Union Pacific Sues Athearn & Lionel

Yes.

Another of his books - "The Rainbow & The Rose" - is about a pilot who disappears in the western wilderness of Tasmania (Aust) while flying an aerial ambulance in, of all things, an Auster.

Indeed! The P-3 is the primary aircraft used for hurricane hunting. They fly right through the storms, collecting data. That's one of the most stressful duties an aircraft can face. There's not much wrong with THAT airframe.

Dan Mitchell ==========

No, it was the DC6. I think the DC7D over water was a bit later (1957 or 8) and bought before the 707 had the range they wanted.

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@news.west.earthlink.net, Captain Handbrake@Atlantic Coast Line.com at Captain Handbrake@Atlantic Coast Line.com wrote on 6/8/04 10:28 PM:

It was the original Electra turboprop which had difficulties. Apparently, at certain speeds, the propeller rotation speed caused a vibration in perfect constructive harmony with the wings. A number of conditions were required for that to happen, but it did on at least two occasions: the wings literally started flapping and cracked off in a few seconds with essentially no warning. The glide path at that point was that of a rock.

Once the problem was analyzed, the fix was apparently very simple to change the wing harmonic to some thing which the propellers could never cause.

Constructive harmonics are very interesting phenomena: they've caused bridges to collapse. Tesla apparently used a small pinger attached to a building piling driven into bedrock in Manhattan to essentially produce a small, slowly developing mini-earthquake in the surrunding buildings. He was a big harmonics guy. If you time it correctly, you can continue to inject energy into a system. The total energy of the system will increase as long as the injected energy exceeds that lost due to friction and heat. It's quite interesting.

Ed

in article snipped-for-privacy@umflint.edu, Daniel A. Mitchell at snipped-for-privacy@umflint.edu wrote on 6/9/04 7:23 AM:

Famous film footage of the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge comes to mind.

OK, could be.

Air Micronesia, had a fleet of sixes (3 or 4) that operated all over the South Pacific. I used them frequently to go to places where the Navy wouldn't take me. Instead of spending the weekend drinking beer at the base club, I would go spend two days on Yap or Truk or somewhere else. It was expensive on a petty officers pay, but I still remember it. Better than trying to remember what the bar at the base club looked like.

Anyhow, the DC6 was a good airplane. Far more reliable and less expensive to operate than the DC7, but the Seven had class. I flew DC7s on National between Tampa - New Orleans and Miami - Houston. Also on Delta between New Orleans - Atlanta. Others too. I liked the DC7 better than the DC6 but the Constellation is still my all time favorite.

I have always wondered what would have been the outcome of the DC7D if it had been produced and put up against the Super Electra. It was going to be a turbo-prop, but I don't know what engines were contemplated for it. Allison or Rolls-Royce, either would have been interesting.

Captain Handbrake

Believe it was he....great book and great movie starring Gregory Peck...

... and where Fred Astaire won the 1959 Australian Grand Prix

To get back on-subject for the group, a memorable scene in "On The Beach" was the one of the final shots, where the end of civilisation is represented by hundreds of dead Melbourne trams parked in (if I remember correctly) a deserted Swanston Street (they filmed it on Sunday, when everyone was at church)

It's called "whirl-mode". Very sudden and very destructive.

More here:

Captain Handbrake

Dear folks, The only thing I read was ON THE BEACH, and that was because we had to in high school, but our library has another book called TRUSTEE FROM THE TOOLROOM, whose protagonist is a 'model engineer' who builds model steam locomotives, I think. Apparently Neville Shute enjoyed doing the same thing, according to his obituary which is in one of my old copies of THE MODEL ENGINEER magazine. Back on topic. Cordially yours, Gerard Pawlowski.

Strangely enough for a engineer who worked in aeronautics Neville Shute Norway joined the Royal Navy during WWII. He was at one point recruited into a group called Miscelleneous Weapons Development Department. MWDD was also know as the "wheezes and dodges" and came up some wonderfully wacky ideas. Two good examples was the Iceberg airfield and topically "The Great Panjandrum" designed to breach beach defences during D-Day. Shute Norway wrote some pretty dark stories, such as "On the Beach" but also the wonderful "Trustee from the Toolroom" which portrays the ordinary model building man as the hero.

The "Hurricane Hunters" fly C-130s.

NASA tracks hurricanes, as does the National Weather Service and most branches of the US military. All call themselves "hurricane hunters". Not all fly the same aircraft.

JR

Is that because they've got a bigger cargo bay to hold the hurricane in after they catch it? :)

Yeahbbut the NOAA P3s go in there too

WP-3D Turboprop Aircraft "Kermit" N42RF "Miss Piggy" N43RF The WP-3Ds, N42RF and N43RF, have been the primary airborne platforms for meteorological research in NOAA since the late 1970s. They provide access to the lower and middle troposphere with large payload, large fuselage volume, long duration, and long range. Aircraft instrumentation includes fight-level data sensors, airborne radars with Doppler wind finding, cloud physics instrumentation (including electric field measurements), remote sensors for surface wind and rainfall estimation, expendables (e.g.; dropsondes, AXBTs, AXCPs, and drifting buoys), and an aircraft-satellite data link (ASDL) to transmit data back to the ground. Some equipment, such as that for remote sensing of sea-surface conditions or for atmospheric electricity measurements, is unique to one airframe or the other. In addition to the hurricane research mission, for which they were originally procured, these aircraft support diverse programs throughout NOAA, outside the agency, and internationally. Performance Characteristics:

Ceiling:

10.5 h high altitude True air speed:

Captain Handbrake

Personally thought that "In the Wet" was also one of his better ones, with supersonic aircraft and loops of history. Norway was also, I believe, one of the designers of one of the prettiest

I believe the book "Allied Secret Weapons of WWII" had some of the best descriptions of the more unconventional weapons the "wheezers and dodgers" worked on. The accounting of the testing of the "Great Panjandrum" made me wonder how in the world any of them ever survived....

edvardo

snippety

Perhaps C-130's too, but P-3's also. I've seen several documentaries and articles on P-3's (or civilian/government variations thereof) being used for this duty. They are a common airframe used for many scientific and technical applications. One reason is that they have a very long 'loiter' capability, and are designed to fly on two engines for extended periods, saving fuel. Thus one aircraft can monitor a developing situation for an extended period, which is often desirable in such duty. Other aircraft can do this also, but apparently not to the extent, or as well, as the P-3.

Dan Mitchell ==========

Not as pretty as the DH Flamingo, DH86 or the Dragon Rapide. :)

There's an episode of the 1970s British sitcom "Dad's Army" available on video that featured something very similar to the "Great Panjandrum". If you can find it, the episode is called "Round and Round went the Great Big Wheel."

And if you are interested, get a copy of "Slide Rule", his autobiography.