A Freight Dog's aeroplane
Surprised at the attention this post has attracted, I am sure there are many who have only heard of the CL44 spoken of in hushed tones by elderly aircrew. Here are some of the reasons why:
The CL44 was a large aircraft for its day, just a few inches smaller than the B707 that followed it. The CL44 had a maximum takeoff weight of just over 95 tons, could carry 29 tons of freight and its four Rolls Royce twin spool turboprop engines could take it a 1000 miles on 5 tons of fuel. The stretched version was for many years the largest passenger carrier on the north Atlantic. The ’Hi-Loader’ we see on every major airport today owes its design origins to the CL44 freighter. The CL44 held the world long range flying record of almost 24hrs continuously airborne, (right up to the introduction of the B747SP).
During one of the most remarkable times in the development of global airfreight, you can imagine that life on board a CL44 freighter was quite unique.