A luxurious executive aircraft used by Richfield Oil president James Talbot, who invested in Atlantic Fokker and Western Air Express - a photo exists with Talbot, Anthony Fokker and his wife in the midnight blue cabin which was elaborately decorated with a zodiac theme. NC5614 delivered in June 1928. Taken in San Diego, the photo is dated 1930 by the source but aircraft was sold already in January 1929 to Northern Air Lines of Minneapolis, and soon operated by Universal Air Lines with 'Sky Diner' titles. Destroyed in a hangar fire at Chicago on 25 June 1930. Photo from: San Diego Air & Space Museum

This aircraft was registered to Western Air Express which owned West Coast Air Transport. It was written off at Love Field, Texas, not long after being sold. The small railroad town Montague was a stop on the airline's Seattle-Oakland service via Portland. There was not a ticket office in Montague, which was noted for its cattle industry. Photo from: Merriam Library, California State Library

Registration cancelled in 1932. Anderson Field was the first airport at Las Vegas. Known as Rockwell Field after a change of ownership. Airport closed by 1930. Western Air Express moved its services to what is now Nellis AFB but was then a private airport owned at one stage by the airline. Photo from: University of Nevada Las Vegas

The route Los Angeles - San Francisco - Oakland is marked on the fuselage. Photo from: Smithsonian Institution

Registration cancelled in 1934. The building visible below the engine is Hotel Almendares. Photo from: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

At the short-lived Alhambra airport near LA, which cost WAE $2 million to develop according to the press. The terminal was inaugurated in April 1930 and airline operations already ceased one year later. According to ASN this F.10 crashed here on 22 December 1930. Photo from: Smithsonian Institution

Western Air Express was the launch customer for the Fokker F.10, an enlarged F.VII (Roman numerals done away with for the American Fokker types). Fleet number painted as 'No 105' underneath tailplane. Photo by: G Haven Bishop / The Huntington Library

The crash of this F.10 airframe in Kansas one year later accelerated Anthony Fokker's downfall in the USA as one of the eight victims was celebrity football coach Knute Rockne. The Fokker's wooden wing presumably failed due to moisture damage. Western Air Express had by then become part of TWA. Probably as a result of the merger, the brand new airport built by WAE here at Alhambra, near LA, was abandoned. Photo by: G Haven Bishop / The Huntington Library

From Western Air Lines archives. Photo from: Civil Aviation Historical Society, Melbourne, Australia

Picture from the Hilario Anaya collection. Ex Pan American aircraft. Photo from: Civil Aviation Historical Society, Melbourne, Australia