This NG is turning

Rich Air down at Miami Intl was flying C46s out to the BWI - don't
know if they're still using them but it was ideal for that run. Part
of my practical for my A&P was on one of Rich's R2800s.
Walt BJ

Dale wrote:

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

Yes! I found some pics of them at Fairbanks last night. Looks like
Everts have two or 3 of them and all in good nick.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/636071/L/

Very pretty plane. (Some amazing pics of all sorts of things on
airliners.net too - easily while away hours on the search button...)

Dave.

Yes, I had about a thousand hours or so in C-46s, most in the
left seat.

I have about 800 hours in the R5C-1, which is the PROPER name of that
aircraft. (:-)) The Marine Corps had two squadrons of them (VMR 153
and VMR 252) at Cherry Point from the end of WW II till about 1953,
when they were replaced with R4Q-2s (which the Air Force mistakenly
called the C-119).

I believe the Marines flew them in the Pacific during WW II, but I
was in high school then, so I'm not sure. BTW, Tyrone Power was a
pilot in VMR 252 in the Pacific.

Ablout half of our airplanes were unpainted, the other half were
blue. But where the blue paint had worn off, there was olive-drab
paint underneath, so I always assumed the Navy got those airplanes
and gave them to the Marines, after the Army wore them out.

Needless to say, it required a bit more run length for T/Os
and landings.

Although half a century has passed since I flew one, I think we
operated them in and out of 3,000 foot strips.

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.

IIRC, the R5C-1 was the equivalent of the C46a, and had no hydraulic
boost. It was heavy on the controls, but not too bad; it was a lot
easier to fly than the PB4Y-2 (single-finned B-24) I had flown before.

I wonder if any of them are
still flying - the last one I heard of was around 5 years back.

I saw one being fully refurbished in Red Deer, Alberta, about 1995.
Later I saw several at Fairbanks, Alaska. They fly supplies to the
many villages unreachable except by air.

The engines are a tad more complex than the R-1280s

PW R-2800s. Hell of a good engine. The Curtiss Electric props were
troublesome, though.

vince norris

ubject: C-46 -was- This NG is turning
From: vincent p. norris
Date: 9/14/2004 6:12 PM Pac

PW R-2800s. Hell of a good engine. The Curtiss Electric props were
troublesome, though.

vince norris

Yeah. The same with the B-26 Marauders.If a runaway prop threw a blade there
was always a chance it could behead a pilot. The props were in perfect line
with the cockpit.Luckily that rarely happened.






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

vincent p. norris wrote:
PW R-2800s. Hell of a good engine. The Curtiss Electric props were
troublesome, though.


The early ones also had electric fuel pumps that had a bad tendency to go BOOM
from time to time. Not all C-46s lost over the Hump flew into the mountainside.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN


http://www.mortimerschnerd.com

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

Would you like your very own C46?...... It was still there
around 1980, walled in by apartment buildings, borrow pits, and the
expressway.

I neglected to mention that one is now parked at the Curtiss Museum in
Hammondsport, New York. Might be that one. It was trucked in in
pieces, I'm told.

vince norris

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...

I neglected to mention that one is now parked at the Curtiss Museum in
Hammondsport, New York. Might be that one. It was trucked in in
pieces, I'm told.

vince norris

Maybe indirectly, perhaps. The one at the Curtis Museum was moved there
from Wings of Eagles Museum, Elmira.

Tex