Official Aviation Thread...

[LateFan]

And she's off! I saw her fly out Sun morning. Was up on a ladder painting, heard those engines, dropped my brush and ran outside. She cruised East through Hellgate Canyon. Spent the night in Miles City MT, then off to Wichita.

https://missoulian.com/news/local/miss-montana-bound-for-normandy/article_0a384958-5631-5350-87c9-2c2c34d3b506.html

I checked Flightaware just for kicks - and sure enough there was only one plane in America flying from Miles City to Wichita, big surprise.





Now she's in Arkansas...

https://www.facebook.com/missmontanatonormandy/videos/369795136991366/

The Midwest out the windscreen! (a place I've never been)
You pilots of modern aircraft - what do you think of this contraption? Apparently they installed new electronics and instruments for the trip, along with a new hydraulic system, landing gear, wiring harness, props, and off course engines.

[LateFan]

Update this morning -


News Update:

Unfortunately the weather has not cooperated for Miss Montana this morning. We currently have two major thunderstorms over Billings, MT and Rapid City SD, our first stop at West Jet FBO. Forecast is not looking good but we remain ready to launch if we can safely make the first leg.

Thank you to everyone’s support and interest in our Museum and this wonderful journey we are eager to launch on.

MMF

[LateFan]

"Douglas Commercial Model 3"
"Gooney Bird"
"Dumbo"

The new airliner first flew on December 17, 1935, and its expanded dimensions perfectly balanced load and revenue. Transcontinental trips from L.A. to New York could be made in about 15 hours, or 17 hours in the other direction. As Flying Magazine puts it, the DC-3 married reliability with performance and comfort as no other airplane before, revolutionizing air travel and finally making airlines profitable. Airlines like TWA, Delta, American, and United ordered entire fleets of DC-3s, finally establishing the airplane as the go-to method for long-distance travel. A quantum leap forward from the Ford Trimotor.

The onset of WWII saw the last civilian DC-3s built in early 1943. Most were pressed into military service, and the C-47 (or Navy R4D) began rolling out of the company's Long Beach plant in huge numbers. It differed from the DC-3 in many ways, including the addition of a cargo door and strengthened floor, a shortened tail cone for glider-towing shackles, and a hoist attachment. In 1944, the Army Air Corps converted a DC-3 into a glider (XCG-17), and it significantly outperformed the gliders towed by C-47s on D-Day. C-47s served in every theater.

...But really the basic DC-3/C-47 configuration was so good it needed little improvement. Its two Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial engines produce 1200 hp each, providing thrust enough to lift 20-plus passengers and baggage or a 6,000-plus pound cargo load. Cruising at 160 to 180 mph, the DC-3 can fly about 1,600 miles, land in less than 3,000 feet, and take off again in less than 1,000 feet. Its low-speed handling and toughness made it the go-to airplane for a myriad of jobs including military special operations.

The DC-3 remained on military duty until 2008—72 years.

(From Popular Mechanics)





The Berlin Airlift


Oh, this says Service Ceiling 23,000'. Is that right? So crossing passes is no big deal, except for no oxygen.

http://www.aviation-history.com/douglas/dc3.html

[LateFan]

I got wondering how one flies out of here with a max 10,000' ceiling (is that right for a DC-3?). You have to go over the Continental Divide somewhere. Don't little non-pressurized singles have this same issue? They need to get to Rapid City SD. Right now they're holding because it's socked in and raining hard, and gusty.

Found this -

"The northern route from Seattle, Washington, along Interstate 90 crosses 3,004-ft. Snoqualmie Pass before descending into eastern Washington and then climbing into Idaho and Montana. If the ceilings are too low for you to transition Snoqualmie Pass, you can detour via the Columbia and Spokane rivers to the Spokane area. (The rivers slowly climb from sea level at Astoria, Oregon, to 1,800 ft. at Spokane.) You can then continue via Lake Pend Oreille up the Clark Fork and Flathead rivers to Dixon, Montana. U.S. 93 leads from Dixon to join the Interstate 90 route in Missoula at about 3,200 ft. From there, Interstate 90 climbs eastward toward the Continental Divide, cresting at around 6,500 ft. near Butte, Montana. You have to cross a 6,000-ft. pass east of Bozeman and 4,000–5,000-ft. terrain east of the Wind River Mountains around Sheridan and Buffalo. The final pass is at around 5,000-ft. between Gillette, Wyoming, and Black Hills, South Dakota. After that, it’s downhill all the way to the Missouri River."

[flyboyx]

woooo-eeeeee!

[LateFan]

That is all. As you were.

[LateFan]

[ATTACH]127670[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]127671[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]127672[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]127673[/ATTACH]

[LateFan]

University of Montana represent. "The M" is about 1000 feet above the UM campus. It's 100' tall. That's the Clark Fork River
coming out of Hellgate Canyon. The bike trail along the river is the old Milwaukee railroad grade.

[LateFan]

This is our airplane. We're really excited about it. People run outside when they hear the engines.

(Apologies for dumping all these pics on you - it's just such a cool community project)

Yesterday she flew to tiny Plains MT to practice parachute drops.

[LateFan]

Oh, yeah...the oil's got to go somewhere.

So unloaded you're nose heavy, which is good, and you trim to fly level?
Then fully loaded, the engine weight counterbalances that so you're not nose-up and fighting that?


She's supposed to fly out of Missoula today or tomorrow, hopping across the midwest to CT to meet up with the others. Our pilot, Jeff Whitesell, just retired two weeks ago after 40 years at Delta. His co-pilot on the first flight was Frank Moss from FL, who will pilot a Swiss-owned C-47 to Normandy. A half dozen pilots have been certified on the DC-3 here this week under Moss.

“Those guys did an absolutely fantastic job,” Whitesell said. “It’s a handful flying a new airplane with new engine and new parts."

“They tell me every test you do during a flight period, you come away with a stack of things you need to do,” Logistics Director Douglass said. “That we really didn’t have that at all speaks to the fact they did so much right for so long.”

"The main post-flight fix was to adjust the RPMs on the propeller governor, Whitesell said. He was busy doing that late Monday morning, and Miss Montana left the runway at Missoula International Airport for its second flight at 2:30 p.m."

“We’ve got some things to do between now and when we can leave,” Douglass said. “We’re going to try to have team meetings every four hours, at 8, noon and 4 in the afternoon to get on the same page about what needs to be done.”

"Of the 15 airplanes in the D-Day Squadron, “we’re probably the only one that is entirely funded by all-volunteer service, by donations and volunteer labor,” he said. “That’s the remarkable thing. It’s not like we just took it to a shop and said, ‘Here, we want a new airplane,’ and pay for it."

"Several parachutists, including two from Texas, have been waiting to take their requisite jump from Miss Montana, said Al Charters, who’s heading up organization of 15 men and women who’ll jump from the plane in England and France."



On May 18, the American contingent plans to fly down the Hudson River in formation, over Manhattan and around the Statue of Liberty. How cool is that?!

[flyboyx]

varg is right. its for weight and balance. if i remember right, there is a great big oil tank in that space right behind the engine bulkhead. radial engines burn a LOT of oil.

[varg]

CG. It's pretty common in general though, just look at any number of prewar airliners or even GA twins at your local airport

[LateFan]

Anyone know why the engines are so far forward of the wing on these? Since a radial isn't all that deep, I'm curious why it's mounted how it is. Maybe it's weight balance, or packaging for the wing spar and landing gear...?

[LateFan]

Oh yeah! That's a nice one.

I saw ours several times yesterday. It's cool how slow they can fly. Passed right over me, I counted the rivets. The engines are so smooth. Apparently there's a radial wizard in ID who rebuilt them. The props were redone in the Seattle area.

The story in the paper says this plane was ditched in a river in PA(?) way back when. Everyone survived that and climbed out on a wing, but the pilot and several others drowned trying to swim ashore in freezing water. It was recovered and rebuilt.

The Miss Montana logo / nose art comes from a local woman whose father had it on the nose of three different B-25s he flew in WWII campaigns. The girl was her mother.

[flyboyx]

i read through that story you posted. my buddy's airplane is #4.

if you click on the legend airways link in the story and scroll down toward the bottom of the page, you can see a photo of a very filthy brandon taking a selfie in the polised fuselage.