Warbird Information Exchange

Here are a few pictures that I tried to get in the cargo compartment and a couple of pics of the dataplate for those who are interested in that sort of gen.According to my copy of Eastwood and Roach "Piston Engine Airliner Production List",this airplane was built for American Airlines and delivered as N347AA.It was converted to a DC-7BF in 1962.It passed through West Coast Airmotive before going to Zantop as N756Z in 1965.It then spent time in storage with Universal Airlines and BMR Aviation before ending up with TBM Inc./Butler Aircraft in 1978.The very dark pictures are looking aft past the wingspar and the brighter ones are looking forward toward the cockpit bulkhead.The dataplate is rotated for clarity and also shown as it is actually mounted in the aft portion of the forward entrance door.

Thanks CF for the info, Larry,looking at your pictures and having seen inside 'PSA,it never ceases to amaze how much info you guys have to look at,take in and act on in these old propliner cockpits!

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It turns out that the engine is attached to the Whiting Stand by attaching a tapered collar to the prop shaft.Then,the collar with engine attached is inserted into a rotating housing in the stand and secured with bolts.Turning a crank on the side of the stand rotates the engine via a gearbox.The chain drive is for the vertical movement of the engine.I didn't get a good briefing on the actual attachment process,but it seems to involve a split brass collar and a securing cap on the end of the prop shaft.I'll split this into a few entries as I'm having trouble adding pictures.

I'll bet Gary could egt us up to speed on that engine hoist / mount. I remember seeing one with a B-24 engine attached to it last time I was at Midland.

Butler has three Whiting Stands.Most of these pictures are of the mounting collar for an empty stand and a prop build up stand both with and without the mounting collar as a demonstration of the mounting position.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it Larry,very interesting!

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Those that can do,those that can't be bothered,TALK about it.
Volunteer with Classic Flight and a member of Beech Restorations team.
http://beechrestorations.wordpress.com/about-us/
http://www.classicflight.com.

Alan,you're welcome.I was curious myself in how the engine was attached to the stand.I took some detailed interior pictures in Tanker 60,which is an ex-Eastern Airlines DC-7B.There are a number of minor differences from Tankers 62 and 66,which were both straight DC-7's built for United Airlines.T60 has a Sperry Ignition Analyzer in an additional radio rack behind the co-pilot seat for one.It used to have a fairly sophisticated 1950's vintage flight director,but it became too difficult to maintain.The empty holes in the center of the instrument panel are for a couple of Garmin 430 GPS's,which are being upgraded at the moment.

Here are some additional interior pictures of Tanker 60,including the APU that comes in very handy as the DC-7 has only two 12 volt batteries and the airlines relied on external power.

Larry you are a real treasure trove of information on those old planes. I enjoy your posts very much. Would you care to share some information on The APU that you posted a photo of. When is it used? Can it it started from the cockpit or does some one half to go back to it and crank it up?Who was the orginal manfactuer? Are parts hard to find for it? It looks like it is a two cylinder engine is that correct? Thanks Carl

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...Larry...this thread keeps gettin' better and better...

...just for reference this is T-60 at San Bernardino (SBD)...17 OCT 1999...




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Nice picture of T60 Sledge.You have posted some really fine shots of tankers.

Carl,the APU was used for aux power on a large number of military aircraft from B-17 through at least B-36's as well as most large piston engine transports in the USAF through the 1960's.C-124's that didn't have the turbine APU had two of these things.The C-119's that I flew in briefly had this APU,as did TBM's C-123's.On the transports,the controls for the APU,including the choke and throttle were in the cockpit area.

On our DC-7 installations,we have a switch in the cockpit to start the APU and bring the generator on line.We can see if it comes on line with the voltmeter in the Bus position.If you look carefully at the picture of the aft overhead switch panel,you can see the APU Control switches and an amber light just above the black item that looks a bit like a surveillance camera (actually it's a flood light).The three position switch has "Off" in the middle,"Start" in the forward (or down in the picture) position and "Run" in the aft (up) position.The other switch by the amber light is to switch between fuel source #1 or #2,which switches from the left or right wing/tail heater supply.The amber light stays on while the APU is running.It can be started in flight.I sometimes fire it up prior to landing at night as we have a very heavy electrical load with reversing the props and from the landing lights.

It takes a little while to get the APU to light off when it's cold.Since we don't have remote choke or throttle controls,it's set to run at it's goverened speed as soon as it fires up.Once it warms up a bit,we put it on line.In really cold weather,either the pilot or co-pilot will go back to the APU and take the cover of of the box and manually operate the choke and throttle until the engine warms up.We also have a control in the cockpit for the fire extinguisher bottle that's attached to the APU box.You can see the APU box just aft of the rear entrance door in the bottom picture below.

I'll have to take a closeup of the APU dataplate,but it's made by Ranger and is a V-32 D2 Accessory Power Plant.It runs on avgas from the old tail heater system,I believe.Parts are getting rare,but there were many thousands of these units built and Butler bought as many as possible over the years.I'll see if I can get more info in the next day or two on the engine and starter-generator that makes up the APU.

Larry Thanks so much for the additional photos and information on the APUs. Why is additional electrical power required when reversing the props? Are your DC-7s equipted with Hamilton Standard propellers? Are the feathering and reversing pumps run with electricity. Thanks Carl

Carl,you're correct in thinking that the DC-7 uses Hamilton Standard hydromatic props.The feather pump on each engine runs continuously from as soon as the prop starts into reverse until it has completely returned to forward pitch in the governed range.The pumps are very high capacity and draw about 90 amps each while running.The oil that is used to force the prop dome piston to hold the blades in reverse and to return to forward thrust is dumped into the engine case.The scavenge pumps in the front and rear sumps are very efficient in returning this oil to the oil tank.If one of the engines should die before getting scavenged,you need to restart it and be sure to scavenge before servicing the oil tank as there can be 10-20 gallons of oil trapped in the engine if things don't go well.If you top off the oil tank in that state,it is possible to rupture the oil tank the next time that the engine is run.

As to the amount of electrical load with feather pumps running;once a co-pilot on Tanker 62 demonstrated for a tourist the procedure involved in reversing the props.With the power off,he pulled the reverse gate,which allows the throttles to be pulled back past forward idle into the reverse range.He thought that he'd put everything back to normal when he closed the airplane up for the night,but on turning on the master switch in the moning for a pre-flight,all 4 feather pumps started running trying to reverse the props.It took him a minute before he decided to shut the power off and find a mechanic.During that minute with a power draw of approximately 360 amps,both batteries melted around the posts and had to be replaced.

Below are a couple of pictures that show the feather pump mounted below the oil tank inside it's stainless steel heat shield with the bright orange hose heading forward toward the prop governor.





I'll post some pictures of the interior of Tanker 66 in a day or two.In the meantime,here's a picture of the APU in Tanker 66 as well as the controls for it,which are just above the 4 red guarded switches to the right center of the picture of the overhead panel.Tanker 62 has similar controls.

Larry thanks so much for your explanations and photos. I have had an interest in those old piston driven airliners since the 1950s when as a child I traveled to Europe in a Constellation. I remember at night over the North Atlantic the exhaust pipes would glow orange and a blue flame would be emitted from them. It is amazing to me that such a comlex piece of macherney such as your tankers can be kept in airworthy condition after all these years. thanks again Carl

That looks like a B-29-C/KC-97 putt-putt you have installed there, right? Thanks for the great pictures. Brings back alot of memories of the good ol' days in the airline business.

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It's what you learn after you think you know it all, that counts.