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Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 10, 2012 14:34:22 GMT 12
A very cool short clip of a DC-6 landing on a dusty strip. Short landing run!
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Post by vs on Apr 10, 2012 16:57:58 GMT 12
Cool vid!
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Post by starr on Apr 10, 2012 17:11:31 GMT 12
Reminds me of when we worked the DC3 AZL of the Rangitaiki strip in 1962. No grass on it then, just pumice.
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Post by phil82 on Apr 10, 2012 19:02:02 GMT 12
A really nice aeroplane the DC6. Long trips overseas were a real pleasure because TEAL bought them for the Trans-Tasman route and they didn't have a lot of range. I once took three weeks to get from RAF Mildenhall in the UK to Whenuapai, which included 10 days stuck at Travis Air Force Base in the US not far from San Francisco while waiting for a suitable tail wind before heading to Hickham! We needed a tail wind apparently! The route out of the UK was to the Azores overnight, Bermuda, overnight, Oklahoma City for fuiel, then Las Vegas for more fuel, then Travis. From Hickham it was a refuel at Canton Island, [find that on a map of the Pacific, then Fiji, then Whenuapai. Three weeks in all.
The DC6 was a lovely smooth ride and remarkably quiet.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 10, 2012 19:45:13 GMT 12
Pumice can't have been good on the airframe Dave?
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Apr 10, 2012 19:53:15 GMT 12
A really nice aeroplane the DC6. Long trips overseas were a real pleasure because TEAL bought them for the Trans-Tasman route and they didn't have a lot of range. Ummmmm....TEAL inherited the DC-6s from British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines who bought them for two parallel trans-Pacific routes from Sydney and Auckland to Fiji, Honolulu (via a refuelling stop at Canton Island), and San Francisco to Vancouver. However, they were originally built for the Swedish airline AB Aerotransport, but when ABA joined up to Scandinavian Airlines System in 1948, it was decided that the four Douglas DC-6 sleeper transports ordered by ABA would be surplus to the requirements of SAS, so they didn't take delivery of them. BCPA then purchased the four airliners from ABA and delivered to Australia, and used them as sleeper transports on the two parallel routes. Unfortunately, one of the four DC-6s was destroyed in a crash at San Francisco not long before BCPA was disolved, so TEAL only received the three survivors. |
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Post by phil82 on Apr 10, 2012 21:56:47 GMT 12
Thanks for that, I only knew they came from TEAL to the RNZAF, and nothing of their previous history.
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Post by dakdriver on Apr 11, 2012 20:53:39 GMT 12
I did some line maintenance work on one of these trusty birds while it was operated by 40 Squadron at Whenuapai. IT flew many UK trips as well as an almost regular Samoan return trip.
Years later in Australia I was checked out on the DC3 by an instructor whose sister (A flight attendant) was killed on the DC6 crash at San Francisco. He told me the crash was the main reason for the demise of the airline which folded fairly shortly after.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Apr 11, 2012 23:21:51 GMT 12
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