A Real Airliner Out of Restoration and Flying at Chino

arkflyr said:
Got me feeling nostalgic so here is a really old video of the Airline History Museum's Connie back when they were called Save-A-Connie.


View: https://youtu.be/nZ5pCq86sOg


@WacoFan were any of your relatives hooked up with this outfit?
Click to expand...


They called my grandpa while I was there for his retirement party (December 1984) and since he'd just retired and was still current and had all the types they asked if he wanted to ferry the plane back to KC. He eagerly said yes. And then they said "GREAT! Just write us a check for $12k to be a founding member (or something like that) and then we'll send you out". He said "Umm....yeah...I'll pass."

It sat wrong how they approached that. And he said to me "I made around $12k per year in 1959 when I made Captain on the Connie. I don't need to pay that much to fly it once - and I'm not interested in flying it a whole lot more. Great airplane but more fun to get paid flying it that the other way around. I'd rather put gas in the Waco's and Howard and fly them or let you make me sick learning your ass from a hole in the ground in the Chief". He had a thing about buying airplanes that he used to get paid to fly - he just couldn't make that work emotionally somehow. He passed on an immaculate T-6 that he got offered that had just been retired from South Africa's Air Force - with a fresh overhaul and just amazing clean. Something like $50k and he passed - and that's the only decision I ever saw him regret.

Lots of his friends got involved, and for a time in 2007-08 I got involved. They kicked me and a couple of others out for asking too many questions regarding a fundraiser they had including Travolta showing up - that was meant to get the Connie an overhaul and back in the air. The guy running the fundraiser, and ultimately for a time the museum, was a creep and some of us started asking very pointed questions - and my role as a Board leader as a local hospital afforded me a lot of legal help and I had soaked up quite a bit of non-profit governance "street cred". We were rather unceremoniously voted off the island and told to never show our faces there again.

The guy we were questioning at some point a few years later ended up doing time.
 
WacoFan said:
They called my grandpa while I was there for his retirement party (December 1984) and since he'd just retired and was still current and had all the types they asked if he wanted to ferry the plane back to KC. He eagerly said yes. And then they said "GREAT! Just write us a check for $12k to be a founding member (or something like that) and then we'll send you out". He said "Umm....yeah...I'll pass."

It sat wrong how they approached that. And he said to me "I made around $12k per year in 1959 when I made Captain on the Connie. I don't need to pay that much to fly it once - and I'm not interested in flying it a whole lot more. Great airplane but more fun to get paid flying it that the other way around. I'd rather put gas in the Waco's and Howard and fly them or let you make me sick learning your ass from a hole in the ground in the Chief". He had a thing about buying airplanes that he used to get paid to fly - he just couldn't make that work emotionally somehow. He passed on an immaculate T-6 that he got offered that had just been retired from South Africa's Air Force - with a fresh overhaul and just amazing clean. Something like $50k and he passed - and that's the only decision I ever saw him regret.

Lots of his friends got involved, and for a time in 2007-08 I got involved. They kicked me and a couple of others out for asking too many questions regarding a fundraiser they had including Travolta showing up - that was meant to get the Connie an overhaul and back in the air. The guy running the fundraiser, and ultimately for a time the museum, was a creep and some of us started asking very pointed questions - and my role as a Board leader as a local hospital afforded me a lot of legal help and I had soaked up quite a bit of non-profit governance "street cred". We were rather unceremoniously voted off the island and told to never show our faces there again.

The guy we were questioning at some point a few years later ended up doing time.
Click to expand...
Not unlike a lot of other aviation museums, it's just not a very good museum.

My big beef with a lot of aviation museums I come across is that it's largely "here's an artifact, here's another artifact," etc., without telling you why they're important. In other words, the "so what" is often downplayed and the "hooray! it's airworthy" bits are the main focus. Which is fine too, but that makes it a flying club, not a museum. That might be a byproduct of some museums being literal dumping grounds for excess property and the like. And a byproduct of, well, pilots.

There is a lot of cool history in this business that deserves to be told and told well. A little curation and an honest to goodness historian's or librarian's touch would go a LONG way.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Subject aircraft is not equipped. Believe me, I’ve heard all about it.
Click to expand...
I think people get twisted up in terminology. A 3350 is supercharged, superchargers are mechanically driven compressors. No 3350 has ever been turbocharged, turbochargers are exhaust driven compressors. The PRT was a turbine driven by the exhaust gases that was mechanically connected to the power section. Most 3350's have 2 speed blowers (superchargers), the lower speed is used at lower altitudes, the higher speed is used at high altitude cruise. I've never seen a 3350 that still shifts into second gear. When I was working on the bearcat we still had engineers that had worked for Wright when the 3350 was powering airliners helping us out. Despite all of the innovation utilized mixing and matching parts to get the absolute most amount of "reliable" power I can say we only ran the blower in low speed and if a turbocharger would've helped we'd probably have used it. There was another 3350 powered racer that tried PRT's, it had plenty of issues and I'm not sure it ever finished a race.
 
Richman said:
Just the engines alone are insanely complicated. You might has well try to maintain a hand held time travel device that is all mechanical and powered by steam.
Click to expand...
Ok, now that you've mentioned such a thing...

Consider what a wonderful and far more competent world it would be if in that world there existed lots and lots of people just so qualified.

We once lived in such a world. We could again if enough folks engaged in something other than fingering their fones in the hope of becoming a superhero.
 
knot4u said:
I think people get twisted up in terminology. A 3350 is supercharged, superchargers are mechanically driven compressors. No 3350 has ever been turbocharged, turbochargers are exhaust driven compressors. The PRT was a turbine driven by the exhaust gases that was mechanically connected to the power section. Most 3350's have 2 speed blowers (superchargers), the lower speed is used at lower altitudes, the higher speed is used at high altitude cruise. I've never seen a 3350 that still shifts into second gear. When I was working on the bearcat we still had engineers that had worked for Wright when the 3350 was powering airliners helping us out. Despite all of the innovation utilized mixing and matching parts to get the absolute most amount of "reliable" power I can say we only ran the blower in low speed and if a turbocharger would've helped we'd probably have used it. There was another 3350 powered racer that tried PRT's, it had plenty of issues and I'm not sure it ever finished a race.
Click to expand...
Wrong, the original 3350s fitted to the B-29 were turbocharged.
 
Minuteman said:
My takeaway is: good thing we figured-out gas turbine engines.
Click to expand...
Well, by that time we pretty much had already done that.

The real question is why the heck we didn't think of the turbine first?!? You know, before we stumbled drunkenly into the objectively monstrous concoction of complexity that is even a normally aspirated reciprocating engine. Me, personally? I blame the bias of the steam piston. But that's just me; And one of the main reasons I really detest unquestioned intellectual biases and their effects on civilizations. At best, they terribly slooooooooow down progress. At worst, lots of folks and critters unnecessarily die.
 
Last edited:
I can only think of one mass produced turbocharged radial, but it was more a part of the airframe than the engine, the P-47.
 
Roger Roger said:
In addition to the internal gear driven supercharger, the original 3350s on the B-29 had exhaust driven turbosuperchargers.
www.autoevolution.com

How Turbochargers Helped the Allies Win World War II

Turbos, superchargers, and turbo-superchargers are how our airmen dominated the Wild Blue Yonder. Here is how that boost came to be
www.autoevolution.com www.autoevolution.com
Click to expand...
The Martin had a shiftable supercharger, too. The technology involved to make pistons fly higher and faster is impressive on paper, and even more impressive that it worked, and worked regularly and in revenue service.

But like a lot of really high-end stuff, it also required some pretty serious investments in personnel—trained and experienced ones—to keep the things working. The engineering (both development, and in the Commonwealth sense of “an engineer is a guy who works on the airplane”) brain trust that kept these things going basically doesn’t exist anymore.
 
FlyingAccountant said:
To my knowledge, that might be the only flyable Connie left in the world. They had an airworthy aircraft down in OZ, but I don't think it's taken to the skies for a few years now.

IIRC, Pima museum has one in an old TWA livery, not flyable, obviously.
Click to expand...

Seems like every bad AD that comes out these days is due to some accident in Australia and it’s almost always due to the airplane getting completely neglected and/or wrung out.

For such a totalitarian, father knows
government, they sure have issues you wouldn’t expect.
form810 said:
Ok, now that you've mentioned such a thing...

Consider what a wonderful and far more competent world it would be if in that world there existed lots and lots of people just so qualified.

We once lived in such a world. We could again if enough folks engaged in something other than fingering their fones in the hope of becoming a superhero.
Click to expand...

Never mind, someone is already working on it...


View: https://youtu.be/KyDkBwhCV7g
 
My step mom's father (step grandpa?) flew B-29's and C-97's. A friend of mine was the flight engineer on FIFI, one day in the late '90s the stars aligned and I was able to take him down to the airport so he could bump his head on a couple parts of the interior again. We had to sort of lift him up the ladder, have you ever supported a geriatric by the buttocks? To see the excitement and happiness on his face was absolutely priceless, it damn near brought a few people to tears. It won't be long until there is no opportunity for anyone to hear and see these machines run. There are people who know how to work on these things but they're few, far between and they don't work cheap, I'm glad Rod Lewis had the money to restore that airplane. I just hope he doesn't lose interest and park it like the racers he owns.
 
WacoFan said:
They called my grandpa while I was there for his retirement party (December 1984) and since he'd just retired and was still current and had all the types they asked if he wanted to ferry the plane back to KC. He eagerly said yes. And then they said "GREAT! Just write us a check for $12k to be a founding member (or something like that) and then we'll send you out". He said "Umm....yeah...I'll pass."

It sat wrong how they approached that. And he said to me "I made around $12k per year in 1959 when I made Captain on the Connie. I don't need to pay that much to fly it once - and I'm not interested in flying it a whole lot more. Great airplane but more fun to get paid flying it that the other way around. I'd rather put gas in the Waco's and Howard and fly them or let you make me sick learning your ass from a hole in the ground in the Chief". He had a thing about buying airplanes that he used to get paid to fly - he just couldn't make that work emotionally somehow. He passed on an immaculate T-6 that he got offered that had just been retired from South Africa's Air Force - with a fresh overhaul and just amazing clean. Something like $50k and he passed - and that's the only decision I ever saw him regret.

Lots of his friends got involved, and for a time in 2007-08 I got involved. They kicked me and a couple of others out for asking too many questions regarding a fundraiser they had including Travolta showing up - that was meant to get the Connie an overhaul and back in the air. The guy running the fundraiser, and ultimately for a time the museum, was a creep and some of us started asking very pointed questions - and my role as a Board leader as a local hospital afforded me a lot of legal help and I had soaked up quite a bit of non-profit governance "street cred". We were rather unceremoniously voted off the island and told to never show our faces there again.

The guy we were questioning at some point a few years later ended up doing time.
Click to expand...
That reminds of a time I went to work, for my employer, on the Aeroproducts prop regulator on the SoCal CAF F8F up at Camarillo. Joe Pepito was running the show back then and once I'd removed the prop and disassembled the regulator, reassembled everything, hung the prop (all on the ramp because they didn't have a hangar) and we performed run ups he came up all friendly like and suggested I might have an opportunity to come work there. I asked what are you going to pay? He said I could start as a volunteer. I laughed, loaded my truck and drove back to the valley.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top