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Carreidas 160

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The Carreidas 160
 
The Carreidas 160, from Flight 714, about to land
Publication information
First appearanceFlight 714 (1968)

[A redirect currently exists for "Carreidas 160"]

The Carreidas 160 (French: Le Carreidas 160) is a fictional three-engine supersonic business jet appearing in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. A significant piece of fictional technology, the Carreidas 160 is a prototype jet aircraft and the private plane of aircraft industrialist and eccentric millionaire Laszlo Carreidas in Flight 714. The aircraft was designed for the book by Roger Leloup, one of the artists at Studios Hergé. Leloup had previously designed all of the aircraft in recent Tintin albums.

In the Tintin adventure, the Carreidas 160 is the setting of a hijacking. Criminals kidnap Laszlo Carreidas and take control of his plane in order to extort from him his financial fortune. They nearly destroy the plane and everyone in it during a dramatic landing on a remote Sondonesian island. Tintin must outwit the criminals and return his friends to Flight 714.

Creation

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Hergé wanted the Carreidas 160 in Flight 714 (1968) to have at least the same detailed attention that he had put into all of his fictional vehicles, from the Unicorn ship in The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) to the moon rocket in Explorers on the Moon (1954).[1] The supersonic jet aircraft called for by the new Tintin adventure, while fanciful, could not be viewed as implausible and needed to meet the same exacting standards. Hergé, who had reached his sixtieth birthday and whose drawing hand had begun suffering from eczema, was happy to leave the drawing of the jet to Roger Leloup, his younger colleague at Studios Hergé. Leloup, a technical artist and aviation expert, had drawn the moon rocket, the de Havilland Mosquito in The Red Sea Sharks (1958), and all of the aircraft in the recently redrawn The Black Island (1966).[2] Leloup was described by British Tintin expert Michael Farr as "the aeronautical expert in the Studios" and his design of the Carreidas 160 as "painstakingly executed and, of course, viable."[3]

In The Adventures of Tintin

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Main article: Flight 714

Fictional technology

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In the adventure, the Carreidas 160 is a prototype supersonic business jet, a three-engine private plane designed for ten passengers and four crew.[1] When it appeared on the pages of Flight 714, it rivaled all aircraft in existence. Its most remarkable feature, its "swing-wing" variable geometry allowing its wings to be moved to three positions, fascinated readers interested in aeronautics.[1] Laszlo Carreidas, the misanthropic aircraft industrialist[a] and owner of the prototype, describes the workings of the swing-wing technology to Captain Haddock: "Well, the wings are pivoted at the leading edge. The pilot has to move them forward to give maximum lift for take-off or landing. As he goes through the sound barrier, he has them in mid-position. Then in supersonic flight, he swings them right back, and that's what's happening now."[5]

Leloup prepared a detailed cross-sectional drawing of the Carreidas 160 and its technical specifications in a double-page spread for Tintin magazine.[6] Beginning at the nose of the jet, Leloup's specification includes the meteorological radar, antennas and receiving equipment, batteries, emergency oxygen system, and ice protection system (for a triple-thick windscreen) in front of a forward pressure bulkhead. In the cockpit, the design depicts the rudder bar steering, the electronic equipment and radio apparatus, and seats for the pilot, co-pilot, and radio navigator, below which is the nose wheel.[7]

Past the forward baggage compartment and aircraft lavatory is the entry airlock accessed by the main passenger door with built-in boarding staircase. The forward bulkhead with two built-in extra seats begins the passenger compartment with eight passenger seats: two starboard seats facing a work table and six in three rows—the front port seat, Carreidas', with a work table and emergency exit. The portholes are triple thick and the cabin is thermally insulated and air conditioned. Below the deck, the design depicts command cables and electronic circuits. An aft bulkhead separates the passenger compartment from the galley and bar for the steward. Aft of this are the hygrometric regulators and the cables and pulleys for control of direction and height. Below this is the retractable undercarriage.[7]

The three Rolls-Royce RB272 turbofan engines power the Carreidas 160, one centrally located and two on either side. The wing design includes the mechanism for altering the wings from maximum deployment position to maximum swept back position, as well as including the usual wing flaps, ailerons, and air brakes. The tail includes the elevators, rudder, altitude steering gear, and a mechanism to control incidence variation.[7]

Plot role

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While in the Kemayoran Airport in Jakarta, Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friends Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus prepare to transfer to Qantas Flight 714 to Sydney. They bump into their friend Piotr Skut who pilots a private jet belonging to Laszlo Carreidas, the "millionaire who never laughs". Carreidas insists on giving Tintin and his friends a lift and introduces them to his "newest brain-child: The Carreidas 160. A triple-jet executive aircraft" with "Rolls-Royce Turbomeca turbojets" that "deliver in total 18,500 pounds of thrust" ("It's magnificent!", says Tintin). The Kemajoran tower radios to Gulf Tango Fox (the Carreidas 160) that it is cleared for take-off; it accelerates down the runway and lifts into the air. Carreidas suggests a friendly game of Battleships to Captain Haddock, who is unaware that closed-circuit television installed on the plane allow the millionaire to see his board. While cruising at 40,000 feet at Mach 2 over the Indian Ocean, the jet is hijacked at gunpoint by the co-pilot, radio navigator, and Carreidas' secretary. The friends and the plane's steward are locked into the plane's kitchenette while the navigator radios the jet's position as having just flown over islands of Lombok and Sumbawa, then shuts down communication. The copilot drops the plane's altitude to sea level to avoid radar contact then flies to a the remote island Pulau-Pulau Bompa, where he must land the supersonic jet on a temporary landing strip one-quarter of the necessary size. The nose-wheel bursts and the parachute shreds as the jet races down the runway, but the jet is safely caught by an enormous net placed at the runway's end. Disembarking, Tintin learns that the island is controlled by Sondonesian nationalist guerrillas led by Rastapopoulos, his longtime nemesis. Rastapopoulos informs Tintin that he should have stayed on Flight 714 and promises Carreidas that soon all traces of his plane will vanish. As the Sondonesians disassemble the runway and camouflage the plane, which is not seen again, Rastapopoulos attempts to extort a Swiss bank account number from Carreidas while Tintin and his friends are taken prisoner and must plot their escape.[8]

Text formerly appearing in the Flight 714 article

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[This text was never provided with any sources and probably can't be used]

The Carreidas 160 is a synthesis of late 1960s/early 1970s aircraft design technology, borrowing features from a large number of different contemporary aircraft, both military and civil. At the time of the book's writing, the Concorde was taking shape, and so a supersonic business jet, while fanciful, could not be viewed as implausible. The resulting design is mature, elegant, and not outrageous in any significant way. The following are noteworthy design features of the Carreidas 160, and where appropriate, source aircraft for a feature is identified:

  • Supersonic: It is stated to be able to achieve speeds faster than the speed of sound, with a maximum speed of Mach 2.
  • Variable geometry: The Carreidas 160 has swing-wing capabilities. The clean, swinging wings most closely resemble those of the Dassault Mirage G supersonic fighter prototype, in that they are not coupled to a pressure-point control system (e.g. canards, vanes nor glove root spoilers) seen on contemporary American military aircraft.
  • Undercarriage: The Carreidas 160 sports an unusual undercarriage, almost identical to the undercarriage of the real-life Saab 37 Viggen family of combat aircraft, with tandem two-wheel main bogies, and a twin-wheeled nose bogie. It is seen in some detail during the landing sequence in the middle of the book.
  • Engines: In keeping with the contemporary theme, the Carreidas 160 has three afterburning turbojet engines. Intakes for the engines have sharp, squared off lips for breaking down shock waves during supersonic flight. The third engine is fed by two half-width intakes mounted inboard of the outer engine splitters, where the fuselage acts as the supersonic shock wave breakdown surface.
  • T-tail: The sharply swept T-tail of the Carreidas 160 is a design feature which found much favour with designers in the 1960s, as it allowed a smaller, more highly flying surface at the rear of the aircraft, which then was only interacting with "clean air", in comparison with more conventional tail planes which are often interacting with air that has been disturbed by the preceding main wing. In addition, a T-tail configuration allows designers to mount the propulsive engines behind the passenger cabin on the fuselage, permitting a much quieter cabin. Contemporary airliner designs, such as the Boeing 727, Douglas DC-9, Yakovlev Yak-40, BAC 1-11, and Vickers VC-10, as well as most business jets, such as the Learjet, Sabreliner, and Falcon series, all possess this configuration. The Carreidas 160 fits within latter class of aircraft very well, thanks to this design feature.
  • Cabin: Passengers of the Carreidas 160 are able to stand when inside the cabin, a feature very few private jets provided. The Carreidas 160 was therefore designed to be a competitor with the best in the sky at the time.
  • Galley: The Carreidas 160 also has a galley at the rear of the cabin. At the time, this was the height of luxury, making the Carreidas 160 a direct competitor with the most expensive and luxurious private jets of the period: The North American/Rockwell Sabreliner, and the Lockheed Jetstar.
  • Air conditioning: Contemporary business jets do have air conditioning, though theirs were never as good as that of the Carreidas 160, whose system resembles that of the Boeing 707, even down to the inclusion of integrated lighting clusters.
  • Boarding stair: The Carreidas 160 has a boarding staircase built into the passenger door. This most closely resembles the system of the Gates Learjet.

The design's practicality has been demonstrated in the form of fan-built free-flight and radio-control electric ducted-fan models as well as the X-Plane flight simulator, all of which demonstrate that it possesses remarkably mature, docile flight characteristics.

References

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Notes

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  1. ^ Hergé based Laszlo Carreidas on the similarly dressed and similarly behaved French aerospace magnate Marcel Dassault, manufacturer of the Mirage Delta wing military aircraft.[4]

Footnotes

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  1. ^ a b c Goddin 2011, p. 150.
  2. ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–202; Farr 2001, pp. 75, 78, 157, 184; Lambiek Comiclopedia 2011; Dupuis 2011.
  3. ^ Farr 2001, pp. 184–185.
  4. ^ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–202; Farr 2001, pp. 180–181; Peeters 1989, pp. 122–120.
  5. ^ Farr 2001, p. 184; Hergé 1968, p. 11.
  6. ^ Farr 2001, pp. 184–185; Tintin magazine 1966.
  7. ^ a b c Peeters 1989, pp. 122–123; Tintin magazine 1966.
  8. ^ Hergé 1968.

Bibliography

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  • Assouline, Pierre (2009) [1996]. Hergé, the Man Who Created Tintin. Charles Ruas (translator). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-539759-8.
  • Farr, Michael (2001). Tintin: The Complete Companion. London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-5522-0.
  • Goddin, Philippe (2011). The Art of Hergé, Inventor of Tintin: Volume 3: 1950-1983. Michael Farr (translator). San Francisco: Last Gasp. ISBN 978-0-86719-763-1.
  • Hergé (1968). Flight 714. Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner (translators). London: Egmont. ISBN 978-1-4052-0633-4.
  • Peeters, Benoît (1989). Tintin and the World of Hergé. London: Methuen Children's Books. ISBN 978-0-416-14882-4.
  • "Avant Concorde ... le Carreidas 160 Jet" [Before the Concorde ... the Carreidas 160 Jet]. Tintin Magazine (in French). Le Lombard. December 1966. {{cite journal}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |journal= (help)
  • "Roger Leloup (b. 17 January 1933, Belgium)". Lambiek Comiclopedia. 11 November 2011. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2015. From 1953 to 1969 he worked at Studios Hergé, where he was responsible for the airplanes in the Tintin episode Vol 714, among other things.
  • "Roger Leloup". Dupuis: Editeur Caractère(s). 2011. Archived from the original on 27 February 2014. Retrieved 17 February 2015. Hergé especially gives him technical drawings and very accurate decoration, such as the railway station of Genève-Cointrin in L'Affaire Tournesol, the wheelchair of captain Haddock in Les Bijoux de la Castafiore, cars, motorbikes, tanks, the design of the aeroplane of Carreidas, and all the aeroplanes in the new version of L'Île noire.
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