Talk:Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar/Archive 1

Archive 1

Wright engine

The Wright engine started appearing in 1952 with the Kaiser-built C-119F model. It later appeared in Fairchild built models.

The text of this article was copied from the USAF Museum website. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rsduhamel (talk • contribs) 10:54, January 7, 2005 (UTC)

Comment moved from article

Front view of a C-119.
Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas (March 2007).

Post-Korea models of the C-119 used P&W 4360 engines. The plane also had a glycol tank (~300 gal) behind each engine which was used to give (considerable) additional horsepower for takeoff. In addition, the cargo area contained a mono-rail system for rapid air drops of cargo. Also, practically everything was electrically operated as opposed to the use of hydraulics.

At the flight engineers desk (behind the co-pilot) he could monitor the firing of all 56 sparkplugs (2 per cyl) on a small oscilloscope and, if necessary, unfoul them in flight by injecting raw gas onto them. (I do not think a C-124 could do this and it had 6 of these engines, but I am doing this from memory and I only worked on a few of the 124's).

At my airbase in southern Japan, Ashia, we had about 100 C-119's flying around the clock from several squadrons on that base. I worked in base maintainance at that time and before that I worked as ground flight crew on C-119's at Greenville AFB, South Carolina.

User:165.247.32.160 Bob Huber, winsig@postmark.net

I moved this to talk page, leaving first paragraph and first sentence of second in article as well. Gene Nygaard 10:13, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Abbreviation

From the article:

In July 1950, four C-119s were sent to FEAF for service tests.

Can someone please expand FEAF? --rogerd 16:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Well, I figured it out myself - United States Far East Air Force --rogerd 17:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Survivors

I have a reference for the number of surviving C-119 under FAA registration[1], but I haven't done any further research to verify the information in this section of the article. (Born2flie 20:08, 10 September 2006 (UTC))

Nicknames

A recent edit left us stuck halfway between "Flying Boxcar" as a nickname and Flying Boxcar as an official designation. Which is correct? Also: what about "Dollar nineteen" or "Buck nineteen" as nicknames for its USAF model number? I don't have any suitable references. Binksternet (talk) 17:13, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Starting the engines

I just saw Flight of the Phoenix (2004 film). In it, they start the engine using some kind of explosive cartridge device. What is it? I've looked at the articles for both kinds of engines and it doesn't say anything about how they are started. --RenniePet (talk) 17:38, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Common starter for a bunch of military engines: Coffman engine starter. Saves weight and complexity as compared to an electric starter. Binksternet (talk) 18:59, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. --RenniePet (talk) 19:33, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Bermuda Triangle incident of 1965

Wasn't a C-119 lost in the Bermuda Triangle in 1965? I'm watching an old episode of In Search Of... that mentions it. --98.232.182.66 (talk) 10:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, see 440th Airlift Wing, "Operational Histiory" section. A C-119 of the assigned 95th Troop Carrier Squadron was lost in the Triangle during June 1965.--TGC55 (talk) 13:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Image copyright problem with Image:Tangail Airdrop.jpg

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add spec

fuselage length was 60'6 3/4" 120.20.34.115 (talk) 14:21, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

C-119G was still in use by the US Marine Corps in 75

I was a young LCpl on active duty,in the Avionics shop at what was then MARTD Glenview until Apr of 75...The C-119's were still there, and still in use...So the article is incorrect that said the C-119 was last used by the US Military until 74 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.16.125.242 (talk) 18:01, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Personal observation

my father was Capt Howard K Bence C-119 pilot with 303 MATS in the 50s formerly a B 17 pilot with the 390th bomb wing in WW2 and flew in the Berlin air lift, he hated the boxcar called it a flying coffin with 2 tails two engines and too much junk, there is is a forest service JATO C119 water bomber stationed at Battle Mountain, Nv at this present day still serving in fire suppresion submitted by Roger K Bence former USAF E3 Cam Rahn AFB 1965 i also witnessed the boxcar in use with Air America — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.92.242.209 (talk • contribs)

I moved this observation from the article to the talk page. This talk page is for article improvement discussion. If you have any specific article improvement suggestions, please state them. Binksternet (talk) 15:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Superchargers

The text says

 "Initially, the Kaiser-built C-119F differed from the Fairchild aircraft by the use of Wright R-3350-85 Duplex Cyclone engines in place of Fairchild's use of the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engine. The Wright engine was a proven design used previously on the B-29, and though it lacked the R-4360's superchargers, it proved to be virtually identical in performance, and possibly superior at higher altitudes."

That is wrong. Almost no aircraft engines, especially not large, high-powered engines lacked superchargers after the 1920's. All R-3350's had superchargers as standard. They are built into the engine, part of the crankcase. I suspect that what this really should say is that it lacked a two-stage supercharger, which is basically a second supercharger feeding the primary one. It's like the difference between the early Merlin engines and the later ones like they used in the Mk IX Spitfire. But it does have a supercharger; all large aircraft used supercharged engines, or they couldn't fly over, say, 6,000ft, not with any kind of cargo. And if they made an R-3350 without a supercharger, there is no way it could be better at high altitude than a supercharged engine. That's the whole point of a supercharger on an aircraft engine, is to compensate for low pressure at altitude. Anyway, the only non-supercharged aircraft engines you're going to find are small-displacement (sub-600ci) engines meant for small aircraft that will never fly over a few thousand feet altitude, like the engines that power Cessnas or A Fiesler Storch. AnnaGoFast (talk) 22:11, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I would agree your general point re superchargers, although I know little of US radials and nothing of the C-119. Could this be a reference to turbochargers instead though? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:25, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

I ripped out the whole sentence. Of course the R-3350 was supercharged. In fact the statement's original author had actually called the Wasp Major the "R-4380" (which other editors later corrected). Together with this obviously wrong statement about the R-3350, I don't think we can trust that he got any of his facts right, and since the sentence has had a citation-needed tag for over four years, I think it's safest to remove it.--Colin Douglas Howell (talk) 06:02, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Coincidence?

The configuration is broadly similar to the Arado Ar 232, which BTW had an almost identical wingspan. I wonder if the German plane might to some extent have been an inspiration for the C-119 design? Sca (talk) 16:54, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Nickname "boxcar"

Re: Special:Diff/956961824: I know it looks like a boxcar with wings. My question is what does the "unusual twin-boom design" do with the nickname? Railroad boxcars don't have twin-booms, so the statement "unusual twin-boom design earned it the nickname Flying Boxcar" is not obvious at all. --Wotheina (talk) 11:32, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

The twin booms are what make the fuselage look like a boxcar, since it doesn't have a tail at the end of the fuselage like most aircraft. - BilCat (talk) 09:25, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah, you mean we need to see it from the top? --Wotheina (talk) 09:55, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Timeline

BilCat - From the AC130 article that is linked to - first flight -1966. From the C119 article - first flight - 1947. The value 1966 is larger than 1947 in my book. What have you read that disagrees? Neils51 (talk) 10:29, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Per the Operational history section of this article, and the separate Fairchild AC-119 article, the AC-119 first flew in 1968. Sorry to be short, but I'm way past my bedtime. BilCat (talk) 10:51, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Got it, thanks. AC119 conversions commenced 1968. All good. Neils51 (talk) 11:34, 30 July 2022 (UTC)