Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys

Sure take 'r up, anyone can fly it....
View attachment 249461

The R-1 won the 1932 Thompson Trophy race, piloted by Jimmy Doolittle. He lapped all but one ship in the race, made easy turns and never had to come down and make a tight pylon turn. He also set a new F.A.I. world landplane speed record of 296 mph (476 km/h) in the Shell Speed Dash.
The distinction of a landplane record was noteworthy because, at that time, racing seaplanes outran landplanes, such as the then current speed record holder, a Supermarine S.6B which had averaged 407.5 mph (655.8 km/h) on September 1931.
The Springfield Union newspaper of September 6, 1932 quoted Doolittle as saying, "She is the sweetest ship I've ever flown. She is perfect in every respect and the motor is just as good as it was a week ago. It never missed a beat and has lots of stuff in it yet. I think this proves that the Granville brothers up in Springfield build the very best speed ships in America today."[4] Another Springfield paper of the same date quoted Doolittle as saying, "The ship performed admirably. She was so fast that there was no need of my taking sharp turns although if the competition had been stiffer I would have. I just hope Russell Boardman can take her out soon and bring her in for a new record. There were lots of things we might have adjusted more properly if we had had time to run tests with the ship, and they would have meant more speed. I am sure Russell Boardman can take her around at quite a bit more than 300 miles an hour so you see my record may not last long after all."
He also personally wrote Zantford "Grannie" Granville a letter dated September 7, 1932, on Shell Petroleum stationery and addressed to Granville Brothers Aircraft, which reads as follows:
Dear Grannie:
Just a note to tell you that the big G. B. functioned perfectly in both the Thompson Trophy and the Shell Speed Dash.
With sincere best wishes for your continued success, I am as ever.
Jim...
Privately, however, Doolittle was more concerned than he let on about the Super Sportster’s stability. “I could tell from the first moment that it was a touchy and probably unpredictable airplane. ... I didn’t trust this little monster. It was fast, but flying it was like balancing a pencil or an ice cream cone on the tip of your finger. You couldn’t let your hand off the stick for an instant, and I didn’t know how much angle of bank would be safe when making pylon turns.”
The R-1 rapidly acquired an reputation as a dangerous aircraft. This shortcoming was common to most racing machines of any kind. During the 1933 Bendix Trophy race, racing pilot Russell Boardman was killed, flying Number 11. During takeoff from a refueling stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, Boardman pulled up too soon, stalled the R-1 and crashed.[8]
The R-1 was repaired but with an 18 in (460 mm) fuselage extension, creating the "Long Tail Racer". The ship was painted with "I.F." on the cowl for intestinal fortitude and the same cartoon "Filaloola Bird" was painted on the side of the fuselage as it was on their successful Model YW. It was decided to save time by not to repairing the R-1 wings, but to use the original wings from the R-2, which had been removed in February 1933 when new wings with flaps were built and installed. The R-1/2, or "Longtail" aircraft carried race number 11 because the R-2's original wings were already painted as Number 11 and the repaired fuselage had to be painted regardless. This aircraft crashed in a landing overrun incident soon after it was built, but Roy Minor, the pilot, was not severely injured. The damage was not severe but there was no money left for repairs.
The unrepaired Long Tail Racer was sold to Cecil Allen before the sheriff's bankruptcy auction ended the Granville Brothers company. Allen renamed the ship "Spirit of Right", built an entirely new wing with a different airfoil and added a new rear fuel tank for the long distance Bendix race. Former Granville Bros. chief engineer "Pete" Miller wrote to Allen warning for him never to put fuel in the rear tank as it would move the center of gravity far to the rear and make the ship too tail heavy to be flown.
It is unlikely Allen ever attempted a fully fueled takeoff before the start of the race. In 1935 Allen started the 2,043 mi (3,288 km), Burbank to Cleveland Bendix Trophy race with all tanks full, wallowed off into the morning fog, crashed in a field just beyond the runway and was killed instantly. In spite of all the fuel, there was no fire. After this final crash, the aircraft was never rebuilt.
Photo-Description:
Aircraft: Gee Bee R-2
Reg: NR2101 photos
Serial #: GB-02
Airline: Private
Photo Date: Jan 01, 2012
Uploaded: Feb 14, 2012
Polk City Worlds Greatest Aircraft Collection - FA08, USA - Florida
PHOTOGRAPHER
by Angel Natal: Photos | Profile | Contact
Yeah but Jimmy Doolittle was no Tom Cruise.
 
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Never saw that one in person. I have seen similar though. A German trainer that was a ducted fan pusher of similar layout, that used a turbine engine instead of a recip. It was called the Fantrainer.


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SIERRA HOTEL AERONAUTICS ·
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As a second contender for the worlds largest or heaviest Glider, we have another entry from our Canadian friends...
23rd of July 1983, Air Canada flight 143 became the worlds heaviest commercial passenger service glider to ever take to the skies...
Flt 143 was cruising at 41000 ft., over Red Lake, Ontario. The aircraft's cockpit warning system sounded, indicating a fuel pressure problem on the aircraft's left side. Assuming a fuel pump had failed, the pilots turned it off, since gravity should feed fuel to the aircraft's two engines. The aircraft's fuel gauges were inoperative because of an electronic fault which was indicated on the instrument panel and airplane logs (the pilots believed flight to be legal with this malfunction).
The flight management computer indicated that there was still sufficient fuel for the flight; but the initial fuel load had been entered as pounds instead of kilograms. A few moments later, a second fuel pressure alarm sounded for the right engine, prompting the pilots to divert to Winnipeg. Within seconds, the left engine failed and they began preparing for a single-engine landing.
As they communicated their intentions to controllers in Winnipeg and tried to restart the left engine, the cockpit warning system sounded again with the "all engines out" sound, a long "bong" that no one in the cockpit could recall having heard before and that was not covered in flight simulator training. Flying with all engines out was something that was never expected to occur and had therefore never been covered in training.
Seconds later, the right-side engine also stopped, the 767 lost all power, and most of the instrument panels in the cockpit went blank.
In line with their planned diversion to Winnipeg, the pilots were already descending through 35,000 feet when the second engine shut down. They immediately searched their emergency checklist for the section on flying the aircraft with both engines out, only to find that no such section existed.
Captain Pearson made his best guess as to this speed for the 767, he flew the aircraft at 220 knots (410 km/h; 250 mph).
First Officer Maurice Quintal began to calculate whether they could reach Winnipeg. He used the altitude from one of the mechanical backup instruments, while the distance traveled was supplied by the air traffic controllers in Winnipeg, measuring the distance the aircraft's echo moved on their radar screens.
The aircraft lost 5,000 feet (1,500 m) in 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi), giving a glide ratio of approximately 12:1.
At this point, Quintal proposed landing at the former RCAF Station Gimli, a closed air force base where he had once served as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot.
Unknown to him, part of the facility had been converted to a race track complex, now known as Gimli Motorsports Park. It includes a road race course, a go-kart track, and a dragstrip.
A Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs-sanctioned sports car race hosted by the Winnipeg Sports Car Club was under way the Saturday of the accident and the area around the decommissioned runway was full of cars and campers. Part of the decommissioned runway was being used to stage the race.
Without power, the pilots had to try lowering the aircraft's main landing gear via a gravity drop. The main gear locked into position. But the nose wheel failed to lock into position, which later turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As the aircraft slowed on approach to landing, the ram air turbine generated less power, rendering the aircraft increasingly difficult to control.
As the runway drew near, it became apparent that the aircraft was too high and fast, raising the danger of running off the runway before the aircraft could be stopped. The lack of hydraulic pressure prevented flap/slat extension which would have, under normal landing conditions, reduced the stall speed of the aircraft and increased the lift coefficient of the wings allowing the aircraft to be slowed for a safe landing. The pilots briefly considered executing a 360-degree turn to reduce speed and altitude, but decided that they did not have enough altitude for the maneuver. Pearson decided to execute a forward slip to increase drag and lose altitude. This maneuver is commonly used with gliders and light aircraft to descend more quickly without increasing the already-too-fast forward speed.
As soon as the wheels touched the runway, Pearson "stood on the brakes", blowing out two of the aircraft's tires. The unlocked nose wheel collapsed and was forced back into its well, causing the aircraft's nose to slam into, bounce, and then scrape along the ground. The collapsed nose wheel helped to slow the airplane and prevent collateral damage to the people on the ground. The nose also grazed into the guardrail now dividing the strip, which further slowed it down.
None of the 61 passengers were seriously hurt. A minor fire in the nose area was extinguished by racers and course workers armed with fire extinguishers. As the aircraft's nose had collapsed onto the ground, its tail was elevated and there were some minor injuries when passengers exited the aircraft via the rear slides which were not long enough to accommodate the increased height.
Following Air Canada's internal investigation, Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, and First Officer Quintal was suspended for two weeks. Three maintenance workers were also suspended. In 1985 the pilots were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship. Several attempts by other crews who were given the same circumstances in a simulator at Vancouver resulted in crashes.
The cause of the accident was a simple mathematical error between the ground crew and pilots, they arrived at an incorrect conversion factor of 1.77, the weight of a litre of fuel in pounds. This was the conversion factor provided on the refueller's paperwork and which had always been used for the airline's imperial-calibrated fleet. Their calculation produced:
7682 L × 1.77 kg/L = 13597 kg
22300 kg − 13597 kg = 8703 kg
8703 kg ÷ (1.77 kg/L) = 4916 L
of fuel to be transferred Instead of 22,300 kg of fuel, they had 22,300 pounds on board — 10,100 kg, about half the amount required to reach their destination. Knowing the problems with the FQIS, Captain Pearson double-checked their calculations but was given the same incorrect conversion factor and inevitably came up with the same erroneous figures.
On 24 January 2008, the Gimli Glider took its final voyage, AC7067, from Montreal Trudeau to Tucson International Airport before its retirement in the Mojave Desert.
www.Sierrahotel.net

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As a second contender for the worlds largest or heaviest Glider, we have another entry from our Canadian friends...
23rd of July 1983, Air Canada flight 143 became the worlds heaviest commercial passenger service glider to ever take to the skies...
Flt 143 was cruising at 41000 ft., over Red Lake, Ontario. The aircraft's cockpit warning system sounded, indicating a fuel pressure problem on the aircraft's left side. Assuming a fuel pump had failed, the pilots turned it off, since gravity should feed fuel to the aircraft's two engines. The aircraft's fuel gauges were inoperative because of an electronic fault which was indicated on the instrument panel and airplane logs (the pilots believed flight to be legal with this malfunction).
The flight management computer indicated that there was still sufficient fuel for the flight; but the initial fuel load had been entered as pounds instead of kilograms. A few moments later, a second fuel pressure alarm sounded for the right engine, prompting the pilots to divert to Winnipeg. Within seconds, the left engine failed and they began preparing for a single-engine landing.
As they communicated their intentions to controllers in Winnipeg and tried to restart the left engine, the cockpit warning system sounded again with the "all engines out" sound, a long "bong" that no one in the cockpit could recall having heard before and that was not covered in flight simulator training. Flying with all engines out was something that was never expected to occur and had therefore never been covered in training.
Seconds later, the right-side engine also stopped, the 767 lost all power, and most of the instrument panels in the cockpit went blank.
In line with their planned diversion to Winnipeg, the pilots were already descending through 35,000 feet when the second engine shut down. They immediately searched their emergency checklist for the section on flying the aircraft with both engines out, only to find that no such section existed.
Captain Pearson made his best guess as to this speed for the 767, he flew the aircraft at 220 knots (410 km/h; 250 mph).
First Officer Maurice Quintal began to calculate whether they could reach Winnipeg. He used the altitude from one of the mechanical backup instruments, while the distance traveled was supplied by the air traffic controllers in Winnipeg, measuring the distance the aircraft's echo moved on their radar screens.
The aircraft lost 5,000 feet (1,500 m) in 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi), giving a glide ratio of approximately 12:1.
At this point, Quintal proposed landing at the former RCAF Station Gimli, a closed air force base where he had once served as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot.
Unknown to him, part of the facility had been converted to a race track complex, now known as Gimli Motorsports Park. It includes a road race course, a go-kart track, and a dragstrip.
A Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs-sanctioned sports car race hosted by the Winnipeg Sports Car Club was under way the Saturday of the accident and the area around the decommissioned runway was full of cars and campers. Part of the decommissioned runway was being used to stage the race.
Without power, the pilots had to try lowering the aircraft's main landing gear via a gravity drop. The main gear locked into position. But the nose wheel failed to lock into position, which later turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As the aircraft slowed on approach to landing, the ram air turbine generated less power, rendering the aircraft increasingly difficult to control.
As the runway drew near, it became apparent that the aircraft was too high and fast, raising the danger of running off the runway before the aircraft could be stopped. The lack of hydraulic pressure prevented flap/slat extension which would have, under normal landing conditions, reduced the stall speed of the aircraft and increased the lift coefficient of the wings allowing the aircraft to be slowed for a safe landing. The pilots briefly considered executing a 360-degree turn to reduce speed and altitude, but decided that they did not have enough altitude for the maneuver. Pearson decided to execute a forward slip to increase drag and lose altitude. This maneuver is commonly used with gliders and light aircraft to descend more quickly without increasing the already-too-fast forward speed.
As soon as the wheels touched the runway, Pearson "stood on the brakes", blowing out two of the aircraft's tires. The unlocked nose wheel collapsed and was forced back into its well, causing the aircraft's nose to slam into, bounce, and then scrape along the ground. The collapsed nose wheel helped to slow the airplane and prevent collateral damage to the people on the ground. The nose also grazed into the guardrail now dividing the strip, which further slowed it down.
None of the 61 passengers were seriously hurt. A minor fire in the nose area was extinguished by racers and course workers armed with fire extinguishers. As the aircraft's nose had collapsed onto the ground, its tail was elevated and there were some minor injuries when passengers exited the aircraft via the rear slides which were not long enough to accommodate the increased height.
Following Air Canada's internal investigation, Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, and First Officer Quintal was suspended for two weeks. Three maintenance workers were also suspended. In 1985 the pilots were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship. Several attempts by other crews who were given the same circumstances in a simulator at Vancouver resulted in crashes.
The cause of the accident was a simple mathematical error between the ground crew and pilots, they arrived at an incorrect conversion factor of 1.77, the weight of a litre of fuel in pounds. This was the conversion factor provided on the refueller's paperwork and which had always been used for the airline's imperial-calibrated fleet. Their calculation produced:
7682 L × 1.77 kg/L = 13597 kg
22300 kg − 13597 kg = 8703 kg
8703 kg ÷ (1.77 kg/L) = 4916 L
of fuel to be transferred Instead of 22,300 kg of fuel, they had 22,300 pounds on board — 10,100 kg, about half the amount required to reach their destination. Knowing the problems with the FQIS, Captain Pearson double-checked their calculations but was given the same incorrect conversion factor and inevitably came up with the same erroneous figures.
On 24 January 2008, the Gimli Glider took its final voyage, AC7067, from Montreal Trudeau to Tucson International Airport before its retirement in the Mojave Desert.
www.Sierrahotel.net

View attachment 250054
I worked for a company that had a metric fuel quantity system. Among my other duties, I also fueled the airplanes. The military always wanted to know how many pounds I needed. Fuel was uploaded by gallons or liters on the meter. The cockpit crew was strictly KG and the company needed uplift in gallons. This was always done at the last minute and in a hurry because the final fuel load is decided by the captain, and he shows up at the last minute. It’s easy to see how that gross error happened.
 
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As a second contender for the worlds largest or heaviest Glider, we have another entry from our Canadian friends...
23rd of July 1983, Air Canada flight 143 became the worlds heaviest commercial passenger service glider to ever take to the skies...
Flt 143 was cruising at 41000 ft., over Red Lake, Ontario. The aircraft's cockpit warning system sounded, indicating a fuel pressure problem on the aircraft's left side. Assuming a fuel pump had failed, the pilots turned it off, since gravity should feed fuel to the aircraft's two engines. The aircraft's fuel gauges were inoperative because of an electronic fault which was indicated on the instrument panel and airplane logs (the pilots believed flight to be legal with this malfunction).
The flight management computer indicated that there was still sufficient fuel for the flight; but the initial fuel load had been entered as pounds instead of kilograms. A few moments later, a second fuel pressure alarm sounded for the right engine, prompting the pilots to divert to Winnipeg. Within seconds, the left engine failed and they began preparing for a single-engine landing.
As they communicated their intentions to controllers in Winnipeg and tried to restart the left engine, the cockpit warning system sounded again with the "all engines out" sound, a long "bong" that no one in the cockpit could recall having heard before and that was not covered in flight simulator training. Flying with all engines out was something that was never expected to occur and had therefore never been covered in training.
Seconds later, the right-side engine also stopped, the 767 lost all power, and most of the instrument panels in the cockpit went blank.
In line with their planned diversion to Winnipeg, the pilots were already descending through 35,000 feet when the second engine shut down. They immediately searched their emergency checklist for the section on flying the aircraft with both engines out, only to find that no such section existed.
Captain Pearson made his best guess as to this speed for the 767, he flew the aircraft at 220 knots (410 km/h; 250 mph).
First Officer Maurice Quintal began to calculate whether they could reach Winnipeg. He used the altitude from one of the mechanical backup instruments, while the distance traveled was supplied by the air traffic controllers in Winnipeg, measuring the distance the aircraft's echo moved on their radar screens.
The aircraft lost 5,000 feet (1,500 m) in 10 nautical miles (19 km; 12 mi), giving a glide ratio of approximately 12:1.
At this point, Quintal proposed landing at the former RCAF Station Gimli, a closed air force base where he had once served as a Royal Canadian Air Force pilot.
Unknown to him, part of the facility had been converted to a race track complex, now known as Gimli Motorsports Park. It includes a road race course, a go-kart track, and a dragstrip.
A Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs-sanctioned sports car race hosted by the Winnipeg Sports Car Club was under way the Saturday of the accident and the area around the decommissioned runway was full of cars and campers. Part of the decommissioned runway was being used to stage the race.
Without power, the pilots had to try lowering the aircraft's main landing gear via a gravity drop. The main gear locked into position. But the nose wheel failed to lock into position, which later turned out to be a blessing in disguise. As the aircraft slowed on approach to landing, the ram air turbine generated less power, rendering the aircraft increasingly difficult to control.
As the runway drew near, it became apparent that the aircraft was too high and fast, raising the danger of running off the runway before the aircraft could be stopped. The lack of hydraulic pressure prevented flap/slat extension which would have, under normal landing conditions, reduced the stall speed of the aircraft and increased the lift coefficient of the wings allowing the aircraft to be slowed for a safe landing. The pilots briefly considered executing a 360-degree turn to reduce speed and altitude, but decided that they did not have enough altitude for the maneuver. Pearson decided to execute a forward slip to increase drag and lose altitude. This maneuver is commonly used with gliders and light aircraft to descend more quickly without increasing the already-too-fast forward speed.
As soon as the wheels touched the runway, Pearson "stood on the brakes", blowing out two of the aircraft's tires. The unlocked nose wheel collapsed and was forced back into its well, causing the aircraft's nose to slam into, bounce, and then scrape along the ground. The collapsed nose wheel helped to slow the airplane and prevent collateral damage to the people on the ground. The nose also grazed into the guardrail now dividing the strip, which further slowed it down.
None of the 61 passengers were seriously hurt. A minor fire in the nose area was extinguished by racers and course workers armed with fire extinguishers. As the aircraft's nose had collapsed onto the ground, its tail was elevated and there were some minor injuries when passengers exited the aircraft via the rear slides which were not long enough to accommodate the increased height.
Following Air Canada's internal investigation, Captain Pearson was demoted for six months, and First Officer Quintal was suspended for two weeks. Three maintenance workers were also suspended. In 1985 the pilots were awarded the first ever Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diploma for Outstanding Airmanship. Several attempts by other crews who were given the same circumstances in a simulator at Vancouver resulted in crashes.
The cause of the accident was a simple mathematical error between the ground crew and pilots, they arrived at an incorrect conversion factor of 1.77, the weight of a litre of fuel in pounds. This was the conversion factor provided on the refueller's paperwork and which had always been used for the airline's imperial-calibrated fleet. Their calculation produced:
7682 L × 1.77 kg/L = 13597 kg
22300 kg − 13597 kg = 8703 kg
8703 kg ÷ (1.77 kg/L) = 4916 L
of fuel to be transferred Instead of 22,300 kg of fuel, they had 22,300 pounds on board — 10,100 kg, about half the amount required to reach their destination. Knowing the problems with the FQIS, Captain Pearson double-checked their calculations but was given the same incorrect conversion factor and inevitably came up with the same erroneous figures.
On 24 January 2008, the Gimli Glider took its final voyage, AC7067, from Montreal Trudeau to Tucson International Airport before its retirement in the Mojave Desert.
www.Sierrahotel.net

View attachment 250054
For those who may care, those are Formula Ford's on the grid. They are powered by 1.6 L Pinto/Cortina engines.
 
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