Curtiss Condor Resurrection!

Basically a competitor to the DC-3, but apparently not as good?

 

Thats one ugly airplane.

 

You think it looks bad there, wait till you see it in real life!

It seems pretty obvious that the biplane configuration doomed it compared with the DC-3-- just so much drag!


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But they adapted quickly
Everyone Knows About The DC-3…..How About The C-46? – October 30, 2015 – Robert Novell

 

Knew the story; nice to know the aircraft...

 

I have a friend, now passed away, who flew C-46s in Korea, and another friend who flew a C-46 in the late 1990s for a helicopter operator.

The C-46 is huge, in comparison to the DC-3. I remember the first time I saw one, I actually thought it was a weird DC-3 until I got close to it and realized how large it is. It looks about twice the size-- I couldn't find an image of the two next to each other, unfortunately.

So yes, Curtiss did figure it out pretty quickly.

 

I have heard those who operated them swore by them. They had considerably bigger payload than C47.

According to Wikipedia it hauls almost twice as much twice as far.

 

I drive past a nice C-46 static display every time I go into work, and I always enjoy seeing it. Twin R-2800s....what's not to like! In the book Fighter Pilot's Heaven by Don Lopez, https://www.amazon.com/Fighter-Pilots-Heaven-Flight-Testing/dp/1560989165 he praises the C-46 as being a truly great flying airplane.

 

My late dentist flew C-46's over the "hump" from India to China. He had some stories, primarily about the absolutely terrible weather conditions in which they flew. He always told everybody he flew 93 1/2 missions (crashed but survived on the 94th mission).

 

Interesting. I think it’s really pretty for the period…

 

I believe that is an F-32 and when I was a kid in 1933-34 I used to see them at the old Washington airport and they were ugly in real life. I guess that we are used to the pencil shaped long slim airplanes now but the Condor was a thrill for me to see. When I was doing the "Flying Circus " book paintings, i correspond with an old pilot that flew them and he swore by them as a good and fast airplane when they were in service. he said that if you didn't get it slowed down on the downwind , you couldn't get it slow enough to land.They were flashy as hell in the American Airlines livery as they flew over the farm. Good but different memories.

 

I can't imagine with all that drag that it was fast compared to a DC-3... maybe compared to a Pitcairn Mailwing or a Jenny or something.

You probably weren't supposed to pull it back to idle on downwind either, I would guess.

I will say that in comparison to the other airplanes of the time (aside from the DC series), it probably looked a bit like a spaceship.