Posted on 05/18/2019 5:48:29 AM PDT by DFG
A World War Two veteran who captained a B-17 Flying Fortress has returned to the skies in a 1929 Ford Tri-Motor, the same plane he first flew in at the age of 17.
Russel Duane Hilding, 98, was overjoyed at the chance to fly in one of the ultra-rare vintage aircraft on Thursday at Gerald R. Ford International Airport near Grand Rapids, Michigan.
'My first airplane ride was in a Ford Tri-Motor,' Hilding told WXMI-TV. 'The best part of getting old, is trying to not stay old.'
Only 18 Trimotors remain in existence, of which only eight are certified airworthy by the FAA.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Wasn’t he part of the Warren Commission?
From Wikipedia Link:
The Wright R-975 Whirlwind was a series of nine-cylinder air-cooled radial aircraft engines built by the Wright Aeronautical division of Curtiss-Wright. These engines had a displacement of about 975 in3 (16.0 L) and power ratings of 300-450 hp (225-335 kW). They were the largest members of the Wright Whirlwind engine family to be produced commercially, and they were also the most numerous
Here is what You were probably thinking of:
The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 (US military designation) Double Wasp (civil designation) is an American twin-row, 18-cylinder, air-cooled radial aircraft engine with a displacement of 2,800 in³ (46 L), and is part of the long-lived Wasp family.
Because it does not hate on Trump?
I think a lot of the locations you may hear or read named after Ford are in Michigan, which makes sense, since he was from Michigan (I believe he served in Congress in some capacity for the state and also went to the University of Michigan where he played football for the University).
Yes, he was--along with six other Deep Staters.
I was on my honeymoon and we went through the Grand Canyon. At the airport, you could take a scenic ride in a helo or a tri-motor. Being a pilot, I chose the tri-motor.
Out on the tarmac I began talking to the pilot. Eventually he asked if I was a pilot, to which I affirmed. He asked if I wanted to fly right seat.
What a phenomenal experience! When I got home, I put it in my log book.
Each engine is an 18-cylinder contraption...” [Ken522, post 4]
“...They appear to be single row engines, much simpler looking than the multi row engines developed later....” [heshtesh, post 13]
“...Pratt & Whitney R-2800...American twin-row, 18-cylinder, air-cooled radial aircraft engine with a displacement of 2,800 in³ (46 L)...” [mabarker1, post 23]
The first two-row radial piston engine was built in 1910 by Alessandro Anzani, an early aero engine designer. He essentially bolted two of his three-cylinder engines together, one in front of the other.
Radial aero engines improved greatly in reliability and efficiency during the 1920s, due in part to advances in metallurgy and manufacturing. They grew in displacement and power into the 1930s. By the mid-1930s engine makers began adding additional rows of cylinders as power requirements continued to climb, but constraints were placed on engine diameter by limits on airframe size.
As mabarker1 pointed out, the R-2800 powered numerous aircraft in the 1940s, including Republic’s P-47, Vought’s F4U, Grumman’s F6F, Douglas’ DC-6 and A-26.
Boeing’s B-29 was powered by the Wright R3350 two-row radial, which turned out 2200 hp.
Pratt & Whitney built the largest multi-row radial engine ever to see series production, the R4360 Wasp Major: four rows of seven cylinders each, for a total of 28. Initial output was 3500 hp. It came into use right after World War 2. It powered Convair’s B-36, Boeing’s 377 (and military aircraft based on it - C-97 and KC-97), Douglas’ C-124, Fairchild’s C-119, and Howard Hughes’ “Spruce Goose,” plus many others.
He was the Congressman from Grand Rapids for almost three decades, so a local political figure.
Pratt & Whitney R-4360-17 and 2× R-4360-21 radial engines, 3,000 hp (2,237 kW) each.
Great Info Post, Thank You !!!
Too bad all those Prototypes either crashed or got scrapped. It sure would be cool to see them on Display.
Jack Northrop was a Man way ahead of His time.
The vibration too!
And a radial!
Here comes the jugs.
“...including the Northrop XB-35 Flying Wing...Jack Northrop was a Man way ahead of His time.” [mabarker1, post 30]
Thanks for the additions.
I’d never studied up on the powerplants installed on the B-35.
Many aviation history enthusiasts look on USAF’s rejection of Northrop’s flying wings as a mistake - a willful refusal to peer into the crystal ball and foresee the future, as it were.
While Northrop was a designer of great imagination, his large aircraft would have been much less useful in actual service for a variety of reasons few people think about.
The most immediate problem turned out to be controllability in flight. The B-35 was only marginally stable while airborne. The B-49 was less stable.
In the 1940s, the level of understanding in aerodynamics and control-system theory was far less advanced than 40 years later when the B-2 was developed; no general solution could be found. Micro-sensors and computers to augment flight control by human hands & brains did not yet exist; it was decided that no crew could control such a machine over the great distances and long mission durations with a sufficient margin of safety. Bombing accuracy was unexciting also. These drawbacks were judged to outweigh the advantage of increased efficiency and added up to unacceptable risk levels.
Less obvious at the time was the impact to systems engineering.
Any flying wing is unavoidably more “densely packed” than a conventional airframe of comparable size: to begin with, components and systems have to be squeezed into a smaller space. But if they have to be moved, every other piece of the aircraft has to be rearranged to make it all function. Maintenance is similarly affected: the ground crew would have had to take out all manner of other parts and devices to get at the one thing that needed fixing.
And the density would have posed much greater problems when it came to modifications and upgrades; if a new system needed to be installed, every other subsystem nearby would have to moved, or redesigned to accommodate the new stuff. Or both.
Large aircraft like the B-29, B-36, C-130, and B-52 owe part of their success and longevity to their large interior spaces: modifications and upgrades fit inside without a lot of complex reworking of other components.
Here's another great story....of our WWII vets!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVdqxkHd2RQ
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