Would you like your very own C46? I just remembered when Miami built
the Dolphin Expressway, which runs parallel to and just south of MIA
9Right, there was a C46 parked south of the right-of-way on airport
property. The owner was warned but never got around to moving it and
the Expressway effectively imprisoned the '46. It was still there
around 1980, walled in by apartment buildings, borrow pits, and the
expressway. I suppose all the goodies have been stripped from it.
FWIW the history of the C46 was sort of a precursor of the C82 and
C119. Air Force loaded it too high, just as they did with the 82/119,
and when an engine failed a lot of times the bird went in. The CAA/FAA
had a whole chapter on operating the C46 specifying loadings a good
deal under those used by the military in WW2. I knew a pilot who
ferried one from Burma to Karachi - single-handed. He said the only
snag was fuel management - he had to trim it real good and then get
up, go back, and switch tanks. He was a champ ping-pong player; guess
the celerity came in handy on that trip.
Walt BJ