B-377 Stratocruiser – Project

There are no Stratocruisers left. None. Nada. Zip.

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Very sad – a truly iconic post war airliner and one which I still treasure a couple of flights in!:eagerness:

What a shame, it survived until relatively recently. Mind you, there wasn’t a lot of love for the classic propliners in the 70s.

That statement makes me wonder. What airframes are we taking for granted now that will be cherished in the not-too-distant future?

There are no Stratocruisers left. None. Nada. Zip. The preserved Israeli example is a C-97.

This plan is based around an ex-Hawkins & Powers C-97. It has been discussed elsewhere , along with the Berlin Airlift memorial folks’ plan to put a C-97 back in the air (likely to happen quite soon).

The Stratocruiser website doesn’t seem to have been updated for a while and AFAIK not a lot has been done on the airframe.

Great idea, but don’t hold your breath.

What a shame, it survived until relatively recently. Mind you, there wasn’t a lot of love for the classic propliners in the 70s.

No there are none left – the last 377 was scrapped at Tucson see here: http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1016457/

So again, to pose the question – are there any B.377s left?

Supposedly five were converted for the Heyl Ha’Avir:

c/n 15925/N1025V
c/n 15930/N1030V
c/n 15962/N90946
c/n 15963/N90947
c/n 15964/N90948

One of these is in the museum in Israel (and I’d assume very unlikely to be available), and I recall that the final survivor in the US was scrapped a long time ago (reported in Propliner magazine – Oakland?), so what else is left? This ‘project’ would appear to be a piece of whimsy in the absence of anything tangible.

So potentially we have a project for an airworthy B377 Strat, also independantly a project for an airworthy C97 not to mention the German and Swss Constellatons. The future of the European air show circuit is certainly looking promising! All we need now is for someone to raise a Vickers VIscount from the ashes, any of them still languishing in Africa?

This “project” has been around for a couple of years now. I’m not holding my breath.

To be fair, these things take a painful amount of time, often the first few years are so full of mundane detail as to appear like no progress at all, even when a few key individuals are working away on a daily basis. Two years is nothing!

I have requested the newsletter..

It’s a Sunderland not a Sandringham iirc.

It’s a Sunderland that didn’t have the good fortune to be converted by Shorts but for all practical purposes it’s a Sandringham. Certainly it’s more Sandringham than Sunderland. A rose by any other name. But we digress.

I see the latest ‘news’ is nearly a year ago. Hopefully there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes.

Which beggars the question, what aircraft are available? All that comes to mind are the Aero Spacelines conversions which would need to be de-converted. Examples would be F-GDSG, F-BTGV or more likely, the NASA example N941NA.

Unfeasible… the only parts of the 377 remaining in the Super Guppy Turbine are the cockpit, rear fuselage, tail and wings… rest of the fuselage was new build either by Aero Spacelines (aircraft 1&2) or Airbus (aircraft 3&4)…

Info from http://www.allaboutguppys.com/sgt/btsgt/btsgt.htm

Zeb

The plan is to use one of several Stratocruisers that were operated by the Israeli Airforce, they were modified to a military spec including freight doors I seem to remember, but the conversion back to B-377 standard would be easier than starting with a C-97.
Incidentally the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundations C-97 is close to being airworthy again. http://www.spiritoffreedom.org/

Richard

Great project, I wish someone would do a similar one with a flying boat. Kermit Weeks Short Sandringham would be an ideal base. 🙂

It’s a Sunderland not a Sadringham iirc.
He had plans to build a 1940’s sea plane terminal for it but never happened.

This “project” has been around for a couple of years now. I’m not holding my breath.

Very interesting, but surely there are no Stratocruisers left? Any ideas anyone?

Great project, I wish someone would do a similar one with a flying boat. Kermit Weeks Short Sandringham would be an ideal base. 🙂

Which beggars the question, what aircraft are available? All that comes to mind are the Aero Spacelines conversions which would need to be de-converted. Examples would be F-GDSG, F-BTGV or more likely, the NASA example N941NA.

Wow, that’s very ambitious.

The 337’s engines and props didn’t convey a high degree of reliability on the Strat when it was in service. They’re very big, highly stressed (P&W R-4360 Wasp Major) engines on this aircraft and the electric props weren’t particularly good – not sure if they’d be allowed to fly with them these days.

Perhaps replacement of the props with Hamilton Standard units and imposing strict limits on boost pressure and RPM will help in this regard though still pretty risky (by today’s standards) with passenger carrying being mooted. However, I’d assume they’d know all this and plan accordingly.

Anon.

Great, if Lufthansa is involved, it is possible!