Whatsthisplane?

[mdiehl]

Here's a challenge that even Brady may have to search around a bit or two to identify. Extra credit to the first person who can explain why there are no rivets.



Although this one is in post war livery it is indeed a WW2 US production model.

[Splinterhead]

RB-1/C-93 Conestoga

[tsimmonds]

Err, because it's welded?

[Lemurs!]

C76 Caravan from Curtiss designed in '41, all wood construction because of fears of Aluminum shortage. Only 25 built.

[mdiehl]

Splinterhead is fastest with the bestest.

It is a Budd Aircraft RB-1 Conestoga. All stainless steel welded construction, so the xtra credit nodd goes to Irrelevent.

[Ron Saueracker]

Looks like oneof those plane charicatures.

[Lemurs!]

cool, i have never seen one of those.
I wasn't sure about mine, but it looked 'close'.
ah, well.

[Feinder]

It must have sucked to have been a pilot of one of those things, because you know all the other pilots are laughing at you behind your back. Even the C-47 pilots can brag that they're carrying paratroopers or flying supplies over "The Hump" (actually, quite dangerous).

But that thing... What's a pilot gonna brag in the O-club, "Hey! I fly a plane thats fatter than a bus, and has no rivets! Woo-hoo!"

P-shah.
-F-

[rogueusmc]

Stainless steel huh?...the thing must have weighed 50 tons...lol

[mdiehl]

Conestoga Pilot: "I fly the hump."
Other Pilot: "So you fly C47s in Burma too?"
Conestoga Pilot:"No. I just fly the hump."

Rogue -- It was a very, very thin stainless steel. Interesting to see the dissassembled parts of most of one at the Pima Air and Space Museum. Apparently they can't rebuild it because the tech for spot-welding such thin sheets of steel is now "lost technology."

Gives one yet more reflection on US material abundance and innovation in WW2. What other nation, worried about aluminum shortages, would have substituted stainless steel?

[mdiehl]

Specifications:
Length: 68' 0 (20.7 m)
Height: 31' 9" (9.68 m)
Wingspan: 100' 0" (30.5 m)
Wing area: 1400 sq. ft. (130 sq. m)
Empty Weight: 20,156 lb (9,150 kg.)
Weight loaded: 33,860 lb (15,372 kg)

[rogueusmc]

10 tons huh?...alot lighter that I would have thought.

[kew]

So what kind of vehicle is that???? [:D]

[drw61]

Here is a website I found on the Conestoga with a little of it's history.

http://www.microworks.net/pacific/aviat ... estoga.htm