Register Review

Peter Harlow’s classic Interstate Cadet VCQ is the only new type in this issue’s New Allocations listing.

The Cadet is a two-seat tandem, strut-braced high-wing, single-engine, fixed-undercarriage aircraft using a fabric-covered welded steel tube fuselage and wooden wings with metal ribs. Built by the Interstate Aircraft and Engineering Corporation at El Segundo, California during 1941 and 1942 the Cadet was a basic trainer intended for the Civilian Pilot Training Program in the US. Over 320 Cadets were built fitted with a 65hp (48kW) Continental A-65-8 engine before Interstate moved to military production and developed the aircraft into the L-6 using a 113hp (84kW)Franklin powerplant and additional cabin glazing. After the war the manufacturing rights were sold to the Harlow Aircraft Company which in turn resold the rights to Callair at Afton, Wyoming in 1946 for $5,000. Callair had already rebuilt several earlier Interstate Cadets but is believed to have only produced two aircraft from scratch before Bill Diehl of Anchorage, Alaska obtained the rights, set up the Arctic Aircraft Company and revived the design in 1975 as the Arctic Tern.