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Forgotten Aircraft - Lockheed Constitution

Lockheed Constitution

Thanks for that Richoday. I seem to remember seeing something about the Constitution on the old "Wings" program back in the 90s. I loved seeing the F8F Bearcats formating with the Constitution about midway through the video.

Apparently it was a bit underpowered, but I wonder how it would have compared with the Boeing C-97/377 Stratocruiser in squadron service had it been produced in numbers.
 
Lockheed Constitution Issues

More powerful versions of the R-4360 Wasp Major were installed that theoretically produced 3,500 horsepower, but in practice even these engines could only garner 2,900 to 3,300 horsepower and that was with water injection and bypassing the superchargers on takeoff. As a result, use of the integral RATO units was commonplace.

The Constitution had operational difficulties which prevented it from meeting its original design objectives. The large airframe needed more power than the four Pratt & Whitney R-4360s could deliver. The engines also had cooling problems. While this could be compensated for by flying with engine cooling gills partially open, it increased drag and therefore decreased the overall range.
 
Makes one wonder what if they had held off for a few years and put turboprops on it.

The R-4360 was a maintenance nightmare and Pan Am lost more than a few of them on B377 Stratocruisers in flight.

Here's an excerpt from Ernest Gann's book "Flying Circus" mostly about the Stratocruiser, but he talks about the R-4360 Wasp Major too.

http://www.ovi.ch/b377/articles/lady/index.html
 
Willy said:
Makes one wonder what if they had held off for a few years and put turboprops on it.

The R-4360 was a maintenance nightmare and Pan Am lost more than a few of them on B377 Stratocruisers in flight.

Here's an excerpt from Ernest Gann's book "Flying Circus" mostly about the Stratocruiser, but he talks about the R-4360 Wasp Major too.

http://www.ovi.ch/b377/articles/lady/index.html
Click to expand...

Willy,

I too wonder if turboprops would of been the answer. But there was another less forgotten airplane; The USAF C-124 that had essentially same engines as the Constitution;
The PW-4360 engines were dwarfed by the size of that plane, When I watched them take off it looked like a giant blow fly straining for altitude. I'll bet those engines
were internally hemorrhaging on take off especially with full full and cargo/pax. :icon_lol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_C-124_Globemaster_II
 
I think the US Government was one of the few that could afford to operate those engines.

I wasn't aware of what the C-124 used for engines.
 
For some reason, it reminds me a lot of the Brabazon. Both are impressive to these eyes. I wonder if the Constitution and Brabazon had been successful, if the Boeing 747 as we know it, would have been produced. Or if it would have been a completely different aircraft all together. Just some food for thought. Kind regards, Jeremy AKA Birdy
 
Jagdflieger said:
Or how about the XC-99, a B-36 derivative for cargo and personnel.
Click to expand...

She still exists; in pieces at one of the storage facilities at the USAF museum (what is in storage there is amazing).

Correction: in 2011 the museum transferred it to one of their storage facilities in Texas.
 
I remember one of these Constitutions sitting down in Opa Locka for years and years (70's). It was finally destroyed.

Don
 
According to Wikipedia, the Constitution at Las Vegas was scrapped by Howard Hughs after he acquired it and the Constitution at Opa Locka was towed to a junk yard where vandals set it on fire. A dismal end to the Constitution project.
 
richoday said:
Willy,

I too wonder if turboprops would of been the answer. But there was another less forgotten airplane; The USAF C-124 that had essentially same engines as the Constitution;
The PW-4360 engines were dwarfed by the size of that plane, When I watched them take off it looked like a giant blow fly straining for altitude. I'll bet those engines
were internally hemorrhaging on take off especially with full full and cargo/pax. :icon_lol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_C-124_Globemaster_II
Click to expand...

The French SNCASE SE-2010 Armagnac suffered the same problem: it too was powered by 4 R-4360s, basically the entire power package of the Boeing 377 - prop, engine and cowlings - even though at full take-off weight she weighed in at 170850 lbs, some 22000 lbs more than a 377. Originally, she was designed to be powered by a French-built engine, a 24-cylinder monster, actually two Junkers Jumo 211s combined in a H-24 configuration, much like the Napier Sabre or Daimler-Benz DB-610, but luckily this never progressed beyond its prototype stage (keeping the trouble with the Heinkel He 177 in mind, nicknamed the '"Flying Lighter" by its own crews due to its engine's tendencies to overheat or catch fire without warning).

Early on in the Armagnac programme, the design team looked towards the turboprop engine as a solution: as early as 1950, they planned on replacing the R-4360s by either the Bristol Proteus or Allison T-40 on what should have been the SE-2040, however this variant never made it beyond planning: by the time the model for the SE-2040 was presented at Le Bourget 1951, the programme was well and truly dead (production airframe 15 should have been the first turboprop-powered Armagnac, however frames 9 to 15 were never completed and eventually scrapped). In hindsight, though, one could wonder if the turboprop Armagnac would have been a success, given the teething problems the Proteus had (which delayed the Britannia programme to a point where it found itself competing with the jets); or the Allison T-40 which had a rather dysmal reputation in service (with all Allison T-40-engined aircraft either being stillborn, or seriously curtailed by the T-40s enduring gearbox problems).
 
Blackbird686 said:
That IS a beauty... albeit a bit on the unusual side. It appears from the pic that the 2 outboard engines have single prop configs and the 4 inboard engines are fitted with contra-props.

BB686:USA-flag:
Click to expand...

That was indeed the case - the Saro Princess was not a six-engined, but a ten-engined plane. The four inboard nacelles each housed two paired Bristol Proteus 2 engines, while the two outboard nacelles each held a single one, with each prop being powered by a single engine. However, as with the Allison T-40, the gearboxes on the paired inboard engines were a technical nightmare, and contributed much to the type's eventual demise.
 
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