New C-82 Packet website

Hi Simon, just to comment – having read through your opus – its magnificent, the standard is easily equal to the treatises you see published as definitive statements of various aircraft. The amount of data is massive, I can see why its taken 5 years – well done.

Cheers Brian.

Hi Simon,

Serendipity!! – I am in the process of scanning my old negs into the system, last night the final strip was 6 negs of this, LAP around 1960 I would guess. The quality of the photos is not any good as too far away, scratched and raining. I must go to your website and peruse.

Cheers Brian. 😉

yes, it would be 1960 not past 1962. You can tell because of the
J44-R jet-pak is smaller than the later ’62-’63 fitted J34-WE jet-pak.

Colin:
“So why did Elleston Trevor come up with a fictional aircraft instead of just referring to the C-82 Packet?”

Steward-Davis at the time (1963-64) were marketing a civil conversion
of the C-82 called the “Skytruck Mk. 1”, which incidently crashed in
Mexico in late 64, that I think Trevor coined it for use in his own book.
A point of trivia: the first edition US book features a DC-3 on the
cover not the twin-boom required for the story.

I see many people have replied with photos thay have of TWA’s
C-82 – the rego. ET-T-12 was an Ethiopian one used in early
1960. It was in Eurpoe from 1956 to 1973 – a real winner of the plane
that TWA it seems just couldn’t replace!

Cheers

Hi Simon,

Serendipity!! – I am in the process of scanning my old negs into the system, last night the final strip was 6 negs of this, LAP around 1960 I would guess. The quality of the photos is not any good as too far away, scratched and raining. I must go to your website and peruse.

Cheers Brian. 😉

Brian….can you read the tail number on any of the shots….it did appear at Heathrow with TWA as ET-T-12 before becoming N9701F…

Simon….the C-82s used to photograph the Farnborough airshow in 1951 and 1952 are covered in these threads

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/search.php?searchid=1908669

One thing you mentioned in your website was the fact that the aircraft in the “Flight of the Phoenix” novel by Elleston Trevor was called the “Skytruck” (and in the movie James Stewart’s character calls the aircraft a “Skytruck” on one occasion.)

I read the novel a few years ago and recall that the full name of the fictional aircraft was the “Salmon – Rees Skytruck”

So why did Elleston Trevor come up with a fictional aircraft instead of just referring to the C-82 Packet? I think it was because in the book part of the plot dealt with the fact that the survivors were having to take some coolant from the aircraft’s engines liquid cooled cooling system and distil it to get water. This would obviously not be possible with air cooled radials as in the C -82 hence the use of a fictional aircraft type with liquid – cooled engines.

In the film version the screenplay therefore had to add the fact that the aircraft was carrying drums of anti-freeze which could then be distilled to provide some extra water.

Of course one plot point which still did not make sense in the film was the scene where Coffman cartridges are used to start the engine when I understand the C-82 never used such a system. Of course that was understandable artistic licence since a battery and starter motor would never have given us such an exciting scene!

Colin

Hi Simon,

Serendipity!! – I am in the process of scanning my old negs into the system, last night the final strip was 6 negs of this, LAP around 1960 I would guess. The quality of the photos is not any good as too far away, scratched and raining. I must go to your website and peruse.

Cheers Brian. 😉

Excellent job, Simon. I found something useful on the site straight away; the fact that the TWA C-82 I saw at Orly in the 1960s still exists! It was called “Ontos” – Greek for “the Thing”.

That is a fantastic bit of work, and slightly unexpected for the C-82.
Excellent pics and thorough information, I must admit I didn’t realise it flew befor the end of the war.
Thanks.