Operational History
On April 15, 1938, the XC-12 suffered minor damages from a forced landing after running out of fuel over Fresno, California. The aircraft was bought by RKO in March 1939.
The main spar was bolted together, and much of the skin attached with P-K screws rather than rivets. These tended to vibrate loose, requiring tightening or replacing every few flights, and constituted a safety hazard that grounded the airplane. Promotional tours were soon abandoned, and its career ended as a movie prop, appearing in ground roles in a number of motion pictures during World War II, when flyable aircraft had more important uses. Flying shots in films were of a model; the aircraft itself was grounded by the studio's insurance company and was thought to have been scrapped in 1943, becoming a backlot relic, the model was used in several later films.
Read more about this topic: Capelis XC-12
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