When I was a young kid growing up in the 60’s I used to sit on my back porch and watch the airplanes come in to greater Pittsburgh airport. My house was right under the final approach path, about 10 miles from the airport as the crow flies. There were an abundance of a two-engined commercial passenger prop plane, that sort of reminded me of P-3 (at least as I “see” it in my memory now). Not sure how many people it could seat - 100? It wasn’t huge but was very common. I took my first flight on this when I was about 6.
Anyone have any idea what kind of plane this might have been? I was too young know at that time.
But I do definitely remember the F-102’s that also flew over! They used to occasionally break the sound barrier. Wow! Cracked the walls in my parents house hallway once.
My guess is a Convair, any model from 220 through 580. Could you tell from the sound whether it was piston or turboprop? Comparing it to a P3 means tricycle landing gear which eliminates DC-3. The only other popular twin than the twin Convairs might be a Martin 404. I think those two both were around forty passengers.
No styrene models of either available right now to my knowledge, but the Convair is the only civil aircraft to make FSM’s poll of most wanted aircraft subjects
Hmmm…well, I am not sure any of these are the ones I am thinking of. The sort of look similar but I dunno. I think they were larger than these.
I don’t think they were turboprop planes. The motors sounded like a low drone, not as a turboprop as I have heard over the years.
I remember looking at the plane on the tarmac in Lancaster and the props were rounded, like those on an old P-39 or other similar craft from WWII. They weren’t squared off like the P-3 or some of the pics of the Convairs. Also, I could be remembering this totally wrong but I don’t remember the wings having a positive dihedral like the drawings of the HS-748.
Of course, we’re talking a memory from 40+ years ago…LOL!
If you think of any other ideas, let me know. I’m pretty sure I’ll recognize it when I see it. These planes would have flown with TWA Airlines, Possibly Allegheny and/or Piedmont Airlines too.
I’m sure Don is right. TWA flew a lot of Martin 404’s. In fact, I met a guy last week who flew them out of Detroit to Washington. One time his wife asked him “How come I have to stay home while you go flying around in the clouds?”. “Well, come along one afternoon and you’ll get to see Cleveland, Akron, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Trenton and Baltimore.”
We used to fly San Francisco-Santa Barbara pretty often to visit my Grandparents, We’d go SF, Monterey, Salinas, Paso Robles, and then out to the coast along route 40 I think, over San Simeon and down the coast to Goleta Airport. In the Convair 440.
There’s expensive little resin kits available of the Convairs, and there used to be a plastic model of a Coast Guard R4Y from I think Hawk. But it’s like the Lockheed Electra, why isn’t there a plastic kit of a once pretty common commercial liner? I’d love to see a Vickers Viscount. United flew them all over the eastern seaboard.
The aircraft you describe as being P-3 like was in fact the same basic airframe, the Lockheed Electra. Electra’s saw limited service, they had some issues but once those issues were addressed and corrected they served airlines such as Eastern. However, this was also the beginning of the jet age and jets were quickly replacing those with propellers.
Convair’s twins were used for regional and medium length routes. Their military equivalents were the C-131 and T-29. Most domestic airlines used Convairs or Martins. Both were similar in appearance.
Right, Gerald except he said two engined. I’d love an Electra (the t-prop one) I think there used to be conversion kits. American flew them in NMF, right up your alley.
Demand. If it doesn’t have guns or bomb-bays most aircraft modelers just aren’t interested. I have tried to drum up more commercial interest in civil aircraft but not much luck. So many modelers want to model the planes they don’t see every day. I am just the opposite- I want to model the planes I see all around me, not the stuff I see on really rare trips to a military base.
There’s expensive little resin kits available of the Convairs, and there used to be a plastic model of a Coast Guard R4Y from I think Hawk. But it’s like the Lockheed Electra, why isn’t there a plastic kit of a once pretty common commercial liner? I’d love to see a Vickers Viscount. United flew them all over the eastern seaboard.
bondoman-I noticed you were interested in a Vickers Viscount. Squadron has a kit listed in their latest sale flyer. It is 1:72 scale-Vickers Viscount 700 Item #MC0046 on pg 7. I think the maker is Mach 2 but thats not clear.Hope this helps,
