Looks like a Kinner engine, appears to be a two person single cockpit. Resembles a Fairchild KR-21 and a Fleet type aircraft. Have not been able to locate any other similar aircraft, with these features, however gear and struts are different. Any ideas would be appreciated.
After gathering suggestions provided, I further researched the plane and discovered it in the 1931 Cal Poly Year Book. What I gather is the school had an aeronautics department and built 3 aircraft. One being a Warren Taperwing CP-3, which used an Arrow fuselage. The school made changes to the basic plane, as a way I suspect, to teach students about aerodynamics and aircraft structures. Specifically the 'balloon' tires were installed in lieu of bungee on the gear, for rough fields. It was registered as an experimental acft(NX10257) This then is a one off plane. The attached photo is from the year book.The original photo I submitted, must have been just prior to the planes' completion. The person in the photo is the wife of the owner of the plane. Thank you everyone for helping me to discover the identification
I believe this is a variant of the Fleet Model 1
The Fleet Model 1 (originally the Consolidated Model 14 Husky Junior) and its derivatives were a family of two-seat trainer and sports biplanes produced in the United States and Canada in the 1920s and 1930s
Note that there were various models, with the Model 7 being the first with a Kinner powerplant.
Another view of a Model 10, with a similar aspect to your original for comparison
Things that make me think this answer is right:
Things that cause me to second-guess myself, and that this might be the wrong answer
I think it is hard to be 100% sure this is the right aircraft as shown.
I have received suggestions from others, one of which most closely resembles the aircraft in the photo I submitted.....Arrow Sport. There were modifications made to the original design and variants were manufactured of the 100 total built. It is a single cockpit, two seat(side by side) design, which had two sets of controls for training purposes.
The issue with the rudder having a'horn' in my photograph and a number of Arrow Sport photos, that do not have a 'horn', is basically the only the major difference. A number of variants and changes were made through the early years and this may have been one. A couple of the modifications made included the outboard wing(N) struts and guy wires and engine types.
This is not meant to be a complete answer, but may help in the quest to find one-- it appears that the upper wing has some taper, i.e. the root chord (just outboard of the cutout) is significantly wider than the chord near the wing tip. Parallel lines should converge in the distance, and if you lay a ruler on the leading edge and trailing edge of the aircraft's upper left wing, those lines diverge, not converge, if you extend them far beyond the left edge of the photo. The taper appears to be entirely due to forward sweep on the trailing edge-- the leading edge appears to be unswept. I'm not seeing that same taper in photos associated with any answers posted up to this point.
A close look at the bottom wing suggests that similar taper may be present there too.
It also appears that both the top and bottom sets of wings have essentially zero dihedral, which also seems at variance with photos associated with answers posted up to this point. (The bottom wing may have just a hint of dihedral, but not much, no more than one or two degrees.)
Of course, it has been noted that some of these planes were produced in many variants.
A further note-- each of the main landing gear wheels is supported by three struts. The middle struts meet the bottom of the "cabane" struts, like on the Meyers OTW 160. The forward struts connect to the lower sides of the fuselage-- they don't meet together at the bottom of the fuselage as is the case with some other aircraft with rather similar landing gear geometry such as the Meyers OTW 160. Similarly, on the aircraft in the question, rather than meeting together on the bottom of the fuselage, the aft struts for the landing gear connect to the fuselage quite far apart, near the root of each the lower wings (and aft of the leading edges of the lower wings). The small white vertical rectangle above the aircraft's left tire is the aft strut for that wheel, highly foreshortened by the viewing angle, while the aft strut for the right wheel is more clearly visible in the photo, though its actual point of attachment to the fuselage near the wing root is hidden by the standing figure.
On first glance the photo gives the impression that two landing gear struts meet together, or cross in close proximity to each other, behind the standing figure, but that's not actually the case, and those two struts are not actually a matched pair-- they are the aft strut of the aircraft's right wheel and the forward strut of the aircraft's left wheel, and they are widely separated in the fore-and-aft direction.
While this community has a huge knowledge base, and these kind of questions quickly attract precise and correct answers, I am not convinced any of the answers here, as they now stand hit the nail on the head, the answer by JamieC being the closest match IMO.
Just as JamieC, I'm quite convinced this is a representative from the Fleet Model 1 "family tree", but I'm certain this is a special one-off plane based on the following observations, "internet research" findings, and conclusions thereof. Most of these findings have already been posted in previous answers, but I'm relisting the here for consistency.
Fleet Model 1 family is by far the closest match to the overall posture and form of the plane in the picture. None of the Fleet Model 1 through 21 pictures I was able to find are a perfect match, but as Wikipedia states, variants of the Model 1 are numerous, including many one-offs. Other proposed planes differ substantially in such features as tailplane and fuselage cross section form, these are commonly quite stable design elements, and are seldom "fluid" among aircraft models.
The most notable differences for your garden variety member of Model 1 family are the lack of second seat, zero dihedral of the lower wing, extra landing gear strut and the oddly bulky tires. Smaller deviations are the deep cockpit cutout and elongated nose, latter may just be a visual misconception due to a wide angle lens.
Especially the single seat, landing gear assembly and the tire lead me to believe this is a special purpose plane, built for a pilot handling the plane rougher than usual, which lead me to this picture on aerofiles.com site:
The gentleman in the picture is one Paul Mantz, a prominent Hollywood stunt pilot, air racer and charter service provider. The thing that caught my eye was the tire Mantz is resting his foot on: clearly the same type shown in the picture at the question. Mantz used Fleet planes in his work as a stunt pilot, and it is not far fetched to assume he must have had connections with Reuben H. Fleet, the founder of Fleet Aircraft. This interaction may have spun off planes such as the one in the question.
One more thing suggesting a special purpose of this plane is the lack of dihedral in the lower wing. Biplanes are quite stable (in roll axis) due to the center of lift being high in relation to the center of gravity. Dihedral would further increase the stability, and this may not have been preferred by a stunt pilot.
A feature that puzzles me is the droop of the inner portion of the lower wing. Up untill now I have not been able to make sense of its purpose.
As for the picture itself, it is clearly not just a snapshot taken by someone wondering past a plane with his girl. There is artificial lighting in use, coming at least from two sources, the positioning of the plane is not "natural, as there seems to be no good reason for it to point in that direction other than that it forms the best composition with its surroundings being placed such. The lighting, composition and the wing ribs hanging on the wall make it clear to me much thought was put into setting up this picture.
The picture and the lady may be related to a movie of the era, for example on featuring Mantz as a stunt pilot (for a comprehensive list of Mantz's work, see IMDB). Closest match of actresses in these films might be Isabel Jewell, but this is a long shot. The picture may also be "just" a portrait; Phyllis Fleet, daugter of Reuben Fleet was an avid aviator, but she does not quite match the picture, being too tall for the timeframe. Mr. Fleet had two daughters from his second marriage, Dorothy and Nancy, neither of which are unfortunately traceable with means at my use.
And, to drift just one step deeper down the rabbit hole, one more possibility: Nancy Love was a famous WASP; Women Airforce Service Pilot, who has a link to a Fleet "frankenplane":
Love was hooked on flight at an early age. At sixteen, after just four hours of instruction, she flew solo “a rather broken down Fleet biplane that my barnstorming instructor imported from parts unknown.”
So in addition to being a poster movie, a personal portrait of a member of an aviation family, this picture may also have ties to the WASP program.
Getting back on track, the plane itself is most likely a model produced for a very specific purpose, be it show or stunt flying, racing or just a wealthy pilot's toy. Single seat biplanes are not exactly a common sight, and never were, not at least in civilian aviation. It also possible it may just be "prop", a non-flying showpiece put together of pieces of Fleet planes, but this seems a bit far fetched as all the technical details seem to be in order (aside from the lower wing dihedral).
Those with better (meaning non-internet, I've dug that inside and out) access to sources containing information about Mantz, the Fleet family saga and the original source of the picture, the collection by Burton Bundy will most likely be able to expound on this line of thought.
Take heed, I may expand this rant even further.
Given the relatively short list of aircraft for which the Kinner R5 family was an original or retrofit powerplant, and the very distinctive landing gear strut geometry, I'm pretty sure this is a Meyers OTW 160. The OTW were built with various engines; the 160 model had a 160 HP Kinner R5.
The only uncertainty is that the OTW line were, as far as I can determine, all built as dual cockpit trainers; it's very possible this one has had the front cockpit deleted or a very well matched cockpit cover fitted (cockpit covers, especially, were fairly common when the OTW were built, as they kept weather out of the front cockpit when the aircraft was tied down or when being flown solo).
As noted in comments, this aircraft type saw some minor variations over its production. Besides being sold with at least three different engines, there were changes in fin/rudder shape, some had fairings on the long struts above the landing gear while others didn't, I've found at least one photo showing a matching front cockpit cover, and while as noted in comments, the OTW has some dihedral in the upper wing, it was subtle enough to be hard to see from certain angles and positions.
(source: airport-data.com)
