C-130

Originally Posted by Exhaustgases


The same reason some of the good old cars and trucks of the past are not being made now.


Yep... the good old days... when all you needed was 1 horsepower...
[Linked Image]
 
Originally Posted by BusyLittleShop
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases


The same reason some of the good old cars and trucks of the past are not being made now.


Yep... the good old days... when all you needed was 1 horsepower...
[Linked Image]




Fast fact: A well oiled horse can produce up to 15 horsepower!
 
Turboshaft engines on the 130 don't throttle up like a recip, they run at 100% at all time in flight, the propellers make the power thru blade angle positioning, don't think you can blame this on a mechanical issue or the plane, by the video looks like they got disoriented flying into the thick smoke with a possible tailwind.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGhzpx5Zxw8

So likely no structural failure. But another case where turbines don't throttle up fast enough, recip would be the better choice as it used to be for fire fighting.




Having flown an airplane (the E-2C) with the T-56 engine - same as a C-130 - I can tell you that the power response on a turboprop is INSTANTANEOUS.

They don't "spool up" - they are already spooled and the power hit from pushing up the throttles on a turboprop is far faster than on a piston engine.

Like Malo83 said, they run at 99-101% RPM all the time. Going from idle to full power is a matter of fuel and blade pitch, not RPM.
 
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It's possible for an to engine ingest enough smoke to stall but it should be recoverable. It used to happen on occasion to my unit's c-130's during MAFFS missions, we never lost any birds though.

As a side note; in a C-130 with a T-56 engine, the pilot controls the propeller and the propeller controls the engine. The only engine RPM control is a button that puts the engine in "Ground Idle" that opens the bleed air valves and the RPM drops to 80% for taxiing.
 
Serving 20 years in the USAF I always love the sound of a piston
popping reciprocating engine more than the whoosh of a turbine but the
power to weight ratio always favored the turbine and that is why
they are now the choice of aircraft aeronautical engineers...

Allison T-56
Dry weight: 1,940 lb
Maximum power output: 4,350 shp
Power-to-weight ratio: 2.75 shp/lb

Pratt Whitney 4360
Dry weight: 3,870 lb
Power output: 4,300 hp
Power-to-weight ratio: 1.11 hp/lb
 
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Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
This is not about some "A" model or what ever, the planes are flat a bad design, for flying with alot of weight the wings should not be over slung. And if your going to use a high wing design then build them like a cessna with wing struts.
https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-removes-c-130s-from-service-after-finding-cracks-2019-8
The wings look like they are very low surface area, and thus very highly loaded.


I'd be interested to see and explanation of the reasoning you used to form this opinion.
Where a wing attaches to the fuselage has nothing to do with its strength. There are low-wing aircraft that require wing struts as well, the Piper PA25 for example. A wing strut (like a low or high wing) is a design decision with its own set of tradeoffs that in some cases can be useful and in others a detriment (In general it's a feature that adds drag but saves structural weight which is why you see struts on lower speed aircraft like GA Cessnas, Piper Cubs, etc. but not on higher speed aircraft).
Wing loading has nothing to do with wing strength either, it probably has the biggest effect on stall speed, all else being equal.

As others have said, the Herc has a long record of exceptional performance. You keep posting opinions without any data or reasoning to back them up. I have to wonder if you're not just trolling.
 
The folding up wings are the data. Low wings? Its surprising that DC-3 wings hold as good as they do, as there is no spar that goes through from the outboard wings into the center section that holds the engine nacelles. Attachment is by small angles forming a flange with a bunch of bolts. With a laminar flow on top and bottom I can see where that system works fine, but then when it comes to high G's ???
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
The folding up wings are the data. Low wings? Its surprising that DC-3 wings hold as good as they do, as there is no spar that goes through from the outboard wings into the center section that holds the engine nacelles. Attachment is by small angles forming a flange with a bunch of bolts. With a laminar flow on top and bottom I can see where that system works fine, but then when it comes to high G's ???


The C-130 isn't the first aircraft (of any wing location) to have a structural failure of the wing so your point is? There is a reason airplanes come with G-limits and there's a reason it's generally a bad idea to exceed the limit by any significant margin. Over G any plane enough and a wing folding up is the likely result.

If I had to guess Lockheed most likely chose a high wing design to keep the props away from the ground and up higher where they're less likely to be damaged by FOD on non-paved runways. The fuselage can then be closer to the ground making it easier to load the military cargo the plane is designed to transport.

I'm not sure what laminar flow has to do with this but laminar flow has nothing to do with wing location or strength. I also doubt the DC3 has laminar flow anywhere near its wing roots!

in engineering, everything is a tradeoff. A wing spar going through the fuselage uninterrupted is likely a lighter design (for a given strength) than interrupting the spar and attaching the wings on either side of the fuselage but the spar takes up a lot of room that can be used for cargo. If designed properly neither design is inferior in strength, they just make different tradeoffs (weight for cargo room).

Who knows though, you seem to think helicopters are inherently dangerous as well so I might but be a shill for the mighty high-wing & helicopter pilot-killing cabal.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
Its surprising that DC-3 wings hold as good as they do, as there is no spar that goes through from the outboard wings into the center section that holds the engine nacelles


Negative... Donald Douglas's DC3 employs a triple spar...
[Linked Image]
 
And why piston airline size planes not allowed, they are orders of magnitude less cost to maintain and operate there is a reason places like Everts still uses them . It seems the goal is to make the costs go as high as possible when it comes to Govrnmt. Remember the toilet seat deal in the past.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
And why piston airline size planes not allowed, they are orders of magnitude less cost to maintain and operate there is a reason places like Everts still uses them . It seems the goal is to make the costs go as high as possible when it comes to Govrnmt. Remember the toilet seat deal in the past.


If what you said was even remotely true, then all of the major airlines would be flying piston planes. Cost is their primary concern.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
And why piston airline size planes not allowed, they are orders of magnitude less cost to maintain and operate there is a reason places like Everts still uses them . It seems the goal is to make the costs go as high as possible when it comes to Govrnmt. Remember the toilet seat deal in the past.

True. Boeing wanted to put piston engines on 747, but government said: [censored] no.
 
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
And why piston airline size planes not allowed, they are orders of magnitude less cost to maintain and operate there is a reason places like Everts still uses them . It seems the goal is to make the costs go as high as possible when it comes to Govrnmt. Remember the toilet seat deal in the past.


If what you said was even remotely true, then all of the major airlines would be flying piston planes. Cost is their primary concern.



This day and age they would not fly them. Its not because of cost but, passengers would refuse to fly on them because of preconceived ideas about them. Though if fuel was in very short supply, they could come back in the form of diesel type engines.
I guess you never saw how much fuel a jet engine burns in a very short span. Flying could end up reverting back to what it was in the old days, that is only a luxury that the very wealthy could afford. The way the future looks is that planes will end up being build much smaller than they are now. Especially if they wish to electrify them. I think the jet or turbine engine is going to someday be eliminated, they are too fuel hungry.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
And why piston airline size planes not allowed, they are orders of magnitude less cost to maintain and operate there is a reason places like Everts still uses them . It seems the goal is to make the costs go as high as possible when it comes to Govrnmt. Remember the toilet seat deal in the past.


Modern turbine aircraft are much more economical to operate under most conditions than any recip. They are also much more reliable. High powered, multi row radials are beautiful and impressive machines, but aren't exactly user friendly or inexpensive to maintain or anywhere near as reliable as a modern turbine.

The C5 'toilet seat deal' was simple economics, and a good deal of political sophistry. Take any item that needs significant R&D and the capital to produce it, then amortize those costs plus the other direct and indirect costs, and profit, over a very short production run and there you have the '$35K toilet seat' or whatever. Add in an opportunistic politician, selling a simplistic message to their nodding supporters....

There are many better and truthful examples of govt. waste.
 
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
Originally Posted by Astro14
Originally Posted by Exhaustgases
And why piston airline size planes not allowed, they are orders of magnitude less cost to maintain and operate there is a reason places like Everts still uses them . It seems the goal is to make the costs go as high as possible when it comes to Govrnmt. Remember the toilet seat deal in the past.


If what you said was even remotely true, then all of the major airlines would be flying piston planes. Cost is their primary concern.



This day and age they would not fly them. Its not because of cost but, passengers would refuse to fly on them because of preconceived ideas about them. Though if fuel was in very short supply, they could come back in the form of diesel type engines.
I guess you never saw how much fuel a jet engine burns in a very short span. Flying could end up reverting back to what it was in the old days, that is only a luxury that the very wealthy could afford. The way the future looks is that planes will end up being build much smaller than they are now. Especially if they wish to electrify them. I think the jet or turbine engine is going to someday be eliminated, they are too fuel hungry.



In my 35 years of flying everything from piston singles, to the 747, along with the F-14 and F/A-18, I HAVE seen how much each type uses.

In all flight regimes.

It's a cost/mile thing for airlines. Fuel is one aspect. Maintenance matters. 56 sparkplugs on each engine, for example, four engines, the poor reliability, and the downtime for maintenance killed the recip airliner a long time ago.

"Fuel hungry" is both specious and simplistic.

Modern jet engines, and modern jet airliners, are incredibly fuel efficient where it matters: cruise flight.

The 787 burns about 6,000 lbs per hour (about 900 gallons) total in cruise. At 0.85 Mach.

The DC-6 burned about the same amount of aviation gasoline per hour.

But it was going half the speed.

Carrying 1/3 the passengers.

With 1/4 of the range.

Flying down in the weather and turbulence.

Burning fuel that's three times as expensive as jet fuel, which is basically kerosene.

So, nine or ten times more expensive per mile (fuel/seat/mile) on fuel alone, with much higher maintenance, while going half the speed, with limited range, fuel stops to get across the US, incapable of crossing the Atlantic or Pacific without stopping.

But at least it was noisy and slow....
 
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