British aircraft that refuels at base

There were a number of "holes" in this film, and the "RAF" plane was one of them. This plane wasn't British, and it wasn't a fighter. The length of the fuselage suggests that it was a airmail plane from the early thirties, and the cowling suggests that it may have been a Boeing. My guess is that Curtiz would not have looked far for some plane that had a "modern" look, but was different than the Dauntlesses that were so prevalent in the film. I would be willing to bet that every plane came from the San Diego area, and can't imagine the producers footing the bill to import a plane from Europe. Given the plot of the story, maybe Tim, the wash-out pilot was hired to run mail for the RAF. Perhaps there was more genius to the plane selection than is readily apparent.

I looked up this listing because the same question had been nagging me. That decidedly 1930s-ish "British" plane looked out-of-place in a 1941, and I've always wondered what it was. Seeing my very own question being discussed here prompted me to do some extra research, and I think I've come upon something. Just working from memory here, but the plane in the movie bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1933 Kinner B-2 Sportwing. Check out: http://aerofiles.com/kinner-b2.jpg

The only difference I can see is the canopy, which would have been simple to remove. In fact, the plane in the film has no leather padding around the cockpit rim, which it almost certainly would have had, had it been designed as an open-cockpit machine. This gives it a vaguely military look, and to me suggests a studio chop-job.

Otherwise, it has all the other details: fully spatted undercarriage, a two-bladed prop; a pinch-waisted engine cowling with prominent bulges for the cylinder heads...even the odd-external bracing.

The "RAF" plane in the movie is a Ryan ST sport trainer fixed up with a fake radial cowl (Note how the prop is off center in the cowl because of the plane's inverted in-line menasco engine). The cosmetic work was done by Paul Mantz's whose company did most of the aerial photography.

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From what I remember the Royal Navy had some pretty god awful fighter aircraft as they had thought a nimble naval based fighter with the performance of a land based one was all but impossible and focused their efforts on large long ranged types, so seeing that crappy wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

It wasn't until they adapted the Spitfire to naval usage and started to import F4F Wildcats that the Royal Navy actually had something comparable to land based fighters.

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