Exhaust driven odity, or divine inspiration? :P

[rmt]

My wife's grandfather was one of those mechanics at Alaska Airlines for many years. One of the original employees, or not far from it at least. Her grandparents were already in Alaska at WWII, Teri's mother, aunt and uncle were born there. A number of those years Fred was the top dog shop foreman. AA had a big party for him when he retired. For years afterward he was still well-known and respected in that part of the company. He was certainly one of the best mechanics I will ever know. I can't believe anything that had just come out of his shop wasn't operating exactly as it was supposed to, or better. Also I don't know if there is such a thing as a bad airplane mechanic. It doesn't seem likely that their career would be anything other than short. Virtually no room for mistakes in that business.

In the few years I was able to be around him I was always interested in his stories, and amazed at his ability to remember details of just about every mechanical thing ever made since he was a young man. Tractor, car, airplane, haybaler, steam engine, anything.

One time I was doing some brake work on my old 52 Chevy dump truck, and I needed a cylinder hone that I didn't have. So I called him up and asked if he had one that would fit. He asks, "Those were an inch and an eighth weren't they?" and of course they were and of course he had one. He probably hadn't worked on anything in years at that point, well into his eighties. He was a Ford guy by the way.

I was working up at Arlington Airport for about 5 years and right across the road was a hanger with the tail(s) of a Constellation sticking out. (Those buggers were big.) They had already been working on it for some time and did for a couple more years while I was there. The beautiful tailsection sticking out was like a permanent fixture around there.

One day I was leaving in the late afternoon, almost sunset, and there it was not only out of the hanger, but out on the runway with the engines running. I just had to stop to watch and listen. After a while it wound up, came down the runway and took off right over me almost. Circled around once, came back over and then left, never saw it again. Really was a sight to see and I am glad I was there. I'm sure that one is still around someplace.

Roger

 

[Anonymous]

Roger, I should have specified that the Alaska Airlines COMPANY was regarded as an airline joke in the old days, not their employees. I think it was owned by an East coast railroad man who never put enough money into it. If your wife's grandfather is still around, ask him about Alaska employees racing to the bank with their paychecks in hopes they wouldn't bounce. I hope his career was long enough that he got to see the fine company that Alaska has become.

I think that the turbo-compounded Connie that I saw blowing smoke surely had an oil leak in the turbo section. This was way beyond the normal volume of radial start-up smoke, which can occasionally be quite impressive. The airline I worked for when I saw this, Pacific Northern Airlines, then the biggest and best carrier to and in Alaska, also had Connies, but they were the mechanically-simpler and happier L-749s with 2500hp Wrights. The FAA allowed PNA to routinely put 2800 hours on these engines between overhauls.

As for the Connie tail, I have stood on them, and not just where you think, but on the small section of the horizontal stabilizer that is OUTside of the outer vertical stab! Whee!!! The stabilizers were aluminum, as you'd expect for a nominally 300mph airplane, but the control surfaces were fabric!

 

[rmt]

Oh, no offense taken Smitty, and I didn't mean to sound offended if I did. Was just pointing out if those Convair engines sounded a certain way, that probably is simply the way they are supposed to sound.

Fred has been gone now for about twenty years, was 87 when he died in his sleep. Any of us would probably wish for even half the life he lived. I think he must have retired somewhere around 1970 give or take a few years. He would have easily remembered every one of the old AA stories, and was probably the instigation of some of them. As I mentioned, he was there when they were still in Alaska. He was still very sharp to the day he died. He must have been a real handful when he was a younger man, talented, smart and in charge.

Thankfully he came to the Seattle area with AA when they moved, and his first grandchild was born there 1962.

 

[ASMART]

I like the way these topic take off on a path all thier own. It is not meant to be a negative comment. I like where this one ended up.

 

[Anonymous]

We're the Serendipity Sixers.

 

[Luckyman]

Yep, Very good stories.

 

[Anonymous]

As for the Connie tail, I have stood on them, and not just where you think, but on the small section of the horizontal stabilizer that is OUTside of the outer vertical stab! Whee!!! The stabilizers were aluminum, as you'd expect for a nominally 300mph airplane, but the control surfaces were fabric!

In the early `80's I worked for Eastern in MIA, there was a Connie still operating out of Costa Rica or Equador?, can't remember...It hauled fresh flowers to Miami once a week. We ALL set our tools down when that plane took off. The most beautiful Airliner ever built IMHO.

For you new guys getting into the hobby, you have to realize almost every performance part on a modern gasoline engine was developed 60-70 yrs ago. What's changed is metallurgy and prod. tolerances (CNC). Electronic fuel injection and computerized ignition and engine management are the only "modern" developments in autos.

Take a typical Fighter aircraft from WWII- Roller rockers, Nitrous injection, two speed superchargers, Water injection, Twin-plug Hemi heads, sodium filled valves, roller cams, tubular headers, overhead cams, pressure carbs, multi-electrode sparkplugs.

 

[wallaka]

Looks like there's only one airworthy Super Connie in the USA...
http://www.air-and-space.com/20050513 Van Nuys.htm

 

[rmt]

After looking at those websites I wonder now if the one I saw fly in the late 1980's is still able to fly. These days it looks like they go away as permanent fixtures in museums but at that time and even later it appears they were still under threat to be scrapped.

I guess I am luckier to see one flying than I thought. Unfortunately I don't know what model it was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a Super Connie. I can still picture it's silhouette taking off that evening. I also remember there was no fanfare about the event at all. I bet there would be now.

 

[Anonymous]

The Connie, esp. the L749A, which was a beefed-up improvement on the earlier models and simpler than the L1049 Super-Connie and the L1649 Jetstream, became a favorite of gun-runners and drug-haulers because of the way the doors opened which allowed you to shove stuff out and leave in a hurry. The Douglas DC-4/6/7s weren't as handy in that respect. All of the old propliners had one notable advantage over the jets when the field you had to get into was "socked-in" (clouds, fog, etc.); the flight engineer could lean the mixture way down and you could loiter in the area just sipping fuel, where a jet at low-altitude is very fuel-inefficient. Northern Air Cargo operated a fleet of ancient DC-6Bs in Alaska for years, and loved them for this trait. I think they finally wore out all the old Sixes, unfortunately.

The 749s that my dad flew and I serviced for Pacific Northern were only used for a little while by Western Airlines after they bought PNA. They sat on the apron at McCarran field, Nevada, then were sold to an outfit in Haiti. One of these birds, good ol' Nine-Three-Victor, gained final fame as the Port Au Prince Bomber. A rebel faction commandeered 93V, loaded several iron bombs (500lb, if I recall), and flew over the capital while rolling bombs out the door by hand, while taking random ground fire and even ak-ak!! The rebels then flew to the Bahamas where they were arrested and their bomber confiscated. The last I saw of 93V was a photo of it sitting forlorn and unwanted, with bullet holes in her hide.

 

[lyonsy]

love the old stories but the germans had a variable speed supercharger which kept a set boost level no matter what altude.
anyways
you could mabey look at volvo and scania trucks where they run a compound turbo
what is this they drive the crank with a turbo wheel as well.
now they have a reduction that when its spining at say 50'000 rpm they convert it back to 2000 rpm could work.
they also have a viscous damper but mainly for power pulses in the crank.
one more thing is driving after a turbo they speed will be reduce to around 50'000-60'000 rpm and so on a bit like a 3 piston steam engine so you could drive other things with this system like a water pump.
if you could drive the alt water pump and crank with the exhaust i beleave this whould increase a petrol effiececy to desiel spec.

 

[Lazy JW]

... the flight engineer could lean the mixture way down and you could loiter in the area just sipping fuel, where a jet at low-altitude is very fuel-inefficient...

Yup. A friend of mine was a Forward Air Control (FAC) pilot in VietNam flying the OV-10 Bronco. He told about controlling various aircraft onto targets, he especially liked the old Navy AD (Able Dog) Skyraiders. Said they could loiter around in country for an hour or more, the jets in the same area could only wait 10-15 minutes and they had to be headed for home lest they run out of fuel. According to him the Able Dog was more accurate due to the the slower airspeed. He earned a DFC and a Silver Star in combat.
Joe