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When Hollywood Ruled The Skies - Volumes 1 through 4 by Bruce Oriss


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:44 pm 
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I know it can be measured but that is a very involved process, and needs a good test cell etc.
I wonder how the race people do it when they swap the props around?


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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 9:04 pm 
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I can't help with any info on the effects of lightening a prop installed on a 4360. In the Air Force, of course, we just used the props installed on our planes and didn't get involved in any experimentation.

I ran a lot of 4360-59B's in the test cells at Sheppard AFB while doing engine conditioning. We used a "club" prop in the cell. It was basically a cut down or shortened Hamilton Standard.

My 5 years of operational experience with the C-124's was with the 4360-63a which had the 17 ft diameter Curtis electric prop.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 5:55 am 
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Chief wrote:
I can't help with any info on the effects of lightening a prop installed on a 4360. In the Air Force, of course, we just used the props installed on our planes and didn't get involved in any experimentation.

I ran a lot of 4360-59B's in the test cells at Sheppard AFB while doing engine conditioning. We used a "club" prop in the cell. It was basically a cut down or shortened Hamilton Standard.

My 5 years of operational experience with the C-124's was with the 4360-63a which had the 17 ft diameter Curtis electric prop.

So how much was it trimmed down? 4 foot per blade?


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 7:48 am 
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I remember it was pretty short. I would say it was cut off about 3 or 4 feet. Can't remember exactly. It was 1961.


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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:12 pm 
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A couple of observations:

I flew the KC-97 from 1954 to 1957. During this time the failures of the hollow steel bladed Ham Standard was a major concern. They issued each crew a round magnifing glass to be used to look for cracks on the preflight for every flight. Since most of the failures were hidden by the rubber covers of the de-icers, the props had to be pulled and shop-inspected under the rubber boots at short intervals (10 hrs? 20hrs?). Since a blade failure usually meant an engine separation too and they usually happened on or shortly after take off, only essential crew (5) were allowed on all flights (to cut the personell losses, I guess!) After I left the USAF, the hollow bladed props were replaced with DC-7 type, solid aluminum bladed props and that solved the problem.

After leaving the AF, I flew about 8 months on CV-240s at AAL. The nose case on the Convair -15 engines had "CV" painted on them and the -15s on the DC-6 had "6" stencilled on their nose cases. AAL did all their overhauls at the Mod-center at Tulsa. On the 240, the torque readings were very smooth but on the DC-6 the needles wandered all over the place.

After furlough at AAL, I went to work at Central Airlines which bought 6 CV-240 from AAL. AAL was to do all heavy maintenence for a period of time until Central had an in-house capability. The engines had no nose case numbers on the zero time since overhaul engines when we got the 240s and wandering torquemeter needles were the rule. Since all the engines had been run in AALs test cells, I imagine the engines were sorted out and the smooth ones went to their 240s and the not so smooth went to their DC-6s and we got the worst. We had alot of problems with these engines until we changed to Dallas Airmotive(?) for overhaul. Same problem with the recapped tires and rebuilt cylinders we got from AAL. It seemed like we got the dregs.

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 4:57 pm 
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I thought they got rid of those steel props, earlier than that. Didn't they cause alot of the stratocruisers to bite the dust? Just figured the C's would have not had them because of that.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 11:10 am 
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engguy wrote:
I thought they got rid of those steel props, earlier than that. Didn't they cause alot of the stratocruisers to bite the dust? Just figured the C's would have not had them because of that.


All the Strats with 4360 engines came with the steel bladed props due to the lighter weight of the hollow steel blades. And yes, some airliners were lost, mostly at sea. One was succesfully ditched in the Pacific by Captain Richard Ong, PAA but it was due to other mechanical problems and insufficient fuel to reach HNL. He held near the ship till daylight and then ditched it along side of an Ocean Station Ship (November?) which got everybody aboard safely. The first aluminum bladed props (with pitch stops to limit blade angles in a runaway condition) went to the airline operaters starting in 1956-early 57. Then the AF started their program. Early models used engine oil for prop control and there were runaway prop problems which were greatly reduced by an intregal prop oil system using cleaner fluid.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:03 pm 
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That story is recounted here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_943

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 4:44 am 
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I do wonder, what are the conditions for a water ditching? I Thought no flaps, but this one obviously has the flaps down?

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:26 am 
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Depends on conditions, airplane, and pilot comfort (which is horribly relative when you're in the process of ditching).

With the B377, he probably was more concerned about impacting as slowly as possible due to the engines potentially digging in if he hit too fast or too hard, so he put the flaps down and then slowed as much as possible before impact. Had the sea been much more choppy, I would suspect he would have raised the flaps to prevent them from hitting the top of a wave and nosing the plane in.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:52 pm 
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Well, ironically, the A-340 that just succesfully ditched inthe Hudson yesterday had his flaps down. He kept them at TO position, or so I've heard.

As I write this, the news is talking about Capt. Ogg and the Strat.

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C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:10 pm 
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If that plane had some good engines the stinking birds wouldn't hurt it.
And that strat woudn't have come down if it wasn't for having bad propellers and prop control system.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:14 pm 
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I'm not much of a jet engine guy. But, I thought that "Airbus in the Hudson" had RB 211's. I do know the model of the RB-211's on our B-757's at AA were the most reliable/economical engines in the AA fleet. Much better than the GE's on the B-767, DC-10's, MD-11's, etc.

I do know however, that "back in the day" Eastern had a lot of problems with their early RB-211's. As a result, we had a lot of concerns when we found out the RB-211's were going to be on our B-757's.

engguy: just curious about your RB-211 concerns.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:31 pm 
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2 minor corrections -

1) The aircraft was an A320. A340 is huge and has 4 engines. US Air has the twin-engined sibling, the A330 in the fleet, but this wasn't one. ;)

2) The US Airways fleet has a "mixed bag" of engines. Most of the former America West aircraft use the IAE engine while the aircraft delivered new usually have the CFM-56. This aircraft was originally delivered to US Airways and has the CFM-56 engine. This is the same engine that powers the 737s and KC-135Rs among other aircraft.


A quick history of the aircraft with pictures of the plane (N106US / CN: 1044) can be found here - http://jetphotos.net/census/aircraft2.p ... =A32X-1044


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2009 10:05 am 
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OK.. A320. My mistake.

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C-54D "Spirit of Freedom" 43-17228
C-97 "Angel of Deliverance" 52-2718 (painted as YC-97A 45-59595)
C-54E/R5D-4 "Spirit of Freedom" 44-9144 BuNo 90414 (wfu April/2020)
http://www.spiritoffreedom.org


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