Reading the Inventory Cards

This page will provide guidance on how to read the Inventory Cards and reports.

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.

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.

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.