Reading the Inventory Cards

This page will provide guidance on how to read the Inventory Cards and reports. You can watch the summary video we made about the IARCs here: https://youtu.be/Et021XJDoes

I added some details here on where to find Inventory Cards.

Where to find Inventory Cards

Naval Inventory Cards

All of the cards for the historical naval aircraft are managed and maintained by the archives at the Library at the US Naval Aviation Musuem. Their process is very different from the Air Force. When contacting them, ask for the Bureau numbers of the planes that you are looking for. Keep the request limited to a handful of planes at a time. They will respond fairly quickly with the records for those planes attached. That's it. It's a free service and the different volunteers I have encountered there have been quite helpful. You can email them at "library@navalaviationmuseum.org"

Air Force Inventory Cards

The Air Force historical cards are a lot more complex. The Air force's records are mostly maintained by the US Air Force Historical Research Agency (USAFHRA) based out of Maxwell Air Force Base. They are run by a mix of military personnel and volunteers. The Air Force will send you an entire microfilm reel on PDF. There is no cost for this service either. The biggest issue is knowing which records to request. You can try searching for the records here: http://airforcehistoryindex.org/ and then providing them with the information from those results, or you can try asking a volunteer to help you identify which records to request. I have taken some of the guess work out of it and listed all of the reels for the Air Force Invaders below. As you can see, the records are scattered.

Series 1: Records for aircraft retired from USAF service through May 1951

• ACR 30 Serial Number Range: 41-17846 through 41-20343
  
• ACR-39 Serial Number Range: 41-37200 through 41-39600
  
• ACR-84 Serial Number Range: 43-21771 through 43-24170
  
• ACR-104 Serial Number Range: 44-33273 through 44-40800
  

Series 2: Records for aircraft retired from USAF service through May 1951 (Out of file records)

• OA-1 Serial Number Range: 41-32145 through 50-1639

Series 3: Records for aircraft retired from USAF service May 1951 through September 1952

• OA-2 Serial Number Range: 41-327 through 42-44668
  
• OA-3 Serial Number Range: 42-44670 through 44-35689
  
• OA-4 Serial Number Range: 44-35705 through 44-83699
  

Series 4: Records for aircraft retired from USAF service September 1952 through May 1953

• OA-8 Serial Number Range: 41-1143 through 44-85467

AC SERIES - Retired as of AUG 1954

• AC-1 - Serial Number Range: 41-1144 through 42-24879
  
• AC-6 - Serial Number Range: 43-16157 through 43-33335
  
• AC-7 - Serial Number Range: 44-30480 through 44-35698
  
• AC-11 - Serial Number Range: 44-35224 through 44-35273
  
• AC-12 - Serial Number Range: 44-35274 through 44-35963
  
• AC-13 - Serial Number Range: 44-35964 through 44-62004
  

ACA Series - Retired between 1955-1964
NOTE: These records are only supplemental records for this time period only. If you want the complete history, you must also locate the plane's earlier cards in another series.

• ACA-2 - Serial Number Range: 40-23444 through 42-72689
  
• ACA-4 - Serial Number Range: 43-15593 through 43-48139
  
• ACA-7 - Serial Number Range: 44-30480 through 44-35698
  
• ACA-8 - Serial Number Range: 44-34700 through 44-37579
  

Prototype Invaders

41-19504 - ACR-30
41-19505 - ACR-30
41-19588 - ACR-30

Serial Numbers 41-39100 through 41-39599

ACR-39
OA-1
OA-2
OA-8
AC-1
ACA-2

Serial Numbers 43-22252 through 43-22751

ACR-84
OA-1
OA-3
OA-8
AC-6
ACA-4

44-34098 through 44-34779

ACR-104
OA-1
OA-3
OA-8
AC-7
ACA-7
ACA-8

44-35198 through 44-35999

ACR-104
OA-1
OA-4
OA-8
AC-7
AC-11
AC-12
AC-13
ACA-8

How to Read the Cards

USAF Individual Aircraft Record Cards (IARC) (1944-1950)

Without question, the single best resource for reading this type of card is the book Aircraft Record Cards of the United States Air Force: How to Read the Codes by Robert A. Mann. I am not affiliated in any way with Mr. Mann, but I do have a copy of his book in my library and I can attest that it is quite thorough. Since that resource is available I will not replicate the entirety of the codes here, but I will provide a brief explanation of how to read them and focus on codes that are commonly seen with the A-26 cards.

USAF Individual Aircraft Record Cards (IARC) (1951-1962)

Admittedly, this card is the one that I have the most difficulty with as I have not been able to find very many details in official sources on how to read these.

The information contained below is my best estimate on how to read these cards based on what I know from documented sources on the cards that preceeded this type and the report that followed this type. By comparing those formats I have been able to make some educated guesses, and I am fairly confident in the sections that I understand, but there are some sections I do not understand at all.

Format

For our purposes looking at planes that started life in the 1940s, these cards are a continuation of the old cards.

The one thing to note is that there are two or three sub-types of this card, some that show the month/year, as in the image below, and some cards that dont have that information. The latter type is more difficult to determine the date. Generally, each "card" of paper is usually one month. A handful of examples in our archives have multiple months on one sheet, but the majority of them have a separate card for each month.

The data on these cards is essentially smashed together in one long alphanumeric string. I have drawn lines on the card below where I know separations in the data to exist.

The first column, as far as I know, is the Gained/Loss column. If this is the same as the previous card, then it should be "Gained From" and "Lost to". If that's correct, then the G code means that the plane was coming in and the L code means jt was going out. I assume the three letters after that are some kind of command or unit code, but I cannot verify this for sure. I could be wrong, but this pattern fits every card I have seen.

The next three columns show where the 0lane was assigned to, starting with the unit number, written as a four digit number. So 5700 is the 5700th, 0013 is the 13th, 0002 is the 2nd, etc.

The next column is unit type. TOW is Tow, AB is Air Base, CCT is Combat Crew Training, etc.

The next column is unit size. SQ is Squadron, GP is Group, WG is Wing, etc.

The plane type indicates which variant of the plane it is.

The next column Im not sure of, but I believe it is the status code. In any case I do not have a decipher key for this code.

The serial number is obvious.

I do not know what the other codes mean. There's a few columns that look like type and size codes, but I dont understand why they are here.

The very last code is the date of the month. So on this card the dates are 3rd of May 1957 and 5th of May 1957.

The final column shows the physical location of the plane, typically the Air Force Base.

Codes

I don't understand most of the codes on this report. The first column, as far as I know. Is Gained/Loss.

There's a two letter status code between Plane Type and Serial Number, but I do not have a decipher key for these codes. The one thing I have been able to tell is that this two digit status code is different than the 1962 codes used in the Aerospace Vehicle History report.

I do not understand the codes at the end of the row.

USAF Aerospace Vehicle Reports (AVR) (1960-)

Format

The Aerospace Vehicle Inventory History came into being in 1962. The format of the Aerospace Vehicle Report is very different from the earlier types of inventory cards. There are some similarities to the 1951 cards, but there are many differences.

Going across the file from left to right, the first column is SERIAL and is broken down by YR and NO which mean "Year" and "Number". This is the fiscal year that the plane was ordered by the USAF, not the year it was built. Also note that in this field the two columns are run together. The first value on the sample below is 64017665. They have replaced the hyphen with a 0 for some reason on this report, so that is actually 64-17665.

The next column is M/D/S. On later versions of this report it changes to T/M/S, which means Type/Model/Series and is based on the 1962 Tri-Service Aircraft Designation System. The first part of this data block could include a Status Prefix, which would then be followed by the normal mission identifier, then the numerical designation, and the Series Letter. Note that on the M/D/S versions the hyphen is replaced with a 0, so it would read B026K or A026A instead of B-26K or A-26A. On later versions of this report the hyphen is just omitted and replaced with a space.

Organ is short for “Organization”. Under that are the letters NR KD TP, which mean Number/Kind/Type. This is a shorthand code that denotes the Wing, Group, Squadron, or other unit. For military units the squadron, group, or wing designation is preceded by zeros if necessary to create a 4-digit code. Some specific examples of the ORGAN code are listed in the Codes section below.

Under that is CMD which is short for Command. This denotes which high-level command the ORGAN reports to. Specific codes are denoted below.

STAT NO is Station Number. It is a numerical code that represents different stations. This concept is a carry-over from the WWII cards.

A/S is Aircraft Status.

SUP/AMA is one code that I do not understand. For all of the B-26Ks this code is either FE, FB, or ED regardless of location. At first I thought it was which Air Material Area they were assigned to, but planes in Vietnam had the same SUP/AMA Code as planes in Florida and Central America, so that doesn't make sense.

TYPE ACT - This field is a combination of the Gained, Loss, and Terminated fields from the older WWII style cards. A G-code means a gain, an L-code indicates a loss, and a T-Code indicates Termination, or removal from inventory.

GAINED FROM OR LOST TO - This field appears to be a combination of the ORGAN and STAT fields.

ACTION DATE - This field begins with the last two digits of the year. 67, for example, is 1967. The remaining 3 digits are the Julian Calendar Date Number. 001 is January 1st, and 365 is December 31st, except on Leap Years, in which case that would be day number 366.

PROCESSING STATION NAME - This is the base or city of the processing unit. In most cases this represents the home base of the unit making the entry. However, in our example image above OMEVC is OnMark Engineering of Van Nuys, CA – A Civilian contractor. The Processing station for this company is Van Nuys, the airport at which they are based.

SERIAL - This column is just a duplicate of the first column and was to aid in searching the paper books.

Codes

ORGAN

Code	Meaning
OMEVC	On Mark Aviation (A private contractor out of Van Nuys, CA)
SMAAR	Sacramento Air Material Area
MOAAR	Mobile Air Material Area
0001ACOWG	1st Air Commando Wing
0056ACOWG	56th Air Commando Wing

CMD

Code	Meaning
LOG	Logistic Command
PAF	Pacific Command
SAC	Strategic Air Command
SOU	Special Operations
SYS	Air Force Systems Command (formerly Research and Development Command prior to 1961).
TAC	Tactical Command

STAT NO

Code	Meaning
ABTF	Addison AFB
CMJF	Brookley AFB
DVLK	Clark AFB
FBZZ	Davis-Monthan AFB
FSPM	Edwards AFB
FTEV	Eglin AFB (Field 09)
FZ99	Edwards AFB
GAMH	England AFB
KNMD	Hickam Field
KRSM	Hill AFB
LCPU	Howard AFB
LXEZ	Kadena
PCMP	Maracay AFB
PRJY	McLellan AFB
RVCV	Royal Thai Airbase Nakhon Phanom
XMTG	Udorn AFB
XTBT	Van Nuys (OnMark Engineering)

A/S

Code	Meaning
BI	Aerospace vehicle incident/mishap requiring a Safety Investigation Board or Accident Investigation Board
BJ	Crash/Battle Damage Awaiting AFMC assistance or decision.
BK	Command Programmed Maintenance.
BL	Extended Transit Maintenance. (More than 7 days of work)
BN	Crash Damage Base.
BO	Battle Damage.
BQ	Major Maintenance Awaiting Organic or Non-Organic Decision/Action.
BR	Major Maintenance Awaiting Parts.
BT	Aerospace Vehicle Transfer.
BU	Depot Level Maintenance or Equivalent Contract Supported/Field Team Work.
BW	Weather/Bird Strike Damage Awaiting AFMC Assistance or Decision.
BX	Weather/Bird Strike Damage Base.
CA	Combat Support.
CB	Combat Tactics Development and Equipment Evaluation.
CC	Combat.
CD	Combat Unit Missiles—Semi-Ready
CE	Initial Alert Preparation of Ground Launched Missiles.
CF	Combat Auxiliary Support.
CR	Combat Unit Missiles--Crated.
DJ	Depot Level Maintenance Possession--Depot Level Work
DK	Contract Work.
DL	Depot Delivery Flight.
DM	Depot Level Maintenance Possession--Depot Level Work by depot field team or contract field team
DN	Depot Level Assignment--Depot Level Work Resulting in MDS Change.
DO	Depot Level Maintenance Possession--Depot Work
DR	Post Depot/Contractor Maintenance.
DT	Depot Possessed Test
EB	Contractor Test/Test Support.
ED	Prototype Test
EH	Test Support.
EI	Test
EJ	Ground Test
IF	Industrial Fund
NY	Non-Appropriated Fund
PJ	Enroute Aerospace Vehicles or Trainers--Other Than Delivery Flight.
PL	Enroute Aircraft--Delivery Flight.
PM	Security Assistance Program Aerospace Vehicles Temporary Diverted to USAF
PN	Other Than Security Assistance Program
PP	New Production
PR	Flyable Storage
TA	Training Aid Aircraft Inactive and Aircraft Battle Damage Repair
TB	Operational Readiness Training
TF	Training
TJ	Ground Instruction Active
TM	Unknown - Some kind of loss code.
TN	Unknown - some kind of loss code.
TX	Ground Instruction Inactive
VJ	Contract Work (AFMC only)
VN	Contract Work Resulting in MDS Change
XC	Congressional Abeyance
XJ	Excess to Command
XD	Excess Disposal
XK	Inactive-Standby
XR	Inactive Aerospace Vehicles Awaiting Final Disposition
XS	USAF type 1000 Storage
XT	Security Assistance Program Hold Storage
XU	Contractor Other
XV	USAF type 2000 Storage
XW	Awaiting Determination
XX	USAF type 4000 Storage
XY	Lease Loan
XZ	Lost or Missing
YZ	National Museum of the USAF and Non-USAF
ZA	Special Activity
ZB	Operational Support
WK	Code WK may be used for Civilian Companies who are making modifications or repairs.
WO	Code WO may be used for AF Depots making Inspections and Repairs as Necessary (IRAN).
WL	Code WL may be used by bases gaining air craft/missiles /drones for extensive field maintenance repair.

TYPE ACT

Code	Meaning
GA	Gained from new production
GB	Gained from Transfer
GC
GD
GF
GI	Gained from Inventory
LC
TA	Terminated due to Accident
TM
TN

US Navy Aircraft History Cards (AHC)

Format

The US Navy Used three different types of Aircraft History Cards for tracking their JD-1 Invaders. The first card is officially identified as type NAVAER-1925 (9-44). This card was in use from 1944 until 1950.

In 1950, the Navy switched to the second card, OPNAV-50-157 (5-50). This card came into use in May 1950.

In 1958 the Navy switched again to the third card, OPNAV FORM 3760-29 (8-58).

Let's look at each in a little more detail.

NAVAER-1925

The image below is an example of the NAVAER-1925 card. This card is very simple to read. There is a fat line with three boxes and under that is a skinny line with boxes that say: J F M A M J J A S O N D. The first thing to take note of is the Date Accepted value at the top of the card. In this case, 16 Mar 1945. That means that the first line on this card represents 1945. Next, we look at the first UNIT listed there. In this case it's VJ-4 (which was later re-designated VU-4). We can see that M A M J J are checked. These letter represent the months of the year. so from Mar 1945 until July 1945 this plane was with the Utility Squadron 4.

On the next line down there should be a check mark on the A for August while the plane was at Litchfield, but we can fill in the gaps here because we can see that it arrived in September 1945 to O&R Norfolk. So from July to Sep 1945 the plane was in storage.

Then the plane spent 10 months at O&R Norfolk; Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec 1945, then on the next line 1946 starts and it was there from Jan through Jun.

The card continues on in this fashion. It is pretty easy to track where the plane was. However, this card is not very detailed and is prone to some errors, as we observed with Aug 1945. The cards are also usually not very detailed and don't give exact dates very often. Consistently, the periods from the fall of 1948 until 1950 are very spotty and not well reported on these cards. as one example, let's look at 1948 on the card below. The last unit that was actually reported was the Operational Pool at Norfolk Naval Air Station. The plane was there from Oct 1947 until at least Aug 1948. Now, the column to the right and below, it says "O/H 3-3-49" scrawled in the margin. O/H is shorthand for Overhaul. So the plane was being overhauled on 3 Mar 1949. This tells us that at some point the plane must have been transferred from the Operational Pool at Norfolk NAS to the Overhaul & Repair Facility at Norfolk because the pool doesn't do overhauls. But, when those dates are, specifically, we have no idea. It could have transferred to O&R Norfolk in Sep 1948 or any time until Feb 1949. The planes almost always sit for some period of time before being worked on, so it didn't arrive in Mar 1949.

While the card is fairly easy to read, it is not very detailed and provides no other information aside from basic locations or assignments. There's no data on status, flight hours, or anything of that sort listed. And the 1949 time period has, so far, been very spotty on every card I have seen.

OPNAV-50-157

I'll go on record right now and say that there are some fields on this type of card that I don't understand. For example, the very first column that says "Card" and lists N or P. I have no idea what that means. But I can read enough of this card to make sense of where the plane was and what it was doing.

The Name and Location fields are pretty self explanatory. This is what unit or command had the plane and where they were located.

The next two columns I don't understand. I have no idea what Cont. Cust. Code means.

The Status Codes I do know. I found another report that breaks them all down and I have them enumerated in the section below called "Codes", but I do not know what the Action code means.

The date codes can be a little tricky at first, especially since the date data tends to blend in with the "Number of Tour" data beside it. The date is always listed as Day, Month, Year....unless the date is omitted, in which case it's just month and year. In most cases the "Year" value is just the last digit of the year. They did use two digit years, sometimes, seemingly at random, but not until at least the mid-1950s.

The Number of Tour seems to be a "Tour of duty" that appears to relate loosely to Time Between Overhauls.

The Age in Months is how many months the plane spent in each tour. Note that in this column the Overhaul & Repair Facilities report it differently instead typing out the two-digit month and single digit year that the plane arrived at the facility. That why on the example card below the the number jumps from 23 to 061 and then back to 24 again. The 061 isn't the number of months, it's actually Jun 1951.

Accumulated Hours is pretty self-explanatory. This is the number of hours the airframe has accumulated sine it started it's service life with the Navy. However, the values for the hours flown for the last 3 months should be taken with a grain of salt. In some cases, as in the top of the card, the reporting lines are 3 months apart and it seems to match up well. However, in a couple of cases I have seen the next reporting line was only 1 or 2 months later, but it listed 3 different hours values, which doesn't make sense.

The last column is the aircraft's Bureau Number (BuNo).

One note with this type of card is that sometimes the the line entries are recorded out of order for some reason. As an example, in the card below there are several entries for O&R BAUER M&S NORFOLK that start on 29 Jun 1951 and end on Nov 1951. But, the next to last line of this block is "VU-7 REAM FLD", 25 Jan 1952. That line and the line below it should be flipped as they are out of order chronologically.

OPNAV 3760-29

On the surface, this card is very similar to it's predecessor. It starts with a report field, which doesn't appear to be used.

Name and Location is the same as the OPNAV-50-157 cards. As is the mysterious Cont. Cust. Code field.

The Configuration Field is new. This field tells us what version of plane we are looking at. In this example it says "1D", which would be the JD-1D, drone controller aircraft.

The status and action codes are the same as the previous cards.

The next column is a modification from the previous card. This column shows total Flight Hours (F/H) over a 3 month period, so this is a combination of the other 3 month fields combined into a single value.

The date fields are usually two digit day, two digit month, two digit year, although sometimes a single digit month or year is used.

The service tour information is more complex on this card and I have not worked out all of the details.

The next column is "Hours Since Acceptance". This is how many total flight hours the airframe has.

There is an entire section that tracks landing information, which is unique to this card, but self-explanatory.

The card ends with the serial (Bureau) number.

Codes

The older card, NAVAER-1925, does not use any codes at all. So the entirety of this section will be applicable only to the OPNAV-50-157 and OPNAV 3760-29 cards. The status codes are the same for both cards. The majority of these codes are derived from the "Allowances and Locations of Naval Aircraft" report. The codes have been truncated to include only those codes found on JD-1 cards, so if you found this page via Google and you are trying to look up the codes for a different type of plane you may need to search the original source files or email us with your question.

In all of the examples below, "Aging" means that the plane is actively accruing time on the service life of the airframe, whereas not-aging means that the service life has been paused (as may be the case when the plane is in storage or not being used).

Status Code	Definition	Comments
A2	Combat Services	According to what I've been able to find, the Combat Services role deals primarily with transporting of goods or equipment into combat zones to support the combat personnel embroiled in the fight. I do know that several Invaders were modified in Africa to carry cargo pallets or fitted with seat pallets to serve as emergency transports, so its possible the JD-1s in this role could have been put to use along the same lines. I'll keep digging into this.
A8	Utility, Aging	Planes in the utility role were assigned to be target tugs or to act as air targets to be intercepted.
A9	Research & Development
AK	Combat Services, Not Aging
AQ	Utility, Not Aging
AR	R&D, Not-Aging.
B	Awaiting Assignment	This unit is usually Fully Mission Capable (FMC), but not assigned to a unit.
C	en route, flying	The plane is being moved by air to another location, usually an overhaul & repair depot.
C9	en route, surface	The plane has been loaded on a carrier and is being transported via sea to another location.
D1	In Overhaul	Usually engine changes and maintenance of that sort.
D2	Progressive Maintenance, Conversion	Combines Progressive maintenance with conversion to a different type, such as a JD-1 to a JD-1D, for example.
D3	Progressive Maintenance
D4	Overhaul Conversion	Combines overhaul with conversion to a different type, such as JD-1 to JD-1D, for example.
DA	Overhaul Complete except for flight check.
DB	Progressive Maintenance conversion complete except for flight check
DC	Progressive Maintenance Complete except for flight check
DD	Overhaul conversion complete except for flight check
E1	To be overhauled where located, flyable
E2	To have progressive maintenance conversion where located, flyable
E3	To have progressive maintenance where located, flyable.
E4	To have overhaul conversion where located, flyable.
E6	To be overhauled where located, not flyable
E7	To have progressive maintenance conversion where located, not flyable
E8	To have overhaul conversion where located, not flyable.
E9	To have overhaul conversion where located, not flyable.
EJ	To be overhauled elsewhere, flyable
EK	To have progressive maintenance conversion elsewhere, flyable
EL	To have progressive maintenance elsewhere, flyable.
EM	To have overhaul conversion elsewhere, flyable.
EN	To be overhauled elsewhere, not flyable
EP	To have progressive maintenance conversion where located, not flyable
EQ	To have overhaul conversion elsewhere, not flyable.
ER	To have overhaul conversion elsewhere, not flyable.
F	En route to rework	This code is incomplete, but sometimes used. It should be followed with a number
F1	En route for overhaul, flying
F2	en route to progressive maintenance conversion, flying
F3	en route to progressive maintenance, flying.
F4	en route to overhaul conversion, flying.
F6	en route tp overhaul, surface (Sea) transport
F7	en route to progressive maintenance conversion, surface (Sea) transport
F8	en route to overhaul conversion, surface (Sea) transport
F9	en route to overhaul conversion, surface (Sea) transport
G4	Conversion	Conversion to a different type of plane.
G5	Modification
G6	Repair	As the result from an accident.
G7	Modernization
G8	Modernization conversion
MX	In storage-standard rework required, not in containers	The aircraft is parked in one piece.
MY	In storage-standard rework not required, not in containers	the aircraft is parked in one piece.
Q1	Awaiting strike decision, damage
P2	Awaiting strike decision, depreciation, flyable
P3	awaiting strike decision, administrative, flyable.
P4	awaiting strike decision, Service life ended, flyable
RD	struck while in process of standard rework.

US Navy Allowances and Location of Navy Aircraft

Format

This report is really a series of smaller reports and tables that have been collated into a single comprehensive file. This report is very "high-level" and does not list specific, individual aircraft by number. It does list all of the bases and units that have aircraft assigned to them and it states how many of each type of aircraft are in those units. So, from this report you can look at Utility Squadron 2 during any month of any year that the reports are available and see exactly how many JD-1s were assigned to that squadron during that period. From that perspective, the report is very valuable.

For our purposes, we want to skip down past the "Program Operating Allowances" tables. The first section we want is the "Location of Aircraft Inventory and Planned Operating Assignments by Command and Unit". It usually starts around pages 15-17, depending on the month and year. The units are grouped first by Command (Such as "Pacific"), and then by unit types ("Attack Squadrons"), and then by specific squadrons.

This page, below, shows an example of the type of report you are looking for. This particular sample is a page from the Aug 1957 report showing the Atlantic Command.

Both columns of the report display the same data, just for different units. If we zoom in on the top-right corner of the page we see the following:

Under the Operational Development Squadrons, we can see that VX-2 is based out of Chincoteague and that they have 1x JD-1 and 2x JD-1Ds assigned to them. All three aircraft have status code A9, which is Research & Development.

To reiterate, from this report alone we cannot tell which three planes, specifically, where assigned to VX-2 during Aug 1957, but we do know that the squadron had 3 planes. This is a great report for tracking high level movement. The report also does not provide details about aircraft types, only their numbers. So from this report we have learned that the Navy also had a JD-1X and a JD-1DX, but we have no details on these planes at the moment.

Codes

All of these codes are found directly in the "Allowances and Locations of Naval Aircraft" report itself, so if you are ever unsure of what a code is, or you do not see it listed below, consult that report for the definition, or you can email us and we can check it for you. We have all of the reports from 1956 through 1966.

In all of the examples below, "Aging" means that the plane is actively accruing time on the service life of the airframe, whereas not-aging means that the service life has been paused (as may be the case when the plane is in storage or not being used).

Status Code	Definition	Comments
A2	Combat Services	According to what I've been able to find, the Combat Services role deals primarily with transporting of goods or equipment into combat zones to support the combat personnel embroiled in the fight. I do know that several Invaders were modified in Africa to carry cargo pallets or fitted with seat pallets to serve as emergency transports, so its possible the JD-1s in this role could have been put to use along the same lines. I'll keep digging into this.
A8	Utility, Aging	Planes in the utility role were assigned to be target tugs or to act as air targets to be intercepted.
A9	Research & Development
AK	Combat Services, Not Aging
AQ	Utility, Not Aging
AR	R&D, Not-Aging.
B	Awaiting Assignment	This unit is usually Fully Mission Capable (FMC), but not assigned to a unit.
C	en route, flying	The plane is being moved by air to another location, usually an overhaul & repair depot.
C9	en route, surface	The plane has been loaded on a carrier and is being transported via sea to another location.
D1	In Overhaul	Usually engine changes and maintenance of that sort.
D2	Progressive Maintenance, Conversion	Combines Progressive maintenance with conversion to a different type, such as a JD-1 to a JD-1D, for example.
D3	Progressive Maintenance
D4	Overhaul Conversion	Combines overhaul with conversion to a different type, such as JD-1 to JD-1D, for example.
DA	Overhaul Complete except for flight check.
DB	Progressive Maintenance conversion complete except for flight check
DC	Progressive Maintenance Complete except for flight check
DD	Overhaul conversion complete except for flight check
E1	To be overhauled where located, flyable
E2	To have progressive maintenance conversion where located, flyable
E3	To have progressive maintenance where located, flyable.
E4	To have overhaul conversion where located, flyable.
E6	To be overhauled where located, not flyable
E7	To have progressive maintenance conversion where located, not flyable
E8	To have overhaul conversion where located, not flyable.
E9	To have overhaul conversion where located, not flyable.
EJ	To be overhauled elsewhere, flyable
EK	To have progressive maintenance conversion elsewhere, flyable
EL	To have progressive maintenance elsewhere, flyable.
EM	To have overhaul conversion elsewhere, flyable.
EN	To be overhauled elsewhere, not flyable
EP	To have progressive maintenance conversion where located, not flyable
EQ	To have overhaul conversion elsewhere, not flyable.
ER	To have overhaul conversion elsewhere, not flyable.
F	En route to rework	This code is incomplete, but sometimes used. It should be followed with a number
F1	En route for overhaul, flying
F2	en route to progressive maintenance conversion, flying
F3	en route to progressive maintenance, flying.
F4	en route to overhaul conversion, flying.
F6	en route tp overhaul, surface (Sea) transport
F7	en route to progressive maintenance conversion, surface (Sea) transport
F8	en route to overhaul conversion, surface (Sea) transport
F9	en route to overhaul conversion, surface (Sea) transport
G4	Conversion	Conversion to a different type of plane.
G5	Modification
G6	Repair	As the result from an accident.
G7	Modernization
G8	Modernization conversion
MX	In storage-standard rework required, not in containers	The aircraft is parked in one piece.
MY	In storage-standard rework not required, not in containers	the aircraft is parked in one piece.
Q1	Awaiting strike decision, damage
P2	Awaiting strike decision, depreciation, flyable
P3	awaiting strike decision, administrative, flyable.
P4	awaiting strike decision, Service life ended, flyable
RD	struck while in process of standard rework.