My Best Aviation Pix pg 11

My Best Aviation Photos Eye Candy - # 11	Bob Bogash

We'll start with a trio of Tristars

Tristar in Honolulu on world sales tour

These two are brand new on delivery flights

A lot better looking than these DC-10s
My Opinion

Boeing 247

West Coast DC-9-10 -- Boeing Field - November 1966

Lockheed P2V Truculent Turtle
This aircraft flew from Perth, Australia non-stop to Columbus, Ohio
11,235 miles in 55 hours and 17 minutes.

29 Sept 1946
Record stood until 1962 when broken by B-52H.

C-54 - HNL

Bringing one of the "Original Eight" 737s across East Marginal Way.
The first 8 737s were assembled in Plant II and then brought down
to the new 737 factory - the Thompson Site - for completion.
To do that, the airplane had to cross the highway twice (Second crossing shown here.).
About April/May 1967.

Denver - Stapleton - 1968

Kenmore Otter departing Port Ludlow

Any Old Timers around here will remember Aero-Dyne at Renton Airport

Boeing Field - 1966
The new I-5 can be seen having just been carved out of the side of Beacon Hill.

Another view, showing the Main Terminal - which was used by West Coast Airlines.
A WCA F-27 and DC-3 can be seen on the ramp. (2 April 1966.)
Click here for more West Coast story.

One of my assignments was looking after EPA for 2 years.
They were located in Gander, Newfoundland

One of their more unusual aircraft was the Carvair.
It was a British designed DC-4 conversion that carried 5 cars and 22 passengers.
It was used to fly cars from the Mainland to Newfoundland (which is an island.)
The usual ferry crossing was long and could be very hazardous.

Convair Propliners

For my friend Bob Woodling

After WW II, DC-3s (C-47s) became ubiquitous because of numbers, cost and performance.
Soon, aircraft manufacturers started designing "DC-3 Replacements" - an activity still going on to some extent to this day. It's always hard to beat "Perfect."
Martin came out with their 202/404 Series, and Convair with their 240.

The Convair became very popular and remained in service for a very long time (still in service.)
Over the years, it was stretched and received new turbine powered engines.
Over 1000 were built.
In my airplane discussions with my friend Chris Longridge, it was my favorite trivia question:
The airplane with the most different engines (manufacturers). Answer Convair with 4.

The airplane entered service as the 240, then 340 and finally 440.
All had Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines.

Indianapolis

La Guardia

JFK

Brunswick, Georgia

Minneapolis

T-29 Nav Trainer

JFK

Pensacola

San Juan

Juneau

SeaTac

SFO

Wayfarer Ketch at White Plains - KHPN - 1960
Wayfarer Ketch was the private flight department of the Rockefeller Family.

Convair tried to re-engine with Allison T38 turboprops using one test airplane.
The airplane flew in December 1950 but engine maturity was not there yet and the program was still-born.
The remaining turboprop conversions were Third Party, although Convair did the Dart conversions in-house.

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First third-party - up came Napier with their turboprop Eland engine. It became the Convair 540.
There were 18 built, 6 for Allegheny.
Sorry - no pix. (These are all my own pix - not third party.)

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Next, there was the Rolls-Royce turboprop Dart. Voila: the Convair 600.

San Juan

Honolulu

St. Louis

Vancouver

Trans-Texas - El Paso

Frontier CV-600 - Frontier and Allegheny operated with 3 different engines

Rolls-Royce bought out Napier and shut down the competing Eland program (duh!)
The 6 Eland converted airplanes at Allegheny underwent a re-conversion back to piston R-2800 power.
Later, they underwent another conversion back to the Allison turboprop (poor airplanes.)

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Finally came Allison with the 501-D13 engine and Aeroproducts prop.
It became the conversion of choice and was designated Convair 580.

Allison 501 installation.
It was basically an engine/prop/nacelle package lifted off the Lockheed Electra.

Convair 580 - Honeywell Flight Test at PAE
Honeywell promised me numerous times a Right Seat ride on this airplane,
but they moved their Flight Test shop from Everett to Phoenix, and I got jilted.

Same aircraft in previous Allied Signal livery

These engines were so much more powerful than the original engines,
or the competing conversions that they ran circles around them.

For airlines like Frontier, operating at hot and high airfields, the 580 was a God-send.

Later, there were six 580 aircraft stretched in Canada by 17 ft to become Convair 5800's.

Convair 5800 at PAE

The Convair Propliners were fine airplanes that had a huge success with a very large number of operators.
They remain in limited service today.

From the Flight Engineer's seat in flight on the L-1049H Super Connie.
This is a little window on the LH side the F/E uses, mostly for engine starting.
It's called "Counting Blades" and the F/E counts blades rotating during
the start sequence before he turns on the Fuel and Ignition.
Can also be used to view engines and wing for icing and other issues.
On the RH side, there is a similar window in the small crew door.

This USN C-47 (R4D) made the first ever landing
at the South Pole - 31 Oct 1956.
The crew were the first humans at the South Pole since Robert Scott in 1912.