BOAC Stratocruisers across the Atlantic
 

Those of us brought up on turbine powered aircraft had it easy compared with these. Does anyone have similar stories to post?

More Speedbird Strats

The 1955 film 'Out of the Clouds' dealt mainly with Stratocruiser Ops out of Heathrow; when 'Capt' James Robertson Justice has to div back to Heathrow with an engine problem, he is given a talkdown using PAR for his landing and the phraseology used by the controller is little different from that still used for talkdowns nowadays.
I can remember my parents taking us to 'London Airport' several times in the early '50s and watching 'Strats' doing power checks from the public viewing areas, firstly northside, then across the runway whilst the Central Area was still being built (and before the tunnel was built when you were 'marshalled 'across the taxiway and runway) then later still from the brand new 'Queens Building'.

My dear old Dad was a BOAC Navigator after the war, before becoming a pilot. He was a Stratocruiser navigator for a while and rated his time on the Stratocruiser as a Navigator as some of the best of his career.

I can't find his logbook as i write, but I know it contains such gems as "turned back at 40 West due headwinds" and on one occasion, an Eastbound crossing of some 16 hours out of New York has "record crossing" in the remarks. Can't recall where they landed though, probably Prestwick.

Post-war Britain, with rationing etc., was an austere place. Luxury goods, alcohol and tobacco were in short supply and expensive. Leaving New York, he once told me the Navigator would get in hours early to go through all the flight planning permutations, trying to ensure either the quickest trip, or if there was any chance they could make it direct. Lots of involvement from the Captain, lots of options explored. No organised track system in those days, weather ships en route, pressure pattern flying, intense briefings from the Meterologist, face to face no less. Then, the Irish opened the duty free shop in Shannon - the world's first.

After that he reckoned, no Stratocruiser ever flew past Shannon without stopping. Giving each Skipper a bottle of Scotch before departing New York would have saved a fortune!

Pan Am had one ditch beside a Pacific weather ship after engine problems meant it couldn't make the West Coast of the US with fuel remaining. I also believe, the Propeller caused enormous problems as many or more than the complex "corncob" radials engines., wasn't it Electric and with a Magnesium hub? Prone to runaways and fires?

As for the hinged fin: the 707 had the same feature and I'd be surprised of he 737 didn't have it too. I once saw a Monarch 720 outside their old black hangar at Luton, (northernmost corner of the apron, besides the Britannia ops block. Both gone now I believe) the 720's fin was folded flat on top of the right hand stabiliser in order to get it in the hangar.

Closest I've ever been to one since chldhood: the Musess de l"air et Espace at Le Bourget. They used to have a KC-97 parked outside. Magnificent machine.

A folding vertical stabilizer sounds like an accident waiting to happen ...

Does anyone have a photo of one ?

How about a KC-135? The B-52 uses the same system.
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....824c1c518a.jpg

Dave, I've got some time on the 737 and as far as I'm aware.it didn't have a folding fin. However, I'm always learning and someone could surprise me

I was equally unaware of a folding fin on any Boeing jet airliner.

I'm strugging to get my head around the image of folding a 720's fin to get it into the hangar. Clearly, as can be seen from the KC-135 photo, fin attachments aren't designed to be capable of supporting the weight of the fin when it's folded (hence the crane).

So I'd be fascinated to know how you move an aircraft into a hangar once the fin is folded ...

Unless that's how you get it back up? :) This is all news to me as well. Amazing the things you learn on this page!

You mean using a crane, as opposed to all standing on the h/stab and heaving? :O

Nice video of a KC-135 fin being folded here: https://www.dvidshub.net/video/356002/fin-fold

Hmmm . . . prime need for getting the tail in for servicing: the folding fin.


One of no the most convincing, UFO story I've ever seen was an BOAC Stratocruiser's captain, crew and some passengers seeing an object with orbiting satellites that IIRC went inside the 'mother ship'. My words. I've kept the article for decades but put somewhere in the last move. It was published in a science magazine but the only Google I can find now is the one that looks more than a tad schoolboyish.

There is Pathe news interviewing the crew which I hadn't seen until c 2012 I recall the captains saying far from being frightening, it gave a feeling of wellbeing.

If you're ever in Colorado Springs, Colorado, you can have lunch or dinner sitting in an actual KC-97 at a place called "The Airplane Restaurant". It's near the C-Springs airport.
I had lunch there a couple months ago - it was pretty good and even the wife thought it was pretty cool to have lunch sitting in an old KC-97.

BSD ... started my BOAC career as a trainee Nav. on Strats. any chance that I might have flown with your dad ? When did he finish as a Strat Nav. ?

Quote:

---

I also believe, the Propeller caused enormous problems as many or more than the complex "corncob" radials engines., wasn't it Electric and with a Magnesium hub? Prone to runaways and fires?

---

Not on the crew, but I remember a tale of a crew having a No. 3 engine runaway prop. one night, and their fear that it would fall off and hit the fuselage with disastrous, possibly fatal, results?

The Flt/Eng moved into the Nav.compartment behind the main flight deck to observe the wayward prop with the Aldis signal lamp that was still carried in those days - in the event of VHF loss and the need to use visual light signals to get ATC circuit and landing signals from the airport tower, I kid you not ! - to better keep his eye on the prop hub which was glowing red and getting hotter and hotter, and when he figured that it was about to separate used the intercom to shout "NOW", at which the Capt. put the aircraft into a fast, and steep, left bank. This threw the prop. safely over the top of the fuselage.

Unbelievably this subsequently happened to the same Captain at a subsequent date, but he was experienced this time !

Some more images of a B-52 fin folding here: https://www.barksdale.af.mil/News/Fe...d-fix-and-fly/
I think that the crane is there to support the weight during the process, as for how it is supported when it's folded, I cannot answer that question. I cannot point to the source right now but I'm pretty sure I've read in various places that the early, larger fins on the 707 family supported the fin folding so that it could fit into the hangars of those days, or perhaps even as a result of its military pedigree in the C-135 programme.

Re folding fins.
The Saab 37 series had folding fins.

Monarch B720’s sat in the hangar at Luton for a month or so, on a big check, with the fin ‘folded over’ unsupported. I suspect the earlier photo of a US KC135 (post #5) had either been just lowered, or about to be lifted by the attached crane. Unless Boeing had changed the system for the US military.

At Luton the B720 fin was folded down and rested on the horizontal stab. to allow the aircraft to be pushed into the northeast side of hangar 1/2. There was a large girder supporting the valley of the roof where the two hangars were joined together and this was too low for the fin to pass under. A BAC 1-11 would go under.

Looking at some more fin photos on the Net, it appears to be more a question of geometry rather than weight.

Here's another view of the KC-135 fin folded, captured from a USAF video:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b86d4a3078.jpg

You don't need to be an engineer to work out that, if the crane is removed without any other means of support, the fin will continue to hinge downwards until it clobbers the tailplane. Hence the crane in the photo is continuing to take the load to keep the fin horizontal (actually in this instance as a preliminary to complete removal of the fin to replace the rudder).

This photo, on the other hand, of 720 OY-DSK before it was impounded and broken up at Luton, appears to show how MAEL got round the problem:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6f0a17ba24.jpg

Rather than defying gravity, you can just discern between the base of the fin and the fuselage what appears to be some kind of pad which, in conjunction with the pin attachments for the fin, maintains it in a more-or-less horizontal plane with a reasonable amount of clearance from the tailplane - it's clearly not resting on it.

The photo from Flickr rather unhelpfully claims that it was taken on October 2010 (which is obviously nonsense), so it's not clear whether the 720 in question ever flew again after the photo was taken.



We're still no nearer knowing whether the 707 shared the 720's ability to fold the fin. Given the close relationship between the two types, it might seem a reasonable assumption - but on the other hand, wth many more 707s built, it has so far proved impossible to track down photographic evidence.

Any offers?

Wow! Neat pictures of folding fins.

ExSp33dbrid - sent you a private message. Meantime, That engineer would have had a real incentive to call "Now" at just the right time. Getting it wrong I guess would have meant seeing the prop come to join him at the Navigators station!!!

BSD.

FWIW, the Nav station on the USAF C97 was actually behind the Capt. seat on the aft part of the flight deck. It was not like the Connie which had the Nav sation located outside of the cockpit. Carry on please:)

The stewardess will help if you can't get it up.Devil
(Airplane)

Back to the Strat. It was a customer choice whether you had Hamilton Standard hydraulic propeller control units, or Curtiss electric ones. Some aircraft were later changed from one to the other, I seem to recall the Curtiss electric was the one that fell out of favour. Along with this were the choices of hollow or solid prop blades, again some changed these later. The aircraft had more than its fair share, for its limited production, of runaway props and shed blades.

The props on an R-4360 engine must have been transmitting the most power of any reciprocating engine built, and would have been up against the technology limits of the day. There's an R-4360 on display in the Udvar-Hazy museum at Washington Dulles, what a huge engine.

7 cylinders to a row, with 2 spark plugs to each cylinder. 4 rows of cylinders per engine. 4 engines. That's 224 spark plugs. Apparently there was some shock loading failure mode which required the changing of all an aircraft's spark plugs. An engineer of the era wrote of doing these multiple times, all on weekend overtime, and making enough to put down the deposit on a decent house.

Pity I was only 14 but I knew one of the 'girls'. But I can rember her saying that she had just walked the Atlantic.

Maybe, but the BOAC ones that I worked on had a route to the co-pilots seat BEHIND the engineers panel, he passed the F/Eng and turned left behind the panel, and the Nav followed but turned right down a step ( or Two ? ) to the cubicle on the Starboard side beind the rest of the flight deck.

I have seen that configuration just once and I believe it might have been in a former NWA aircraft? NWA also had the abrieviated FE station that faced forward as I recall. Ditto for UAL which were converted at significant expense when sold to BOAC. Do you recall any of these details?

Nope, only recall the sideways facing F/Eng panel not attached to the fuselage, so that the F/O could walk behind it, and the Nav. cubicle off the flt. deck to the right.

Didn't Aero Spacelines buy all Northwest's surviving Stratocruisers ?

There is part of the nose of a Northwest Stratocruiser at the San Diego Air & Space Museum at Gillespie Field. Is it genuine or a KC-97?

KC-97L 53-0200 in disguise.

Ah well, it was always a great scheme! Thanks...

Dave, I think you may be right. I was on the original Gupppy when it was first undergoing the conversion at On Mark down in Van Nuys. I believe it had the more traditional FE set up now that you mention it. In addition the 2nd hand ac that BOAC purchased had square windows which was a UAL config, therefore i suspect that UAL had the abbreviated FE station. I read once where Lockheed did the conversions, but i cannot find that reference anymore.

Yes, but they were mostly taken to Mojave, and (slowly) robbed for parts for KC-97/Guppy support. One however, N74603, went on to Tucson, where it sat in the desert effectively complete (including engines and props) for the best part of 25 years, last Northwest Strat flight September 1960, until it was distressingly broken up in 1983, still with faded remnants of its Northwest livery. The tail was cleanly cut off first, for some Guppy support purpose, and this revealed that the interior was still all complete as well.

Here it is a few years before breaking
https://www.airliners.net/photo/Aero...ruiser/1251724

The Israel Air Force kept their ex-Pan Am tanker fleet of them going until 1975, but then broke them up.

There was a series of articles in Propliner magazine quite some years ago, one chapter each issue on each of the operators, which covered all the combinations of propeller types, window shape, etc. Each purchaser effectively took a unique configuration.

Not only were there 224 plugs, i knew a ,mechanic who used to work on C-124's in the USAF and he said they used to change cylinders almost as often as plugs.

There is a reason why few air-cooled radials had more than two rows of pistons. Cooling to the last row on the R-4360 was always problematic - there was simply too much blockage, and the air was already well-heated before it got to the fourth row.

During my research about my fathers career I came across these documents showing his flight in G-ALSA RMA CATHAY Statocruser on his atlantic crossing from New York to London in November 1953. At 0300 hrs the passenger written flight update shows they would pass HM Queen Elizabeth's aircraft on its way from London to Gander. G-ALSA subsequetly crashed on Christmas day 1954 at Prestick and all on board perished. The accident details are on Wikapedia.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....41929938c8.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....99158a4525.jpg

LOONRAT - Thanks for the Memory ! You will notice that the track passed by Weather Ship "C" ( Charlie ) ? This was one of the ships dotted across the Atlantic to make frequent upper atmosphere readings and surface observations for landbound meteorolgists to create aviation weather forecasts, but also transmitted a radio signal from which the Navigator could get a position line bearing, and a VHF service to help with what at times was very scratchy HF reception. Our Captains of that era wouldn't battle with the HF, leaving that to the F/O, but one offered to make the VHF position report for the F/O, it being easier. Unfortunately he had a speech impediment and the exchange went something like this .... Ossshunn stttayyyshunnn Chchcharlie etc. painfully on and on to the embarrassment of the F/O and Flt/Eng listening to him. Finally he finished with Chchchcharlie dddid you ccccopy ? Immediately a languid American voice came back with ... " Jeez, did we copy ? We've carved it into the fxxxxng deck !! "

The weather ships were out there for 3 month voyages ( I believe ? ) and Charlie was a US Coastguard service out of Boston. Radio operators bored out of their minds often asked to speak to one of our stewardesses, and would request their name, and "Vital Statistics", and one year the crew of Charile ran a "beauty contest" amongst stewardesses from the various airlines that they communicated with, and chose one to give a weeks holiday in Boston to meet the crew when they next returned to base. Nice.

Happy Days.

We had a thread about O.P. Jones a while back, and in it I copied this anecdote from a book by David Beaty:

ExSp33db1rd,

That would have been Captain D F Satchwell. I remember flying with him on Britannia 312s in 1963 from London to Manchester, Prestwick and Montreal, a 14.50 hour duty day. To me, as a very young lad, I was amazed the company allowed such an old man to command an aeroplane. Today, of course, I know how wrong I was. He was a delightful man, much given to wearing an old tweed jacket when off duty with leather elbow patches and frayed cuffs. His stammer was appalling, but when the going became tough, it disappeared entirely.

Lovely maps. Flying from North America to the U.K. in the late 1940's? I always carried bananas and an assortment of nylon stockings. Yup. I was kinda popular.

Just don't do it on a hot afternoon with the sun beating down:) Gets a bit toasty in the aircraft vice the in-building seats. But yes, it is cool.

Thanks for the memory! Satch. Spot on, yes one of the more approachable N.Atl. Barons. One could fly with him alright, it was obvious that he was saying Gear Up, or Flaps 30,or similar, but conversation was at times a struggle!