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Post by PeteHam on May 13, 2011 23:42:31 GMT -5
Oh Yeah ;D Absolutely beautiful Thanks for sharing your work Frank. Pete.
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Post by todd2 on May 14, 2011 7:45:26 GMT -5
I feel like a kid with Christmas just around the corner! Can't wait, nice paints Frank!
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Post by albinger on May 14, 2011 9:54:03 GMT -5
very very nice. I am working on an old smuggler (suspected). the l-49 was grounded in Djibouti for gun-running. What i need is a simple paint-kit for the L-49. Here is a first picture. Just caught over turkey on its way to Djibouti regards Christoph
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Post by okami on May 14, 2011 10:49:04 GMT -5
Hi Christoph,
Lovely paint you've got there of the Aero-Transport plane. :3
Nothing 'suspected', by the way - Marian Kozubski was involved in the airline, and he was well known for his rather shady businesses, whether it was cutting on maintenance and other unsafe practices at Independent Air Transport; owning and flying a Viking with an expired CoF at Canopus Air (in the Congo, during the War); severe breaches of safety that led to his operator's certificate at Falcon Airways being suspended; running guns and evading taxes while at Aero-Transport, not to mention the host of airlines he owned that folded after only one or two seasons... any surprise he ended up flying DC-4 bombers in Biafra...?
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Post by trebor716 on May 14, 2011 11:32:34 GMT -5
oh my gosh. how much more do you have do to before it's released?
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Post by albinger on May 14, 2011 11:40:26 GMT -5
thanks for your kind words!
definitely the wings, engines and some dirt and scratches. I like dirt and scratches very much ;D look at my screenshots of the peru internacional. And of course the alpha textures.
This is still the L-749, i have to wait till the L-049 is out. BTW: where to release my repaint(s) ? flightsim.com perhaps?
regards Christoph
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Post by volkerboehme on May 14, 2011 11:53:57 GMT -5
Hi,
Ex-C-69 msn 1969 (OE-IFA) probably wasn't the plane seized ad Djibouti. It was one of 3 Connies operated by Aero-Transport and happend to be the first Austrian Aircraft to visit New York on 18 August 1961 and a subsequent flight to Hong Kong was the longest flight of an Austrian aircraft at that time. It was eventually seized at Vienna Schwechat for not paying customs dues, found no buyer and was scrapped there in 1966.
A further L-49 (msn 1975) was used for spares only.
The aircraft in question probably was msn 2551, reg. OE-IFE. Owned before by KLM, BOAC and Korean National Airlines, it was probably the one seized in Djbouti for gun-running in Nov. 1963 and seized again in Amsterdam for not paying landing fees and parking charges in Feb. 1964 before being broken up in Aug. 66.
The only Constellation that survived its Aero-Transport period was msn 2562 (OE-IFO). It had a large cargo door fitted in 1961, which probably made the difference. It was in service with Aero-Transport from May to October 1963, before it was impounded (is there a pattern?) and eventually sold it to Interocean, where it served either as a cargo or 86-seat passenger aircraft. This is the aircraft that tried a go-around with all four engines still in High Blower position, resulting in overboost and multiple engine failures. One crew member died. Carried a load of cigarettes. Smoking is dangerous for your health.
Another Connie that got involved in shady business: msn 2081 was forced to land in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, while on a smuggling flight from Florida to Uruguay with a cargo of whisky and cigarettes. A Bolivian Air Force P-51 Mustang tried force the aircraft to land, but when the Constellation came down to 300 ft with flaps and gear extended, the Mustang stalled and spun into the ground. The Constellation crew was accused of having shot down the Mustang.
All information according to P J Marson.
Anyway, the L-749 model is probably right. But there'll be a paintkit available when the L-49 comes out or maybe some time before. Meanwhile, be assured that we tried to keep the texture differences between L-49 and L-749 to a minimum. If it matches the 749, it will most likely match the L-49 as well. The only critical point will be paint jobs on the nacelles.
Best regards, Volker
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Post by volkerboehme on May 15, 2011 3:40:58 GMT -5
. BTW: where to release my repaint(s) ? flightsim.com perhaps? Hi Christoph, this is all your personal choice. I for one like to upload to Flightsim since I find it most convenient there, while I never got around to get it all ready for the AVSIM process. I look forward to see your repaint available. By the way, while Marson noted that it most likely was a L-749 that got seized in Djibouti, there seems to remain some uncertainity. Do you have any additional information? Either way, both a L-49 and a L-749 Aero-Transport livery would be great. Anyone else who has Connie stories to share? Best regards, Volker
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Post by ashaman on May 15, 2011 12:11:34 GMT -5
A Bolivian Air Force P-51 Mustang tried force the aircraft to land, but when the Constellation came down to 300 ft with flaps and gear extended, the Mustang stalled and spun into the ground. The Constellation crew was accused of having shot down the Mustang. Yeah. Lots of Constellations had gun turrets, back in the times. And more still lots of bad pilots should have never been allowed anywhere near demanding airplanes like the P51. R.I.P.
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Post by volkerboehme on May 15, 2011 15:20:48 GMT -5
Hi,
well, one Constellation was used to bomb Papa Doc Duvalier's palace, ended up with one engine shot up and the aircraft confiscated in the Bahamas or something like that. I'll try to find the original story.
Any way, these aircraft were regarded more or less as expendable and not worth much more than their scrap value unless they had a cargo door.
Best regards, Volker
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Post by sunny9850 on May 15, 2011 15:50:11 GMT -5
Modern day smugglers have armed Beech Barons and Piper Senecas. The only real important thing for them being how much payload they might be giving up for the armament. Popping a door in flight and firing a man portable automatic is certainly not beyond believe.
Of course on the other hand it is quite possible for the Mustang pilot to simply become target focused to the point where he failed to fly his own airplane first. Once he snapped back to reality and his stalling airplane he reacted by showing the throttle forward and failed to anticipate or compensate for the various bad things that happen to Mustangs and similarly powerful airplanes at the very bottom edge of the drag-v-power curve when you unleash the power all at once.
Only a few month ago someone destroyed a P51 at KCMA in a very similar fashion. Simply a badly executed go-around flipping the airplane on it's back.
Cheers Stefan
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Post by emfrat on May 15, 2011 16:14:44 GMT -5
I imagine there would be a lot of 'dirty air' behind a Connie at 300' on final - maybe the little Mustang just got too close Love all this background info on the 'planes. MikeW
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Post by okami on May 15, 2011 16:23:21 GMT -5
An airborne interception between two aircraft that have dissimular flying characteristics (in this case, fast fighter and slower plane) can always have rather interesting results. I remember a story about an unarmed Airspeed Oxford on a transfer flight, flown by a WASP, being attacked by a Messerschmitt Bf109E during the Battle of Britain... resulting in the Bf109 biting the dust - the Messerschmitt pilot getting so focussed at hitting the Oxford that he forgot to look at his altitude and airspeed.
Similarly, the Russian Polikarpov U-2/Po-2 was another fighter headache - both for the Germans during WWII and later the Americans during the Korean War. Its low cruise speed (equal to the Messerschmitt Bf109, Focke-Wulf Fw190 and P-51 Mustang's stall speed, and far below that of the USAF jets) made it particularly hard to shoot down i both conflicts, especially as it was used at treetop level and under the cover of darkness.
Not to mention the C-47 that managed to score a Zero during the Pacific war, but that was a pure case of manoeuvring and using terrain...
Edit: and finally, of course, there is a propwash to consider. A 4-engined aircraft such as the Constellation must leave some kind of wake behind it; I remember that a couple of years ago a C-130 that was only taxying (so not with its engines at full power or anywhere near that) managed to flip a Cessna onto its roof, so a Connie on approach must certainly be able to create enough turbulent air behind it to cause trouble for a landing-configured Mustang...
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Post by ashaman on May 15, 2011 21:27:28 GMT -5
If the P51 was trying to force the Connie to land it's difficult it was flying behind. That is an attack position and would have had sense it the pilot was trying to get a fix for the guns. Trying to shoot a plane down is just a mite too draconian to be filed under the " force the plane to land" procedures. Of course, if the pilot of the P51 was trying to maneuver around the landing Connie to keep airspeed up and entered into the wake at critical speed and too low to recover... we'll never know unless someone will be able to get some detailed info ( but somehow I doubt it will happen). It's clear that it suffices a open hatch to use a machine gun from a non pressurized plane, and while landing the Connie could not have been pressurized. There was a story I read of a Hump pilot shooting a obnoxious Zero down on a C47 too, with a Browning .50 slung out of the cockpit's window, yet the benefits of shooting down a P51 trying to make you land while you were landing and not attempting to get away really escapes my judgment. As things are, going by the few things known, the probability that the P51 pilot messed up ( happens to the best too... usually only once though) is very high, and the probability of the Bolivian authorities trying to save face passing the bucket ( sport we in Italy invented in the olden days... no one makes a play at that with an Italian around without being found out) is moon orbit high.
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Post by volkerboehme on May 16, 2011 0:09:18 GMT -5
Hi,
I just repeated what Marson told in his book. I don't know anything beyond it, so I can only speculate.
I'd assume that the stall speed of a Mustang clean is quite close to the stall speed of a Connie with gear and flaps down. I don't know whether the Connie was attempting to land at that time or was using flaps and gear as speed brake while maneuvering to escape the Mustang. The latter wouldn't have much chance of success, though and I'd assume the former and the Mustang pilot just messed it up.
Best regards, Volker
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