This NG is turning

George Z. Bush wrote:


Out of curiosity, did you ever fly the C-46 at all, and if so, how did
it compare to the C-47? I've often wondered what the difference in run
length for take offs and landings was.

Finally.....somebody asked me something I can speak about from personal
experience. Yes, I had about a thousand hours or so in C-46s, most in the
left seat.

That's enough left seat time to have memorised the individual screw
holes in the instrument panel. From memory there were only a few
thousand made, unlike the C-47 - did many of them end up in the ETO? I
know they were common in the CBI on the Hump, but I've seen little
reference to them in Europe. I suppose the smaller numbers, extra
complexity and much greater fuel usage limited them a bit. Bigger than a
B-17, too.

operations. Needless to say, it required a bit more run length for T/Os
and landings. In the air, unless the hydraulic control boosters were
operable, it handled about like what I imagine picking up a horse one
handed might be.

I think the hydraulic boosters were removed when they were demilitarised
- I vaguely recall the pilot of one of the South American "airlines"
saying they were put back to manual and required both feet on the panel
to do anything at speed or in bad weather. I wonder if any of them are
still flying - the last one I heard of was around 5 years back. The
engines are a tad more complex than the R-1280s and I guess parts would
be a problem.

gliders. I recall once (as a lark) taking off a PSP runway in Italy on a
training flight with the wind directly on the nose at about 25 mph on
cruise settings just to see if it would do it.

There is still one at least flying locally - occasionally hear it
droning overhead and go out and watch it slowly drift across the sky. I
used to see a lot of them 40 years back coming in to our country strip
and in strong wind you'd could almost outrun them on the flare. Lovely
things. There's one from the RAAF Research & Development Unit in the
local air museum - it was taken out of service about 10 years back after
a belly landing. It wasn't repaired and the damage from the landing is
minimal - just a few small scrapes and dents which is testament to the
strength of construction.


Dave.

"David Wallace" wrote in message
...
George Z. Bush wrote:


That's enough left seat time to have memorised the individual screw
holes in the instrument panel. From memory there were only a few
thousand made, unlike the C-47 - did many of them end up in the ETO? I
know they were common in the CBI on the Hump, but I've seen little
reference to them in Europe.

During its lifetime, there were over 3,000 of them built. In the ETO, they were
used to tow gliders in the Rhein crossing of 1945, although I never saw one
until I joined the Reserves back in the States after demob in 1946.

http://www.uswarplanes.net/c46.htm

George Z.

That's enough left seat time to have memorised the individual screw
holes in the instrument panel. From memory there were only a few
thousand made, unlike the C-47 - did many of them end up in the ETO? I
know they were common in the CBI on the Hump, but I've seen little
reference to them in Europe.

During its lifetime, there were over 3,000 of them built. In the ETO,
they were
used to tow gliders in the Rhein crossing of 1945, although I never saw
one
until I joined the Reserves back in the States after demob in 1946.

Air America flew them in Vietnam and other places. I used to see them all
the time in Thailand, coming and going.

Leanne

Subject: C-46 -was- This NG is turning
From: "Leanne"
Date: 9/14/2004 8:54 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

That's enough left seat time to have memorised the individual screw
holes in the instrument panel. From memory there were only a few
thousand made, unlike the C-47 - did many of them end up in the ETO? I
know they were common in the CBI on the Hump, but I've seen little
reference to them in Europe.

During its lifetime, there were over 3,000 of them built. In the ETO,
they were
used to tow gliders in the Rhein crossing of 1945, although I never saw
one
until I joined the Reserves back in the States after demob in 1946.

Air America flew them in Vietnam and other places. I used to see them all
the time in Thailand, coming and going.

Leanne


We were coming back form a mission in Germany flying west to our base in
Pontoise when we saw some C-46's towing gliders East. We later found out that
we had witnessed the beginning of Market Garden.






Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

While I've never been a member of an aircrew, I cannot help but marvel
at the longevity of some aircraft designs. It's really hard to think of
the Gooney Bird or the Buff, and many others, as soulless.

I've seen little reference to them in Europe.

They were used in Operation Varsity, the crossing of the Rhine,
earning a mixed reputation for survivability in the ETO threat
environment. The gist of it is that they were supposed to catch fire
too easily, and in a uniquely engulfing way, when hit. Some claim
this is more anecdotal than statistical (i.e., did that formation just
happen to encounter particularly intense and effective ground fire?).
Fortunately the defeat of Germany was not far away by then.

See for instance
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...Jun/boston.htm
as well as
http://www.brooks.af.mil/HSW/HO/ww2plane.html
and page 404 and footnote 8 on page 407 of
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil...reen_light.pdf
[modem users should note that this document takes a while to download]
Compare
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...Jun/boston.htm

Certainly it suffered by comparison to the C-47's reputation as a
tough and dependable aircraft, even though, as far as I know, that
revered plane didn't have self-sealing fuel tanks either (they were
experimented with, but I don't know whether that ever come to fruition
operationally).

Finally, here is a link to an interesting story by someone who flew
the C-46 (not during WW2) under different circumstances at a couple of
points in his life:
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182136-1.html

Note that I speak without firsthand experience or deep research
knowledge in the above matters -- just some pointers to what others
have written.

Cheers,
--Joe

Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:
Finally, here is a link to an interesting story by someone who flew
the C-46 (not during WW2) under different circumstances at a couple of
points in his life:
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182136-1.html


Fantastic link! Thanks for posting it.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN


http://www.mortimerschnerd.com

In article ,
(David Wallace) wrote:


I think the hydraulic boosters were removed when they were demilitarised
- I vaguely recall the pilot of one of the South American "airlines"
saying they were put back to manual and required both feet on the panel
to do anything at speed or in bad weather. I wonder if any of them are
still flying - the last one I heard of was around 5 years back. The
engines are a tad more complex than the R-1280s and I guess parts would
be a problem.

Everts Air is still flying C-46s in Alaska hauling fuel/cargo.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 07:01:11 -0800, Dale wrote:

In article ,
(David Wallace) wrote:


I think the hydraulic boosters were removed when they were demilitarised
- I vaguely recall the pilot of one of the South American "airlines"
saying they were put back to manual and required both feet on the panel
to do anything at speed or in bad weather. I wonder if any of them are
still flying - the last one I heard of was around 5 years back. The
engines are a tad more complex than the R-1280s and I guess parts would
be a problem.

Everts Air is still flying C-46s in Alaska hauling fuel/cargo.

Many years ago during a military training jaunt I saw one of the
most amazing aircraft related sights I could ever hope to
witness.
I was walking back to barracks after breakfast and noticed a
line of airplanes off to the west. 9 of them, twin engine and
spraying something, probably for spruce budworm.
I though they might be DC-3s but as they got closer I noticed they
were too chubby for that and it hit me, C-46s in echelon flying
a spray block.
Then it happened. They ceased spraying and the guy at the extreme
right of the line ( form my viewpoint ) racked around in a 180 degree
turn.
In succession, the other 8 airplanes went up and over executing their
own 180s.
It was like they were on a string.
When it was over they had reversed course and were flying back onto
their spray block in echelon.
The spray came back on just as the last airplane resumed position.
I know a little something about the process of aerial spraying and
its difficult enough with a navigator and 3-6 smaller aircraft ( often
TBF/TBM ). This was way more complex.

IBM

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Subject: C-46 -was- This NG is turning
From: Dale
Date: 9/14/2004 8:01 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(David Wallace) wrote:


I think the hydraulic boosters were removed when they were demilitarised
- I vaguely recall the pilot of one of the South American "airlines"
saying they were put back to manual and required both feet on the panel
to do anything at speed or in bad weather. I wonder if any of them are
still flying - the last one I heard of was around 5 years back. The
engines are a tad more complex than the R-1280s and I guess parts would
be a problem.

Everts Air is still flying C-46s in Alaska hauling fuel/cargo.

--
Dale L. Falk


I got some C-46 stick time with boosters and as I remember it it had R-2800'.s.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer