Warbird Information Exchange

I found a US Coastguard film about the ditching of Panam Stratocruiser N90943.
For a description of the accident, go here:
http://aviation-safety.net/database/rec ... 19561016-0

The film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=nl&v=fk ... am943.html

Tillerman.

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Jets are nice. Props are nicer.

Good stuff!

My dad had several hundred hours in these machines. He (and others, I'm told) had low opinions of them because of the R-4360's that they had. He went on to add that you could count on losing an engine about every 2 months while flying over the Pacific and that made for a busy trip. Valves were a major cause. My dad's log books have many entires titled " R.E. M." (Return, Mechanical)
After initial engine problems were pretty much solved, it was propellors built by one manufacturer that were the cause of several catastrophic failures. They had gotten so large and were no longer solid, but hollow & filled with a plastic substance to stiffen them. The props were lighter and more efficient than the ones made the old way, but troubles soon surfaced and there was more than one incident involving an engine being ripped from its mount during flight.
One other bad feature of the airplane was the lack of weather radar.
The Double Bubble or Covered Wagon also had its lower level given the nickname "Bar in the Basement".
One other quirk of this aircraft is that it was landed nosewheel first.

I just looked through my dad's memoirs this afternoon and came up with the following:
"Later in 1952 Emil Kissel, a flight engineer and sailplane pilot, came to Chief Pilot Dick Campbell to tell him that sailplane pilots, flying at high altitude, had discovered very fast westerly winds. Research proved this to be true, leading to discovery of the jet stream. Experimental high altitude flights showed that by going to high altitude out of Tokyo, it would be possible to make Tokyo-to-Honolulu a non-stop flight for a good part of the year.
On January 3, 1953, I happened to be on the first scheduled non-stop flight from Tokyo to HNL. Several records were set. The 4,000 mile distance was the longest scheduled to date. The flight took 10 hours, 14 minutes at an average ground speed of 390 mph in an airplane that cruised about 280 mph at high altitude. The average tailwind was 112 mph and the highest wind averaged 225 mph for two hours."

This was in B-377 N90948. On the final leg of the trip (Jan 5th), true to form, the Stratocruiser lost an engine between HNL & SFO. They diverted to Oakland because SFO was below minimum.