Old Smokers
 

I thought I'd start a thread to show photos of early 'smoking' jet airliners. Does anyone have any others they could share?

Spantax CV990 Coronado departing runway 08 Hurn Airport, UK.

http://i1294.photobucket.com/albums/...ps14fa8927.jpg

Spantax Coronado?

Edit to add

DANG! just found that you told us about this in the "Lulsgate Cowboy" thread

But honest, I guessed the picture before reading the answer...

Fantastic! Plenty of shots of smoking CV990s knocking around the www.

G&T / I&C

My fault - should have made it clearer. Now edited original post.

I twice saw Spantax CV990s take off from runway 17 at Hurn about 1972 or 73. 4800 ft or there abouts. Very strong southerly wind but still a bit scary.

Normally after departure you could see the smoke trail for miles as they headed South if the sky was clear.

I saw one do that too. I was sitting in the rest room of the College of ATC reading a paper when there was this sudden almighty noise as the Coronado climbed out; as the rest room faces sorry faced south it was shielded from the noise prior to this.

I42 I was looking for that one!

There's a YouTube vid out there - that I can't find - that shows a whole group of pre fan-equipped B-52's taking off, one behind the other. By the time the fourth guy is rolling, he's solid IFR in smoke. Can't remember the base, it may have been Plattsburgh, if so they would have been able to see the smoke from Montreal. :D

pigboat,

I know roughly where that LAX photo was taken from, and I think the Captain was saying "Raise the gear to clear the fence!" ;)

This may not be the video you remember, but it is pretty good - from the movie "A Gathering of Eagles" (Rock Hudson 1963):



Incidentally, can anyone tell me why water-injections caused so much extra smoke?

Spantax had some modifications done to the burner cans of the Coronado's CJ805-23B engines, resulting in a significant - but not total - reduction in smoke.

Sometime in the early 1960s I was a passenger on a Swissair Coronado - HB-ICE - going Lagos to Geneva non-stop. My previous experience of takeoffs at LOS had been on BOAC Boeing 707s via Kano, so I was aware that this takeoff was going to be somewhat more lengthy. Cor, I'll say so! It went on for ever until we rotated ... and then not a lot seemed to happen, except palm trees started whipping past the wingtips. Eventually, positive rate of climb was established, and we were on our way.

In a Shell Aviation magazine of the time, the Swissair Coronado fleet captain described it as "A rather 'hot' aeroplane, challenging in some of its handling aspects, but very rewarding to fly." He was answering the query about the need for nosewheel braking.
:)

Presumably they had a desperate need for less drag to climb away!

it was the action of Gear Up - that produced the Positive Rate of Climb. :ok:

Quote:
"Geez, they got the gear coming up quick enough on the AA 707, didn't they?"

Which video was that?

Paxboy
I think there are a few pilots around who would say the same thing re some A340 models. One comment I have heard was take off was achieved at a hot and high airport due to the curviture of the earth !;)

If you are going tp do a smoky take off; do it propely.

http://i229.photobucket.com/albums/e...ver/b47b-3.jpg

I42 that looks like it. :ok:

Normal after takeoff checklist protocol usually goes like this:

Pilot Not Flying ... Positive Rate
Pilot Flying.......... Gear Up

I'll bet the PNF called the whole thing - Positiverategearup - in a squeaky voice. ;)

Chris Scott,
I think he was referring to the second photo in the thread!

Thanks Broadreach. Considering I did my own 707 base-training with AA at DFW, I was a bit slow on that one! :{ But, by then, the JT3D (turbofans) were producing a lot less smoke than the stove-pipes in that photo.

Quote from PAXboy:
"...it was the action of Gear Up - that produced the Positive Rate of Climb."

On a more serious note, that's unlikely. The opening of the gear doors adds so much drag that - as a general rule - it will take even longer to reach screen height, because maintaining V2 (or whatever) will require a lower pitch angle. So selecting the gear up is not going to get you over the perimeter wall: the benefit will be delayed until retraction is almost completed.

By the way, even the 707-320C (with the turbofans) could struggle out of LAX on a hot day at MTOW. Passing Vr, you couldn't afford to rotate too enthusiastically (as I once did) or the a/c could sit on the runway.

American, along with Pan Am and Qantas, converted their original 707-120 (and American their early 720-020) aircraft to fan engines very quickly indeed, some of the later 1960 build were changed over after less than one year of operation. I presume Pratt & Whitney offered some sort of trade-in for this. TWA didn't bother, and stuck with theirs until well into the 1970s - in fact they later picked up some secondhand straight-pipe ones.

The early intercontinental 707s couldn't be converted to fan engines as they had more significant airframe differences, so everybody was stuck with those.

The B47 above is reminiscent of an Airspeed Ambassador (Centaurus sleeve-valve piston engines) on cold engine start after standing for a couple of days .......

None of the airlines converted their 707-320 'Intercintinental' models to fans but decades later the Israeli Air Force converted 2 ex-Sabena -329s('128' and '140') to JT-3D fans (they were perhaps already tankers?)

Photo Search Results | Airliners.net