OK you Gooneybirdmen...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

This should cheer Willy up...

Four strange DC3s. :icon29: to anyone who can provide some sort of explanation of any or all of them...

[Willy]

I'll take a stab at 'em although this is the first I've seen these pics.

Top Left: Looks like a faired over engine nacelle. I've read of them doing this to Connies that had lost engines to ferry them to be repaired. Usually when the nacelle itself suffered structural damage.

Top Right: I'd say that is an attempt at a "catapillar" type landing gear.

Lower Left: Some sort of Magnetic detection gear for either Sub or Mine hunting. Note the dipper attached to the end of cable.

Lower Right: RATO or Rocket Assisted Take Off (sometimes referred to JATO). Used to be very popular with military prop aircraft to give a STOL capability.

[Hurricane]

Top left was actually a glider version, remember the guy looking after the ipms dakota special interest group mentioning something about it but can't really remember, they had a nice model of it though! they seem to have just about every dak version in every scheme imagineable

there was also a great model on the 'what if' SIG stand at our last model show, a hawk in a red arrows scheme but rather than red it was pink!!! the what if being peter mandelson as defence secretary!:costumes:

[Ralf Roggeveen]

You're spot on about the 2 USAF ones, 2 :icon29: s are served!

Top Left is officially called an XCG-17, glider version of the C-47 (I would NOT like to travel in such a thing however they got it up there!)

Lower Right is strictly JATO rather than RATO. It's a Super DC-3 which didn't get any civil customers, so Douglas tried it on the USAF. At first it was designated YC-129, but they changed that to YC-47F 'cos it reminded them of their C-47s. That one had serial # 51-3817, later went to the Navy as an R4D-8, Build # 138820. The Air Force preferred Convair C-131s to Super DC-3s.

But Willy's wrong about the British ones! :mix-smi:

Clues: Top Right is operational in Malaya, 1954. It is a very interesting picture & deserves a second, careful look...;)

Lower Left is civil, circa 1960...note the 'bird' (like a small bomb) hanging at the very bottom of the photograph...:)

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Har har about the Mandelson Hawk! No doubt the modeller's red went wrong, but he still found a way to enter the pink one into the competition...:redf:

There were, of course, pink Spitfires, used for high altitude recce & I remember someone having colour probs with Il-2 and posting a picture of a similar-toned FW190! The Pink Panzer?

[Hurricane]

The guy said they had a stand opposite the RAF sig once and they take their modelling VERY seriously, he could see them looking across looking like they were going to kill whoever made it

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Well, even the SAS had their pink Landrovers (Tamiya used to do a kit of it)...Girly pink can be a good camoflague colour! :icon_lol:

[Togo]

I think Willy is almost right about lower left.
The tailboom looks like a Magnetic Anomoly Detector, many civil uses, including finding the density of bodies of rock a long way underground.
The thing on the cable? Anybody's guess.:D

[lefty]

Got it! Those aren't wheels, they're speakers. During the anti-Communist terrorist war in Malaya in the 40's, Dakotas were used for 'sky-shouting' and leaflet-dropping. What good that ever did was debatable.

The bottom left one I cannot trace. The Hunting Group was diverse and geological surveys were part of their remit. Unless, of course, they were hunting down pirate radio stations!
Lefty

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Got it!
Lefty

You certainly have! A big :icon29: to Lefty. This was first done in 1932 with a Victoria shouting at Kurds in Iraq (successfully - they surrendered!) In 1953 the British tried it in Malaysia with Valettas which were too noisy, so the Dakotas were specially brought over from the UK. Apparently the speakers were yellow, so they probably didn't look quite so much like wheels in reality & in colour photos! This same trick was, of course, used by US forces in Viet Nam.

Willy, Togo & Lefty also get :icon29: s for the civil DC-3. It was operated by Hunting Geophysics Ltd. The extended tail contains a magnetometer head, the 'bird' below is an electromagnetic detector head. The thing on top is 'a compensating coil to counteract the effect of the aircraft on the responses of the instrument'. No doubt they're looking for coal in the Cotswolds or vast oil fields under Hampshire. Maybe Hurricane can convert the Airfix DC-3 into one & win a prize from those Gooneymen at the IPMS?

[lefty]

And here's the GT version of the Dak..........

[Willy]

The bottom left one I cannot trace. The Hunting Group was diverse and geological surveys were part of their remit. Unless, of course, they were hunting down pirate radio stations!
Lefty

Another use if they had the generating power onbd the aircraft would be cause an EMP pulse. When I was a crewmember onboard a minesweeper, we had a similar type thing powered by a large diesel generator that would create an EMP to detonate magnetic mines. They still use a similar type setup, but from a MH-53 helicopter.

I bet that would play heck with those pirate radio stations if you got close enough to them. From what I remember, quite a few are on boats offshore.

[lefty]

Nobody coming up with a name for my flash Dakota?? (Look at those engines!)

[Willy]

I recognize the turboprop conversion but can't think of the name off of the top of my head. Maybe one of the others can.

Willy

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Well, it's a BEA DC-3 fitted with turboprops. Some other non-American airlines tried it. It happened.

I'm afraid it was symptomatic of the British (NOT the Scots!) looking forward two steps & taking three steps backward in postwar aviation...words like 'flyingboat', 'Brabazon' and 'Comet' spring unhappily to mind...
:jawdrop:

[lefty]

You're being a little unkind, Ralf. The Dart Dakota was used as a test bed (three of them, actually) for the Rolls-Royce Dart, ultimately to power the Vickers Viscount, arguably one of the most successful airliners of all time.

My first regular passenger flying was done in Viscounts - they were the smoothest, most comfortable and safest things I have ever flown in. Bring back the days of service, civility and LEGROOM !!!

Lefty

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Maybe it was a useful testbed, but BEA still used them for regular, scheduled flights, didn't they?

Don't know if I ever went in a Viscount, but definitely flew with BEA & BOAC in the '60s, mainly VC-10s. RR's earliest certain aviation memory is an Air France Caravelle Heathrow - Nice, 1972. Yea to the legroom! :ernae:

My strangest historic transport moment came in a Rail Museum (York?) where there was an ancient luxurious French Wagon Lit which everyone walked & gawped through...and I recognised it (from the corner washbasin) as the exact same type I'd travelled & slept in as a small child (when nobody thought twice about the level of comfort/amount of space/etc.)

If the Past always looks better, let's just be grateful we don't have to live in the Future (yet)...:icon_eek:

[womble55]

mmmmmm....VC10s.....Heathrow. I was standing outside the BEA hangers at Heathrow when I was a teenager, A South African Airways VC10, lined up at the end of the runway, the pilot opened the throttles to full chat.........., I leave you to wonder why I am getting deaf nowadays!

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Oh dear, but it's better than going deaf by iPod which appears to be today's preferred method.

About 2 years ago I was leaving Chania, Crete. We were very late but they started to walk us tourists - in sweltering heat - across the 'strip towards our waiting Airbus. A recently-landed something was taxying towards us when somebody realised that someone might just get sucked into one of its still somewhat swiftly rotating engines - ! With much Greek shouting & waving we were all made to duck, rather ignominously, behind a ground bus (which we probably should have been IN in the 1st place) that was standing (conveniently) nearby...

Embarrassing :redf: , but better than ending up fried mincemeat!

[lefty]

VC-10, eh ? Funnily enough one flew over my office on Tuesday - must have been a RAF job, sure was a noisy mother.

The VC10 looked pretty but wasn't all that great to travel in. I had to fly to Johannesburg in one in 1970 - not particularly comfortable, and not even a black-and-white telly to watch! Some things have improved, I suppose.

The Viscount, and especially the Vanguard, were great - HUGE windows that gave you a cracking view especially on the ground - I don't know why they bother putting those teensy windows in today's sardine cans as you can't see much out of them.
Lefty

[Ferry_vO]

I don't mind that the windows are so small, but they place them just above your knees when you are sitting down ! Almost developed a hernia last time I flew. :violent:


And slightly more on topic : I recently found this picture of a Douglas Super DC-3 :

[Willy]

And usually they're positioned even with the seatbacks making them even harder to see out of.


Maybe someone needs to make a "glass bottomed" airliner :costumes:

[Jaxon]

Better a little window than no window at all!

I ahve seen a TV report some weeks ago about the A380.

They said, it is probably the last big bird in conventional design of fuse and wings because they came to the limits in some parts.

Future in that class is probably one wing planes, where you sit somewhere in the middle with no windows at all :costumes:, or better :crybaby:

Damn, and I already missed a Concorde flight in my life...

[Ralf Roggeveen]

Hi Michael!

Well, you can have too much window! Many passengers who sat in the wing seats of the Junkers G-38 almost needed therapy after the flight! Several WW2 German aircraft were designed to concentrate crew up front with a lot of perspex. RAF evaluators of a captured He 111 felt distressingly exposed in it. There have also been accidents in 'Flying Eye' type aircraft caused by pilot disorientation caused by being 'able to see too much' - and flightsimmers know how much easier it is to orientate by using 'virtual cockpit' rather than 'invisible'.


BTW, I discovered this link to Jaxon's brilliant site which seems to be different from the one he posts. Hope he doesn't mind if I put it here in SOH/HWS:


www.michael-reimer.com/CFS2/CFS2_Links.html - 168k

[Willy]

Better a little window than no window at all!

I ahve seen a TV report some weeks ago about the A380.

They said, it is probably the last big bird in conventional design of fuse and wings because they came to the limits in some parts.

Future in that class is probably one wing planes, where you sit somewhere in the middle with no windows at all :costumes:, or better :crybaby:

Damn, and I already missed a Concorde flight in my life...


Northrop had that idea in the late '40s.

http://www.warbirdforum.com/paxwing.htm


I've always been fascinated by the flying wings like those of Northrop and the Horten brothers.

Willy

[Ralf Roggeveen]

The old chap with the white hair doesn't seem to be objecting to that lady's elegant bottom blocking his view of the window...


But even today people don't appreciate what can be seen from any aircraft. Airline policy is to keep 'em occupied so they don't THINK too much about the splendours & miseries of flight. That's why they serve horrible 'food' as soon as you've reached cruise altitude. That's why cabin crew are constantly going up & down with trolleys selling all sorts of stuff nobody could possibly want & why they show movies & old TV programmes all the time. They want people to be cocooned in their own little world so as not to notice the endemic discomfort (Lefty's lack of legroom) & so they don't start questioning the Act of Faith that most of the passengers believe is the only thing holding the aeroplane up there in the first place!

The old joke : It took me years to join the Jet Set and by the time I did, everyone else was in it too...:mad:

But that's another reason simulators are fun :)