The Ford Trimotor (also called "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed "The Tin Goose" ) is a three-engined American transport plane. Production began in 1925 by Henry Ford company and ended on June 7, 1933. A total of 199 Ford Trimotors were made. It was designed for the civil aviation market, but also saw service with military units.
Video Ford Trimotor
Design and development
The Ford Trimotor was the development of earlier designs by William Bushnell Stout, using structural principles copied from the work of Professor Hugo Junkers, the famous German metal pioneer design plane, and adapted to a fuselage very similar to a single engine Fokker F. VII - even using the same airfoil cross section at the root of the wing.
In the early 1920s, Henry Ford, along with a group of 19 other investors including his son Edsel, invested in the Stout Metal Plane Company. Stout, a bold and imaginative salesman, sent a stencilled letter to a reputable manufacturer, cheerfully asked for $ 1,000 and added: "For your thousand dollars you will get a definite promise: you will never get your money back." Stout raised $ 20,000, including $ 1,000 each from Edsel and Henry Ford.
In 1925, Ford bought the Stout and the design of the aircraft. Single sole monoplane converted into trimotor, Stout 3-AT with three Curtiss-Wright air-cooled radial engines. After the prototype was built and test-flown with poor results, and suspicious fire caused complete destruction of all previous designs, "4-AT" and "5-AT" appeared.
The Ford Trimotor using all-metal construction is not a revolutionary concept, but certainly more advanced than standard construction techniques of the 1920s. The plane was similar to Fokker F.VII Trimotor (except for all-metal that Henry Ford claimed made it the "safest plane"). Fuselage and its wings follow the design pioneered by Junkers during World War I with Junkers JI and use postwar in a series of aircraft beginning with Junkers F.13 monoplane low wings of 1920 which are exported to the US, Junkers K 16 1921 high wing aircraft, and Junkers G 24 trimotor 1924. All of these are constructed from aluminum alloys, which are corrugated for added stiffness, although the resulting resistance reduces overall performance. So did the design that Junkers initiated and won when Ford tried to export aircraft to Europe. In 1930, Ford retaliated in Prague, and despite the possibility of anti-German sentiment, was firmly defeated for the second time, with court findings that Ford had violated the Junkers patent.
Although designed primarily for passenger use, the Trimotor can be easily adapted to transport cargo, since its seat on the aircraft can be removed. To increase cargo capacity, an unusual feature is the provision of "drop-down" cargo storage under the lower wing sections of the 5-AT version.
One 4-AT engine with Wright J-4 200-hp was built for US Army Air Corps as C-3 , and seven with Wright R-790-3 (235Ã, hp) as C -3As . The latter was upgraded to radial Wright R-975-1 (J6-9) at 300 hp and redesigned C-9 . Five 5-ATs are built as C-4s or C-4As .
Original (commercial production) 4-AT has three air-cooled Wright radial engines. It carries three crew members: a pilot, a co-pilot, and a flight attendant, and eight or nine passengers. Then 5-AT has Pratt & amp; Whitney Machine. All models have a corrugated aluminum body and wing sheet. Unlike many aircraft of this era, extending until World War II, the control surfaces (ailerons, elevators, and rudders) were not covered with fabric, but also made of corrugated metal. As usual at the time, the rudder and the elevator were driven by metal wires strung along the outer surface of the plane. The engine gauge is also installed externally, on the engine, to be read by the pilot while looking through the windshield of the aircraft. Another interesting feature is the use of hand operated "Johnny brakes".
Like Ford cars and tractors, Ford's planes are well-designed, relatively inexpensive, and reliable (for the times). The combination of metal structures and simple systems led to their reputation for roughness. Rudimentary services can be completed "on the ground" with ground crews who can work on machines using scaffolds and platforms. To fly to an inaccessible site, Ford Trimotor can be equipped with skis or buoys.
The rapid development of the aircraft today (the highly superior Douglas DC-2 was first conceived in 1932), along with the death of his personal pilot, Harry J. Brooks, on a test flight, caused a loss of interest in Henry Ford's flight. While Ford made no profits on its aircraft business, Henry Ford's reputation provided credibility to the airline and airline industry, and Ford helped introduce many aspects of modern aviation infrastructure, including paved runways, passenger terminals, hangars, airmail and navigation radios.
In the late 1920s, Ford's Aircraft Division was regarded as "the world's largest commercial aircraft manufacturer." Along with Ford Trimotor, a new single-seat commuter plane, Ford Flivver or "Sky Flivver" has been designed and flown in prototype form, but has never entered a series production. The Trimotor is not to be Ford's last attempt in aircraft production. During World War II, the world's largest aircraft manufacturing plant was built at Willow Run, Michigan, where Ford produced thousands of B-24 Liberator bombers under license from Consolidated Aircraft.
William Stout left the Aeroplane Metal division of Ford Motor Company in 1930. He continued to operate Stout's Engineering Laboratory, which produced various aircraft. In 1954, Stout bought the rights to Ford Trimotor in an effort to produce new examples. A new company formed from this effort brought back two modern examples of trimotor aircraft, renamed Stout Bushmaster 2000, but even with the improvements that have been incorporated, performance is rated lower than the modern design.
Maps Ford Trimotor
Operational history
A total of 199 Ford Trimotors were built between 1926 and 1933, including 79 from the 4-AT variant, and 116 from the 5-AT variant, plus some experimental aircraft. More than 100 airlines in the world fly Ford Trimotor. From mid-1927, this type was also flown in executive transportation duties by some nonairline commercial operators, including oil and manufacturing companies.
The impact of Ford Trimotor on commercial flights is immediate, since the design represents "quantum leap over other aircraft." Within months of its introduction, Transcontinental Air Transport was created to provide coastal to beach operations, utilizing Trimotor's ability to provide passenger services that are reliable and, for the time being. When advertised as a transcontinental service, airlines have to rely on railway connections with the fancy Pullman train that will be based in New York to be the first part of the journey. The passengers then meet with Trimotor in Port Columbus, Ohio, who will embark on a hop across the continent ending in Waynoka, Oklahoma, where another train will take passengers to Clovis, New Mexico, where the last journey will begin, once again at Trimotor, at Grand Central Air Terminal in Glendale, a few miles northeast of Los Angeles. This demanding trip will be available only one year before the Transcontinental merged into a joint with Western Air Service.
Ford Trimotors was also used extensively by Pan American Airways, for its first international scheduled flight from Key West to Havana, Cuba, in 1927. Finally, Pan American services extended from North America and Cuba to Central and South America in the late 1920s and early 1930s. One of the earliest airlines in Latin America, Cubana de AviaciÃÆ'³n, was the first to use Ford Trimotor in Latin America, beginning in 1930, for its domestic services.
The heyday for Ford's transportation was relatively short, lasting until 1933, when more modern planes began to emerge. Instead of disappearing completely, Trimotors earned an enviable reputation for endurance with a Ford advertisement in 1929 stating, "No Ford plane has been damaged in service yet." Firstly relegated to second and third tier airlines, Trimotors continued to fly into the 1960s, with many examples being transformed into cargo transport to extend their career, and when World War II began, commercial versions were soon modified for the military. application.
Some significant flights made by Ford Trimotor in this period greatly enhanced the type reputation for strength and reliability. One example is the Ford 4-AT Trimotor serial number 10, built in 1927. The aircraft is flying in the United States and Mexico with registration number C-1077, and for several years in Canada with G-CARC registration. It has many important achievements; it was flown by Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, among many others. It made the first commercial flight from the United States to Mexico City, as well as the first commercial flight over the Canadian Rockies. After damage to the landing in 1936, it was grounded and fixed for decades in Carcross, Yukon. In 1956, the shipwreck was saved and preserved, and in the mid-1980s, Greg Herrick took over the C-1077 and began to recover it. In 2006, C-1077 was in a flying condition again, returned to its performance in December 1927.
Make headlines into Trimotor trademarks. On November 27 and 28, 1929, Commander Richard E. Byrd (navigator), head pilot Bernt Balchen, and two other crew members, copilot and photographer, made the first flight over the geographical South Pole at Ford Trimotor named Byrd Floyd Bennett . This is one of three planes taken on this polar expedition, with two others named The Stars and Stripes and The Virginian, replacing the previous Byrd Fokker Trimotors.
A Ford Trimotor is used for flight Elm Farm Ollie, the first cow to fly on the plane and milked during the middle of the flight.
Franklin Roosevelt also flew over Ford Trimotor in 1932 during his presidential campaign in one of the first uses of an airplane in the election, replacing the traditional whistle stop train ride.
The short-range capability of Ford Trimotor was exploited in search of missing flyers from Sigizmund Levanevsky's trans-polar flight in 1937. The Jimmie Mattern flyer flyer flew specially-modified Lockheed Electra along with fellow film flyer, Garland Lincoln, flying a trimotor that had been pruned , donated by the president of the Superior Petroleum Company. With 1,800 gallons of avgas and 450 gallons of oil in the modified cabin, Trimotor is intended to act as a "tanker" for expeditions. Electra is able to transfer fuel in the air from the Trimotor, through a 4-AT door throw hose. With the first successful airfill test, a pair of pilots left for Fairbanks, first landing at Burwash Landing, Yukon Territory, Canada, on August 15, 1937, but Trimotor ran out of fuel and crashed in bad weather the next day. The Trimotor was left on the tundra.
One of the main uses of the Trimotor after being replaced as a passenger plane by a more modern aircraft such as Boeing 247 (1933) or Douglas DC-2 (1934), then DC-3, is the transport of heavy goods to mining operations in forests and mountains. Trimotor was employed for decades in this role.
In 1942, during the Bataan Battle, a Trimotor was used in evacuation. The aircraft will carry 24 people nearly 500 miles of travel, twice a day. The plane was finally bombarded and destroyed by Japanese aircraft. In the same year, 5-AT-C was used by the Royal Australian Air Force during the Kokoda Track campaign.
From 1954 onwards, attempts were made to produce a modern version of Trimotor as Stout Bushmaster 2000. Loaded with financial, management and marketing issues, only two examples were originally built with a third unfinished plane.
Specifications (Ford 4-AT-E Trimotor)
Data from International Flights archive
General characteristics
- Crew: 3 (pilot, co-pilot, flight attendant)
- Capacity: 11 passengers
- Length: 49 ft 10 in (15.2 m)
- Wing width: 74 ft 0 in (22.6 m)
- Height: 11 ft 9 in (3,6 m)
- Wings area: 461 square feet (12.9 mÃ,²)
- Empty weight: 6,500 lb (2.950 kg)
- Max. takeoff weight: 10,130 lb (4,595 kg)
- Powerplant: 3 ÃÆ'â € "Wright J-6-9 Whirlwind 9 cylinder radial machine, 300 hp (224 kW) each
Performance
- Maximum speed: 132 mph (213 km/h, 115 kn)
- Roaming speed: 107 mph (172 km/h, 93 kn)
- Kiosk Speed: 57 mph (92 km/h, 50 kn)
- Range: 570 mi (918 km, 495 nmi)
- Service ceiling: 18,600 feet (5,670m)
- Ascent: 920 ft/min (4.67 m/s)
- Loading wings: 22.0 lb/(sq ft) (kg/mÃ,²)
- Power/mass: lb/hp (kg/kW)
Important appearances in media
See also
Pengembangan terkait
- Ford Flivver
- Stout Bushmaster 2000
- Stout ST
Airplane with equivalent role, configuration, and era
- Fokker F.VII
- Junkers G 24
- Junkers G 31
Related list
- List of World War II planes
- List of civil aircraft
- List of US military planes
- List of US military aircraft (navy)
References
Note
Quote
Bibliography
External links
- Ford Trimotor "a tribute to Ford Tri-Motor", and contains facts, pictures, bibliographies and more.
- Photo detail - 1929 Ford 4-AT-E Tri-Motor
- Closed panoramic scope inside & amp; from EAA 1929 Ford 4-AT-E Tri-Motor
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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