307 Stratoliner

I'm out of touch. Did Hasegawa ever release their 1:72 B-25? If so, how great is it?

Ken

Not yet.

Steven you would not happen to be in the Aurora/Naperville/Bolingbrook IL. area would you? I was coming out of Krispy Kreme (mmm donuts!) on Weber rd. when I look up and I saw what at first I thought was a natural metal B-17. It made a long wide circle and I could not get a good side view or wing plan view. I then thought maybe B-29 because the rear fuselage aft of the tail did not look right to me for a 17. I then thought maybe B-50. It could have been a 307! I made the wife drive a ways to see if he would turn back our direction but he was off going west. I assumed maybe to the Dupage county airport. Cheers, Max Bryant

A B-17, I think its "Aluminum Overcast", is doing rides out of Aurora this weekend. Its passed over my house, going up the Lakefront, a couple of times today as I was doing yard work.

RLM

Steven lives in the Seattle area.

...

No, there's is only ONE 307 in existence. It was put into flight worthy condition in Seattle by Boeing retirees. It was headed for the Smithsonian but crashed into water on it's test flight sometime ago. It now been restored, and is supposed to go the the fly-in at Oshkosh on it's way to permanent display at the NASM Udvar-Hazy center at Dulles.

They rolled it out after its swimming expedition (or was that the glider experiment?) and re-restoration a couple weeks ago I'd say. It's been overhead this weekend and since I live near Boeing Field, it went near my house today while I was home.

Let's hope they keep Boeing's drunks and incompetents away from the controls this time.

Bill Shuey

Yep, all freshly dried out and repaired. (and with a new plan for fuel management somewhere about, no doubt :)

'Twas an expensive lesson well learned, and now it's on its merry way to the new NASM facility in Washington to live out its remaining days in luxury.

Boy, that was fast. All things said, teh previous pilot obviously did a first-class job of ditching her.

Mark Schynert

and if he was a better pilot, he would not have run out of gas and had to ditch it. IMO any pilot that runs out of gas, should have his ticket yanked soo fast it would leave paper burns coming out of his pocket. Matt Gunsch, A&P,IA,Private Pilot Riding member of the Arizona Precision Motorcycle Drill Team GWRRA,NRA,GOA

Matt, does that go for people that run out of fuel in their cars or bikes too? Or their boats? Or their UFOs?

RobG (the Aussie one)

Actually, Lake Washington is buffered from the sound by Lake Union and the Ship Canal and isolated from the Sound by the Ballard Locks. Lake Washington is a few feet higher than sea level.

Do we no-fooling know they ran out of gas? The only "official" statement I've seen said "air in the fuel lines." Of course, running out of gas would certainly put air in the fuel lines. I've heard anecdotal stories they only took on 300 gals before the flight to save money, intending to take on more at Paine Field where it was 4 cents cheaper. Guess they forgot. More anecdotal stories that they elected to return to Boeing Field rather than Paine Field even though they experienced trouble with #3 engine on takeoff out of Paine Field because "their cars were parked at Boeing Field."

Has the FAA and/or NTSB issued an official finding?

Regards,

Matt Mattingley

Um, not really. The whole underside was caved in and had to be rebuilt; and when the landing gear tore away, it boogered up a lot of the wing. The salt water didn't do any of the magnesium parts any good either; a friend of mine ended up designing a replica tailwheel which could be machined from aluminum and use a more modern tire; Michelin generously stepped up with a new tire for it.

The speed of the restoration is really due to Boeing corporate management which (in a surprisingly noble decision) decided to fix it no matter what the cost, and a horde of Boeing workers, whose imagination was fired by the project and who worked hard and long...

Steve H.

Mark Schynert wrote:

I read in the newspaper (not the official FAA word) that the aircraft had run out of gas. Also heard it on the radio. I talked to some other guys who are kind of 'in the know' who said that they took off with less gasoline than they thought. The guages in the cockpit are basically useless, so once in the air they had no idea how much gas they had. It's a shame and (in my opinion) gross negligence.

The official NTSP report on the accident is here:

if you are dumb enough to run out of gas that is your problem, but it is inexcusable to do it in a plane. You know how much fuel you have in your tanks, and what your fuel burn is, and if you can't figure that out, you should not be flying, PERIOD. If you run out of a gas in anything but a plane, you coast to a stop, in plane, unless you are near a airport, you will be most likely damaging the plane , for no reason other than stupidity. If they had a gear problem, they would have been better to belly it in, as the damage would have been minimal, the most would have been engines, props,and flaps. They were stupid for what they did, and should never be allowed to fly again. They were suppose to be professionals, there were not. Matt Gunsch, A&P,IA,Private Pilot Riding member of the Arizona Precision Motorcycle Drill Team GWRRA,NRA,GOA

Matt:

I had heard the rumor that a "liquid lunch" may have been a contributing factor to these guys oversights. Did the investigators address that at all, or was it a "pass" as a favor to Boeing's brass??

Bill Shuey