The first one shows a not so current aircraft fuelling method. You pick up a barrel, hoist it on the wing, open up the barrel, turn it around and empty it into the wingtank. And then you wait until the chlou, chlou sound stops. It's as simple as that. But can you imagine fuelling a B747-400 this way? That bird takes almost 64,000 US gallons (241,500 liters). You would need a week or so...
Fuelling of the DC3 PH-ALN 'Nandoe' at Dum Dum airport near Calcutta in the late thirties. |
KLM captains Scholte and Viruly (r) inspecting KLM's first automatic pilot. It had its try out on the Amsterdam-Oslo route. |
Polishing a propellor blade. |
I am not an expert in these matters but I believe that still today, aircraft have to be capable of flying at half power. The Dakota below is showing just that with its starboard engine switched off.
The DC3 Dakota PH-ARY 'IJsvogel' was in KLM-service for just eight months. It crashed at Schiphol Airport on November 14, 1938. |
From: Algemeen Handelsblad, November 15, 1938 ex Koninklijke Bibliotheek |
To enlarge a picture please click on it.
Beautiful pictures, and thanks to Aris and Bert for saving them from the dustbin; and thanks to you Peter for commenting and sharing them with us.
ReplyDeleteEspecially the DC-3 with one engine idle is a nice one. Incidentally the number of engines that may be u/s on take-off is defined by the ‘Obstacle Clearance Requirement’ that requires that an aircraft shall clear all obstacles by at least 35 feet vertically etc…as the graph below shows.
Therefore it’s different for every a/c as well as airport, taking into consideration also airfield pressure altitude, temperature, runwaylength, headwind, and the different a/c weights (takeoffweight, zero-fuelweight, landing weight)which have to be calculatet individually
Therefore a DC-7 could under circumstances make it on one engine only.
Hans
...and yet another nicety of the DC-3. Did you know that you can crank-up the engine like the oldtimer-cars?! I din't until I had to do it: In the early sixties KLM run a cargo DC-3 every Saturday SPL/VIE/LNZ/SPL. One very cold winterday in Linz, where I handled the a/c the engines would not start; so the captain asked me to crank it up. I thought he is pulling my leg, until he trew out the crank from the cockpit. Tell you at that night at -17C° I got it warm with that job but got it going and my weekend was saved.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we have a former station manager in our midst! Otherwise I wouldn't know what to do to warm myself under -17C° conditions :-) Thanks Hans. And by the way, I remember that SPL/VIE/LNZ/SPL-run but not that it was operated with a DC3. But maybe there was an equipment change around 1965 when I joined KLM.
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