Mid morning treat

[Jim, W5JO]

My "working conditions" aren't that great.  My antenna is not more than 8 ft. off the ground strung between two trees, I just received my transceiver from the repair person and I only have two sections of my tower put together after pouring the base.  I went out to assemble the second section to see how it would fit together and see if the bolts were going to seat the legs of the DMX tower together as they should.  I managed to slip the sections together and it took the bolts fine.  I raised it about 2 ft. and put a piece of wood under it to keep it off the ground.

Just before the heat drove me indoors, I heard what sounded like a couple cyclone engines in near sync.  I scanned the skies and spotted the shape of a C-46 overhead pointed North.  The fuselage gleamed like a diamond in the cloudless sky with the sun directly against it.  I watched it as long as possible but the sound didn't go away.

Rather it made a U turn and headed back South toward Dallas then overhead it turned right toward Longview, TX.  I kind of suspect this is some sort of shake down cruise for the bird given the way it was behaving.  It was around 15,000 ft. and those Wright 1,600 hp engines sure had a pretty rumble to them. 

What ever the situation I got a very long look but as high as it was, I could be mistaken on the model.  It had the C-46 fuselage and just two motors but the wings looked longer than I recall.  It sure was a treat in the cloudless sky and I almost wished I were up there with them.  It would be much cooler than on the ground at nearly 100 already.

[w3jn]

C-46s are tres cool, and quite rare these days.

These guys' working conditions weren't very Fine Business at all.  Northeast Airlines Convair 240, lost all electrical power in heavy IFR condx.   The epitome of flying blind... http://www.daileyint.com/flying/yellow.htm

[K5WLF]

These guys' working conditions weren't very Fine Business at all.  Northeast Airlines Convair 240, lost all electrical power in heavy IFR condx.   The epitome of flying blind... http://www.daileyint.com/flying/yellow.htm

That's a hell of a story. Nice flying. Shows what happens when you never quit flying the airplane. As Bob Hoover says: "If you know you're going down, fly the aircraft as far as you can into the crash".

[W2PFY]

Those C-46's are still flying in Canada. I think this was talked about in another thread. The companies name is Buffalo Airlines. I think they have three.

The big threat to their company is the availability of LEADED GAS for use in those airplanes plus their DC3/C47 and maybe a four engine DC-4 that they have in service.  

I thought those engine would have been able to run on unleaded gas? Years ago I did a lot of flying in a Cessna 172 and to tell the truth, I have no idea what gas it used. I do remember that it was $50.00 per hour wet. Now it's over 100 per hour for the same thing.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Northeast Airlines Convair 240, lost all electrical power in heavy IFR condx.   The epitome of flying blind... http://www.daileyint.com/flying/yellow.htm

One of Northeast's finer moments, for sure. Kinda weird to see it described as a Yellowbird, though. They didn't start using that paint scheme until the 60s when they got their Fairchild Hiller 227s.

About 2 years after that save, Northeast stuffed a 240 into the ground on Nantucket during fog. There's also one of their DC-3s on top of Mt Success in NH which is surprisingly intact. Think they had something like 5 crashes over a 25 year period. Somewhat high for a small, regional carrier.

Last one they lost before merging with Delta was a 227 which still remains NH's deadliest air crash. Happened in 1968 when I was in 2nd grade. Ferdy Feola, a classmate and friend of mine lost his dad, and my ex lost one of her uncles in the crash. 10 out of 42 survived. Attributed to a combination of pilot error and lack of proper navigational aids at the Lebanon airport, resulting in the plane colliding with Moose mountain only 60 feet from the summit.

Wasn't it a Convair 240 that Lynyrd Skynyrd was in? Caused by fuel issues IIRC.

Would love to see a C-46 in flight sometime. Only one I've ever seen was in a museum. Definitely a cool piece of history Jim, And as Johhny says - pretty rare to see in flight.

[KA0HCP]

It's one of those hot summer days when the flight instructor says "Climb and maintain 70 degrees (F). 

[Jim, W5JO]

Years ago I did a lot of flying in a Cessna 172 and to tell the truth, I have no idea what gas it used. I do remember that it was $50.00 per hour wet. Now it's over 100 per hour for the same thing.

Depending on the engine it had, the fuel could have been 80 octane or 100 LL.  The irony of 100LL is it had more lead in it than 100 car gas and they recommended use of TCP to lower the lead content.  That stuff was in Conoco gas back in the 50s and 60s and its nick name was Tom Cat Pee.  I forget the particular chemical name.  Aircraft engines of the lower HP ratings didn't like all that lead in the gas.  As the number of planes using 80 octane diminished the oil companies quit supplying it and focused on 100 then to the 100LL .

Earlier Cessna 172s had the 6 cylinder Continental o-300 but later they switched to Lycoming O-320 with an authorization to put the 0-360 and varible prop on them.  The bigger engine and variable prop gave a few more MPH but didn't help the load capacity.  Even so it was a nice conversion and one didn't have to go to the C 182 with its O-470 and 12 gph to get reasonable speed.  You just couldn't carry as much.

[W1TAV]

Todd,

Mt. Success is about 4 miles (as the DC3 flew) from my Camp in Maine. It was in Nov of 1954. I have heard about the crash from the locals. Here a some pictures I found of the wreck on the WEB. Indeed for a crash site that is almost 60 yrs  old, it is in good shape..  7 on board, two died.
    
http://picasaweb.google.com/skyraider0609/MtSuccessNHDC3#5375483294939708066

Looking at the pictures, I want to take a run up there and check it out this fall..

Steve

[Jim, W5JO]

Would love to see a C-46 in flight sometime. Only one I've ever seen was in a museum. Definitely a cool piece of history Jim, And as Johhny says - pretty rare to see in flight.

Had a very good friend and mentor for the A&P who flew the C-46 over the hump from Burma to China.  He always said it was the best cargo carrier in the military for its time.  They are quite a sight and nothing can hide the rumble of the circular engine in flight.

[W2DU]

The other wording of the joke is:

If you're flying a two-engine plane, and you lose one engine, you'll always have sufficient power to reach the crash site.

[K5WLF]

The other wording of the joke is:

If you're flying a two-engine plane, and you lose one engine, you'll always have sufficient power to reach the crash site.

So very true, Walt. But did you ever notice that when we're feeling optimistic we call that other engine our "get home engine"?

I gotta admit, when I first read the title of this thread, two songs came to mind:

"Afternoon Delight" by the Starland Vocal Band (country cover by Johnny Carver)
and
"Daydreams About Night Things" by Ronnie Milsap

but I certainly wasn't disappointed when I found out it was about airplanes.

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Take some good shots when you go up, Steve. I went to school up in Berlin for a year, so was in the same neighborhood. It's rare to see a wreck still so intact. Can't remember if it was that crash where the co-pilot pulled the nose up at the last second which saved folks.

Wonder if you ever passed the B-52 on Elephant mountain in Maine? Quite a bit of that one left, too.

Between the Hump and the Airlift, a lot of C-46s and other nice birds met their end. C-47s must've been made in much greater numbers as well as their civilian DC-3 version as many of them are still flying today. As Terry mentioned, Buffalo Airways still flies both. They have the pair on their webpage:

http://www.buffaloairways.com/

Sure wish they were closer.