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Vintage Ephemera

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DAustin

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Jul 30, 2021
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I flew military-surplus C-47's (DC-3's) in Alaska in the 1980's. Civilian manuals tell you how to fly with passengers for airline service. I needed to know what the airplane would actually do when flying into and out of short runways, beaches, and gravel bars. I used this military C-47 manual, which had the information that I needed for my job.

There are some interesting pages. The take-off performance with 4 1,000 lb. thrust JATO bottles is impressive, but I never got to experience that. The airplane will take off and land in a reasonably short distance. The shortest runway I used was 1,650 ft. long. The shortest with a full load was 2,200 ft. long.

The highest civilian gross weight is 26,900 pounds.

My avatar is the airplane I flew the most, a C-47B. It was picking up Sockeye Salmon on a beach in Bristol Bay. It has since been converted to turboprop engines and is currently based in Germany, supporting Arctic research. It was built in 1944.

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A C-46 did an emergency landing in a field in Toledo Ohio in the late 60s. It sat in that field for a long time right next to a road. The vandals got to it, and they had to truck it out. It was really sad to see it get torn up. I always wondered what happened to it. I hope someone fixed it up.
 

Provincial

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Near Salem, OR
The early Alaska scheduled carriers used C-46's after WWII, partially because they could be operated on skis, and mostly because they had more payload than a DC-3/C-47. Reeve Aleutian operated them into the 1960's. Several C-46's were still working in Alaska in the 1980's. Some hauled cargo, but they were popular with people who hauled bulk fuel. With the right pilot, they could use airstrips that were very short.

The saying was, there were two types of C-46 pilots. Those that could make the airplane do things that it shouldn't be able to do, and those that could never get the hang of flying it at all.
 

Farmer J.

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UK, Cornwall/Hertfordshire.
The early Alaska scheduled carriers used C-46's after WWII, partially because they could be operated on skis, and mostly because they had more payload than a DC-3/C-47. Reeve Aleutian operated them into the 1960's. Several C-46's were still working in Alaska in the 1980's. Some hauled cargo, but they were popular with people who hauled bulk fuel. With the right pilot, they could use airstrips that were very short.

The saying was, there were two types of C-46 pilots. Those that could make the airplane do things that it shouldn't be able to do, and those that could never get the hang of flying it at all.
I have some memory of flying in a Nordair DC3 ..
Edit: I've just removed what I wrote about an hour ago, I think it was correct but now I'm not absolutely sure which occasion it was ! The memory gets vague on some things after 40 years..
 
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four.cycle

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Tacoma, Washington
^ I'd love to see that catalog at ITCL. I used to play with those chrome air cleaner stacks (No. 1068-262) on the floor at the 38th Street store when I was a kid. Those and the chrome head bolt covers made for great toys on the linoleum floor.
 

Drill Sergeant Arc

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^ I'd love to see that catalog at ITCL. I used to play with those chrome air cleaner stacks (No. 1068-262) on the floor at the 38th Street store when I was a kid. Those and the chrome head bolt covers made for great toys on the linoleum floor.
I’m not completely up to speed on you kid’s new fangled internet thingamajig stuff but I’ll ask my son to help me. I hope you didn’t loose any of those things. . . They cost 10 cents each.
 

daddyopoppy

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Oct 25, 2010
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Rock Falls Illinois
As you can see from the inside cover it’s the oct. 1955 issue of the Snap-On catalog. I think I got it from a guy who used to work with us. Interesting, I can post more pictures if anyone has specific interests.
 

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WisJim

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I was just out in the garage looking for something and checked on a tote of old literature and magazines and found these. The Turbonique brochure is from the mid 1960s I think. I must have gotten it when I was in high school and thought I needed a 1000+hp go cart.IMG_20230201_105508362.jpg
 

Provincial

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Near Salem, OR
^^^ I remember those chairs as a kid. Very uncomfortable!

"Best investment I ever made". Is he talking about the lawn mower or the wife? I don't remember wives mowing lawns when I was a kid. It was dads, until the boys got old enough to talk Mom into letting them be around power equipment. Farm girls were different. ;)
 

Drill Sergeant Arc

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^^^ I remember those chairs as a kid. Very uncomfortable!

"Best investment I ever made". Is he talking about the lawn mower or the wife? I don't remember wives mowing lawns when I was a kid. It was dads, until the boys got old enough to talk Mom into letting them be around power equipment. Farm girls were different. ;)
Hey, you and I and everyone else knows the whole point of an advertisement like that is to get the guy to associate that mower with a **** gal, so when he goes to look to buy a mower he will get strangely turned on in the lawn and garden dept at Sears.
 

WisJim

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Menomonie, WI
This sounds like the gas stations I remember as a kid. When I took in the gallon gas can to get a quarter's worth of gas for the lawn mower, the owner would deduct the highway tax from the price of the gas. And if we had some project that we lacked the proper wrench or other tool to complete, well, we took it down to the station and one of the guys would take a minute and help us out.
 

Drill Sergeant Arc

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I have a 1933 copy of this trade journal, three years into the great depression and there are no ads for mechanic tool sets. And then by 1937 things start to get busy.

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And then these from 1938 Automotive Digest.
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