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Post by riogrande on Aug 24, 2008 14:29:42 GMT -5
Wow! I wonder if this was as scary back in 1959?!!!!! Try this one - TWA flight 752-4 leaving Midway with a full load of fuel. The end of the runway was approaching quickly (but not quickly enough)!
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Post by Adrian Wainer on Aug 24, 2008 15:32:34 GMT -5
I think you got yourself in to a linguistic tangle on that, presumably you meant to say "the end of the runway was approaching and I was getting airborne but only just in time" I am guessing your main undercarriage wheels are airborne at the stage the screenshot is taken, ( the angle makes it difficult to for me to judge that your main gear was in fact airborne ),.
Best and Warm Regards Adrian Wainer
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Post by emfrat on Aug 24, 2008 16:04:08 GMT -5
;D A bit of humour always lightens up a grave situation. The runway was doing its best to bring riogrande undone, but it didn't quite make it...(this time) A couple from P G Taylor: "Nearly fresh out of runway that time, Captain" from his co-pilot, after a still-air takeoff in a hugely overloaded Liberator. "Dangerously quiet, don't you think?" from a BOAC captain, when the tricky fuel transfer system in a Privateer stopped all four engines, hundreds of miles from land Cheers MikeW
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Post by Adrian Wainer on Aug 24, 2008 16:33:08 GMT -5
thanx mike, enjoyed the one about the Liberator and the runway, bye the way did BOAC use the privateer? if so when?
Best and Warm Regards Adrian Wainer
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Post by emfrat on Aug 25, 2008 3:11:09 GMT -5
Cheers, Adrian -
To clear the ambiguity, Taylor was flying a Privateer, 600 miles out of San Diego for Honolulu, enroute Sydney (Australia). Once the fuel situation was sorted, he mentioned to his First Officer "a well-known BOAC captain who, in the same circumstances in the night over mid-Atlantic" had made the remark. Just to keep life simple, Taylor refers to the plane as an R.Y.3, while the caption to the photo relating to the incident has " A Liberator Privateer (R.Y.3) of the type flown....." Y= Consolidated, but I could not quickly find a reference to that particular designation. There is reference to BOAC operating Liberators around 1941. There were civil flights from the UK throughout the war, to neutral countries.
All the best MikeW
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Post by Adrian Wainer on Aug 25, 2008 4:48:13 GMT -5
Hi Mike I had realized that the Brits had used a cargo/passenger version of the Liberator similar in appearance to USAAF's C-87 Liberator Express with the standard twin fin tail but is this the first I have come across that they were using the cargo/passenger version of the Liberator based on the US Navy variant of the Liberator with the single tail fin i.e. the Privateer very interesting, much appreciated. home.att.net/~jbaugher2/b24_39.htmlbiomicro.sdstate.edu/pederses/modelaircraft.htmlwww.airwaysmuseum.com/Best and Warm Regards Adrian Wainer
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Post by emfrat on Aug 25, 2008 5:46:37 GMT -5
Hi Adrian - Another bit of the jigsaw. If I had started at the beginning of the chapter, instead of the page the index reference for the incident led me to, I would have remembered the background info below. The trouble with "The Sky Beyond" is that once I open it, at any page, I tend to keep on reading to the end. Time - Early 1945 Taylor was flying the RAF comms service between San Diego and Sydney, which had been "recently inaugurated with some bright and shining RY3 aircraft.....with a single tailfin...different in the cockpit layout and other details. It was known as the Liberator Express Transport; or, in the US Navy, the Privateer." ('Navy' explains the R) At that stage of the war it was an RAF Transport Command Service. It was also the first British Commonwealth trans-Pacific air service. Cheers MikeW
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