SpingPort Multi-cache
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SpringPort Games!
It was back in the 1930’s (around the Great Depression) when Springfield had it’s own airport and didn’t have to share the name with Hartford. This cache starts at the new Museum of Springfield History and will take you to the site of the old SpringPort. Inside the center you can see a replica of the Granville Brothers Aircraft GeeBee. (No original GeeBee racers exist today.) To find the magnetic keyholder cache, you’ll have to finish the coordinates as follows and a Scrabble board will be needed: N42° 0A.BCD W072° EF.XYZ; A=G+A+M+E+S; B=M+A; C=A or E or S (choose only one letter); D=G; E=M; F=M-G+A+S+E; X=The face value of the die that shows up three times on the left (downward) side of the plane only; Y=The total cubes of die on that same side (not their face values); Z= The “NR” tail number divided by 700.
The Granville Brothers Aircraft Corporation constructed a number of biplanes during the late 1920s. But their signature design was this squat, round Gee Bee monoplane, with which aviator Jimmy Doolittle flew to a world land-plane speed record of 296.287 miles an hour in 1932. GeeBee’s were built for one thing: speed. Many people of their time considered them to be “killer planes”. The planes engine was a loaner from Pratt & Whitney. A family business, Granville Brothers was operated by Zantford, Thomas, Robert, Mark, and Edward Granville. Financed by the Tait family (which included female aviator Maude Tait Moriarty), Granville Brothers built their famous Gee Bee monoplanes at the old Springfield Airport on Liberty Street and St. James Ave. (now a shopping plaza).
The date of construction of the Springfield Airport has not been determined. The earliest depiction of the field, which has been located, was on the 1929 Rand-McNally Air Trails Map of Massachusetts (courtesy of Chris Kennedy). It described Springfield as a commercial airport, operated by the Springfield Airport Company. The field was said to consist of a 3,000' x 3,000' area. The Granville Brothers built their planes in an abandoned dance pavilion formerly named the Venetian Gardens at the Springfield airport. The Springfield Airport was apparently closed (for reasons unknown) at some point between 1950-54.
Take a trip back in time and visualize the Granville Brothers working in the hanger at this cache location, do not hop the fence...
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Frr qrfpevcgvbaf