I didn't know anything about this until i was surfing around and ran across this story, I had Blogged about the Lockheed Constellation before and I considered it a very pretty graceful airplane.
As the war came closer in 1939, the legendary General Henry ‘Hap’
Arnold had the thoughtfulness to contemplate a list of specifications
for the designing of a heavy bomber capable of flying a heavy bomb load
of 8 tons over a long distance of 5,000 miles. A committee was formed
(with Charles Lindberg as a member) to study the options that emerged
with the awesome technological progress that had been made in the mid
and late 1930’s in aero-engines and airframe construction methods. New
all-aluminum planes arrived that allowed for an unparalleled upscaling
of speed and payloads by the stretching of aircraft to ever-bigger
dimensions.
As the war broke out in
Europe in May 1939, Arnold requested all major American aircraft
builders to submit their designs for a long distance heavy bomber. Next
to Boeing and Douglas (both most successful in the manufacturing of
their then-modern transports), also Lockheed stepped in as a contender.
The Burbank-based company had the Lockheed L-049 in a conceptual phase
ready and used that plan as the template for their Heavy Bomber L-249
project.
The
outcome never really materialized in the shape of a prototype plane or
even a full-scale mockup. Only a smaller-scale model was made and what
we can show here is based on that ‘paper plane’ with a number of
Artist’s Impressions to get some idea of how basically a beautiful
design based on the Constellation was studied for a conversion into an
armed aircraft with a bomb-bay for 8 tons of bombs and a half a dozen of
gun turrets to keep the enemy fighters at bay.
It was due to her peculiar lines
and shape an outstanding aircraft, high on her legs, a very elegant
design with a feature as no other plane had: look at the hull shape in
the photo, in there is probably not one equal cross-section. No bulkhead
has the same shape and dimension as the previous one, due to that
longitudinal ‘female-like’ curved lines on top and bottom. With the
competition aircraft as the DC-4 and later the DC-6/7, their fuselages
are more like straight tubular structures with a parallel lining and
more constant cross-sections. Whatever the reason, for many ( including
myself, having flown in the plane as an 11 years-old kid in the 1950’s
to/from Indonesia). the Constellation was and is the ‘Queen of the
Skies’, even with all her “caprices”. Not the most dependable aircraft
but surely one of the most attractive aircraft designs ever made.
The
plan Lockheed had for converting the Constellation was not so bad, the
wing design was basically an extended Lockheed P-38 Lighting wing and
proven to be a very efficient wing profile. With the sleek lines of that
dolphin-shaped fuselage, the first Constellation (in Military
designation the C-69) was arguably the fastest cargo transport that
existed by 1943. Imagine, that aircraft had a cruise speed of well over
500 km/ h (340 mph), which made her faster than the earlier model Zero
fighters. On top, the aircraft had novel features as a pressurized
fuselage that allowed for comfortable flights with a much higher ceiling
to fly (24,000 feet), hydraulically boosted controls and de-icing
systems.
In
camouflage colors, armed with 6 gun turrets and at a high speed flying
well over 24.000 feet altitude, she was faster in the books than many
enemy fighters when she was designed, but by the time she could have
appeared in the skies over continental Europe in 1944/ 1945, she would
have been no match anymore for the German fighters as the jet-powered
Me-262. Even the rear turret’s 20 mm canon would be of little avail
against such fast flying fighters that were well armed with equal
weapons.
But in spite of all the easy-to-adapt features of the
L-049 concept, the XB-30 Bomber was a spin-off that never took off, the
plan soon stalled. Why was that? A couple of reasons: Boeing, the
competitor from Seattle had better cards in their hands. Their Mega
Bomber project named the XB-29 was much further in development and that
counts BIG time when a war has broken out! Boeing’s Superfortress (a
very appropriate name, taking advantage of its most successful
predecessor, the B-17 Flying Fortress) used the same brand new big
radial engines as were foreseen for the Lockheed XB-30, the Wright
Duplex Cyclones
This machine was a very complicated
piece of High Tech for that time and most unreliable at the beginning of
its long career. It took Wright many years in developing the
heat-resistant materials required to withstand the staggering
heat-buildup in the cylinder heads, where high-octane fuel and
supercharging/ turbocharging of the cylinders took their toll. Cooling
was a major problem, aggravated often by the tight fitting of engine
cowlings that were primarily designed for reducing drag.
The
military aircraft that used this engine during the 1940’s (B-29 and
Convair’s B-36 Peacemaker) all had their fair share of the heat buildup
of this engine that often was the reason for engine explosions or sudden
engine fires that could seriously hamper the operations of the Bomber
Fleet aircraft.
The thermal and mechanical stress on this engine asked for ever-better
alloys to be developed with ever-better lubricants, feeding the zillion
moving/ rotating parts of such machine with oil for cooling and lubing.
It must have been a horror music box for the mechanics. Every day, they
listened to the Sound of Music from that engine until a little rattle or
some smoke was detected that came out as a dissonant. OMG, piston ring
broken or exhaust valve burnt? The machine had a reputation for eating
its own valves and the wrench jocks could only wonder what the muck was
going on inside those 18 red-hot furnaces aka the combustion chambers.
As the first puff of white smoke came from the exhaust stacks, they knew
there was another day of wrenching coming their way
But with all adjustments made, this complex radial engine never came
even close to the shadow of the reliability of the Jet-engine that came
into the market in civil Airliners by the late 1950’s.
We had two of them at Glynco, and one of them is now in the museum at Pensacola. Nice comfortable bird to fly on!
ReplyDeleteHey Old NFO;
DeleteI am planning another trip to the Museum at Pcola, this will give me another excuse :)