]

... It looks like somebody retired a Miniplane, sold the original engine and redesigned the front end with a phantasy "motor"...

Those cylinders and rocker-covers remind me very much of the Continental O-170. Makes me wonder if somebody found some old, worn out A75 cylinder barrels and mocked-up a radial crankcase for display?

 

[riggerrob]

Those valve covers do not look like current production Verner or Rotex radial engines.

Valve covers sort-of look like those on Continental O-170, but they cylinders lack the asymmetrical cooling fins. Original O-170 valve covers were painted black, but these look chromed.

 

[Apophenia]

Rob: Agreed on the Verner or Rotex rocker covers. Have a look at this Continental A65 image:
-- http://www.canadianflight.org/files/images/IMG_20240203_112641751_HDR.jpg

As you can see, it shows asymmetrical fins (and matching spark plug location, as well). Still, it would be nice if we had a shot of those cylinders from the rear.

On rocker covers, I think those shown at Lori's Diner are anodized rather than chrome-plated. As you say, Continental covers were usually black but also came painted blue or grey and in polished or a gold-ish anodized finish.