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VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

The Starliner: 1958

My grandfather, Warren Erickson, at the upper left with his pals and co-workers at the Lockheed factory in Burbank, California in May 1958.  These guys were with TWA, charged with getting this graceful beast working right. This was the model 1649, the Super Constellation, and the last version made. The first was the 049, dating back to WW2. TWA was the primary customer of this bird. It was a daunting and formidable job, indeed. They had the some of the most formidably complicated piston engines to maintain, the Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclones.
I was told how he loved his job and the guys he worked with. They were involved with one of the most beautiful planes ever made, working tirelessly to get the problems resolved. These were the days of slide rules, screwdrivers, and cocktail napkin drawings. View full size.

My grandfather, Warren Erickson, at the upper left with his pals and co-workers at the Lockheed factory in Burbank, California in May 1958. These guys were with TWA, charged with getting this graceful beast working right. This was the model 1649, the Super Constellation, and the last version made. The first was the 049, dating back to WW2. TWA was the primary customer of this bird. It was a daunting and formidable job, indeed. They had the some of the most formidably complicated piston engines to maintain, the Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclones.

I was told how he loved his job and the guys he worked with. They were involved with one of the most beautiful planes ever made, working tirelessly to get the problems resolved. These were the days of slide rules, screwdrivers, and cocktail napkin drawings. View full size.

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Thanks

Thanks, agedrooster24. I appreciate your insightful comments on this and my earlier post of my Grandfather and the Connie. He was quite a guy, never famous, but managed to be very involved with early automobiles and aviation. He knew, at least to some extent, Eddie Rickenbacker and Howard Hughes.

Of course, being born in 1899, and talented mechanically doesn't hurt!

R-3350

By the time this picture was taken the R-3350 had been tamed and was a fine purring, safe and reliable engine. Early on the forerunner of this engine powered the B-29 and for a variety of reasons it developed a well deserved bad reputations. Put in to production by both Wright and Dodge of Chrysler it went through thousands of changes during WWII. On the Boeing B-29 it was prone to valve failures and heating problems, perhaps due to the way Boeing constructed the engine nacelles.

Over time these changes began to take effect and by the time Lockheed adapted the R-3350 to the Connie they came to be regarded as a dependable power plant. Some where on Shorpy there is a photo of the Lockheed nacelle used on the Connie. It provided much better cooling and accessibility. Lockheed, at least on the P2V provided a much better fire protection to the wing in case of fire.

I cannot verify a story this was told when I was working on the P2V(1951-1952) that an engine had caught fire in flight and, after a period of time, just fell off the wing. This, if true, is in contrast to the B-29 where an engine fire almost always resulted in a wing failure. There were several engine fires on the Connie and DC-7c with out fatalities.

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