Real Aircraft question

[Paul Taylor]

Going to see the movie "Flight" tonight. On the trailer it shows what looks like a 727 flying inverted.
Is this just Hollywood or can it be done?

[FLOYD CARTER]

You can try it if you like.  I just don't want to be in it.

F.C.

[Dan McEntee]

  It wouldn't be exactly like and Extra or a Pitts Special, but I imagine it all depends on the nut at the wheel! . If you google it, I'm sure you can come up with the video of Tex Johnson rolling the prototype Boeing 707 at an air and water show in Seattle in the late 50's or early 60's. I saw an episode of an aviation program years ago where a British pilot tells of rolling a Concord at high speed. He was on a check flight and said something to his instructor about rolling it, so the instructor did so. Then he told him, "there, I wound it up, now you unwind it the other way!" If done correctly you don't even pull more than one G.  Chris McMillin has a lot of time in 727s and if he sees this maybe he'll offer an experienced opinion.
   Type at you later,
    Dan McEntee

[Norm Faith Jr.]

Like Dan said. With the right pilot at the yoke and done properly, about most any aircraft could be rolled. Extended inverted flight would be restricted to a lack of an inverted oil and fuel systems...Oh Yeah! and the FAA.
BTW, during my years on the B-52, there was a "strong" rumor about a B-52D being rolled very nicely.
Norm

[Mike Keville]

As noted, you could probably Slow Roll a 727, but extended inverted flight would be a computer-generated image by Hollywood.  (Factual answers would come from Fancher, Fitzgerald, McMillin, Gleason, et al.)

[wwwarbird]

Going to see the movie "Flight" tonight. On the trailer it shows what looks like a 727 flying inverted.
Is this just Hollywood or can it be done?

 Oh, you could do it, the question would be for how long!

[bill bischoff]

Fuel and oil systems and flight control systems aside, sustained inverted is a negative G maneuver, whereas a barrel roll maintains positive G's. I don't know how many negative G's the airframe is designed for, but I suspect inverted flight was not within the design envelope!

[Paul Taylor]

Well just got back from the movie......

Spoiler Alert!!!!



He roll it in a vertical dive then pushed the nose up to inverted to get level flight. And yes the oil systems went out killing the engines.
Then rolled it back over.

Movie is so-so

[Mike Keville]

...He roll it in a vertical dive then pushed the nose up to inverted to get level flight. And yes the oil systems went out killing the engines.
Then rolled it back over. . .

Again, that's Hollywood and CGI.  As noted above, the real answer will come from those who've actually flown the B-727.  Ted?  Dave? Dale? Chris? Al?  Will you folks put this one to rest?

[steven yampolsky]

Real Fact: Boeing's test pilot rolled 707 twice.

[Douglas Ames]

First thing, the movie aircraft IS NOT a Boeing 727! Geesh, it only has two engines.
It is a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 or a DC-9-50.
The Airline I work for can't even give them away, their being sold for scrap (MD-80's).

As far as rolling 727, you need to ask a couple of TWA pilots that one. It's an Airline legend - TWA Flight 841

[Mike Keville]

. . .  an Airline legend - TWA Flight 841

Wasn't that the late Capt. John Testrake?  Didn't know he'd rolled the thing.

[Paul Smith]

Did you see the RC 727 crash last night?

What a Mickey Mouse operation.!  Flying a 727 from a Cessna Skymaster with a chincy toy RC transmitter.  They missed the target by a mile.  Lucky not to kill a lot of people.  At least they did it in Mexico, not the USA.  They could have stopped by any RC model field anywhere and picked up ten better pilots.

[Dick Pacini]

From the web:

According to producers Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke (during a Q&A session with the Producers' Guild on October 18th, 2012), the primary airplane in the film is a pastiche of several existing commercial airliners so as to not ID a particular plane or airline in the film.

[Paul Taylor]

Yea was not real sure of the model of plane it was I always thought that the 727 just has two engines on the tail of the fuse.

Well the movie was mostly about his drinking problem.
Sorry another spoiler alert.

[Tim Wescott]

Roll control on some of the biggies is all or partially via spoilers, not ailerons.  So I'm pretty sure that it would only work with positive lift.

Waiting for someone who knows for sure to get on board...

[john e. holliday]

Did you see the RC 727 crash last night?

What Mickey Mouse operation.!  Flying a 727 from a Cessna Skymaster with a chincy toy RC transmitter.  They missed the target by a mile.  Lucky not to kill a lot of people.  At least they did it in Mexico, not the USA.  They could have stopped by any RC model field anywhere and picked up ten better pilots.

Yeah, I watched this documentary.   They had gotten permits and licenses to set up the plane for crashing.   The work they put into testing the controls and setting up he crash dummies was a lot of work.   Problem was having a chase plane fast enough to stay with the big bird.  They thought they had one until the last day when trouble with the chase plane that was fast enough had trouble .   They went ahead with the first chase plane and almost made it to the planned runway when the big plane went down early.   They got a lot of crash data out of that crash that coul not e duplicated with computors until this data was all collected.   Great peice of documetary and a lot of safety procedure followed.   Yes, it was done in Mexico as it was the only place they could get permission. 

[Chuck Feldman]

Arthur Godfrey Of TV and Radio Fame is said to have rolled an Air Force B-47. Does anyone remember that? Maybe it was a loop?

[dave siegler]

First thing, the movie aircraft IS NOT a Boeing 727! Geesh, it only has two engines.
It is a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 or a DC-9-50.
The Airline I work for can't even give them away, their being sold for scrap (MD-80's).

As far as rolling 727, you need to ask a couple of TWA pilots that one. It's an Airline legend - TWA Flight 841

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_841_(1979)

not the same hoot gibson as astronaut fame

[Bill Heher]

Yea was not real sure of the model of plane it was I always thought that the 727 just has two engines on the tail of the fuse.

Well the movie was mostly about his drinking problem.
Sorry another spoiler alert.

727 had 3 engines in / on the aft fuselage. center engine had a big S shaped air inlet duct that routed air to its position between the 2 nacelle engines. look at  the 727 from straight behind and you see 3 exhaust in a row.

[Douglas Ames]

Roll control on some of the biggies is all or partially via spoilers, not ailerons.  So I'm pretty sure that it would only work with positive lift.

Waiting for someone who knows for sure to get on board...

Flight spoliers supplement the ailerons. Ex: RH bank - The left aileron goes down and the right spoilers go up to "spoil the lift".

[don Burke]

Yeah, I watched this documentary.   They had gotten permits and licenses to set up the plane for crashing.   The work they put into testing the controls and setting up he crash dummies was a lot of work.   Problem was having a chase plane fast enough to stay with the big bird.  They thought they had one until the last day when trouble with the chase plane that was fast enough had trouble .   They went ahead with the first chase plane and almost made it to the planned runway when the big plane went down early.   They got a lot of crash data out of that crash that coul not e duplicated with computors until this data was all collected.   Great peice of documetary and a lot of safety procedure followed.   Yes, it was done in Mexico as it was the only place they could get permission.  

It was just a repeat of what was done at Edwards decades ago.  NASA or FAA did a bunch of crash tests.  I think the big one was a 707.  They sort of had the same results.  Very hard to control that large an airplane remotely with any kind of precision.  That crash currently is used as the lead in for some show I don't remember which one.
Just found this link, it was a 720.

[Howard Rush]

He roll it in a vertical dive then pushed the nose up to inverted to get level flight.

I guess one could calculate whether the control authority and structure would suffice to pull out of a vertical dive upside down.  I don't remember seeing any flight test data on it.  It probably wouldn't be a pilot's first choice of which direction to go. 

[Dan Bregar]

Sounds like a big bunch of  Negative G..  No way Hosea  

[EddyR]

I have a friend who was a B-47 pilot. He said" the plane was very high performance for its day and could out run most fighters in the early 1950's.This got many pilots in trouble as they tried many things outside the normal flight envelope. One maneuver that they practice was to come in very fast and pull up and launch a atomic bomb. Several planes had the wings come off right at the center of the fuselage. He knew of several that rolled and didn't do any damage. The wings were so flexable that they had aileron reversal above 325 MPH
Ed

[Andrew Borgogna]

Rolling a plane is not the same as flying inverted.  As has been mentioned the fuel pick up in most if not all commercial airplanes are designed for positive G on the fuel tanks the engines would flame out fairly soon on sustained inverted flight.  It's why we put clunk pickups in our R/C fuel tanks.  Now with respect to a roll as long as it is a barrel roll to maintain positive G's on the fuel system it can and has been done.  The original prototype for the Boeing 707 was rolled right in from of a delegation of Air Force reps when Boeing was trying to sell the plane for air to air refueling.  It later became the KC-135.  The Boeing test pilot was nearly fired by the CEO of Boeing, but the guy was so good and the Air Force was so impressed that he kept his job and the Air Force bought the plane.

[wwwarbird]

I guess one could calculate whether the control authority and structure would suffice to pull out of a vertical dive upside down.  I don't remember seeing any flight test data on it.  It probably wouldn't be a pilot's first choice of which direction to go.  

 

[Chuck Feldman]

ED,

I have been researching Mr. Godfrey on the net. I found out that he did indeed have lots of US NAVY pilot ratings. He also was in The Air Force reserve and had flown every aircraft the Air Force had at that time. There was no mention of the B-47 nor any maneuvers he did.

 I knew a B-47 pilot also, and he told me how they flew out of Europe and over Russia for the purpose of spying. They did this with out fear of being shot down because  the RB-47 could fly high and was to fast for the Russians to catch it.

[PerttiMe]

The original prototype for the Boeing 707 was rolled right in from of a delegation of Air Force reps when Boeing was trying to sell the plane for air to air refueling.  It later became the KC-135.

If it is not on youtube, it didn't happen... OK:



or a slightly longer one:

[EddyR]

ED,

I have been researching Mr. Godfrey on the net. I found out that he did indeed have lots of US NAVY pilot ratings. He also was in The Air Force reserve and had flown every aircraft the Air Force had at that time. There was no mention of the B-47 nor any maneuvers he did.

 I knew a B-47 pilot also, and he told me how they flew out of Europe and over Russia for the purpose of spying. They did this with out fear of being shot down because  the RB-47 could fly high and was to fast for the Russians to catch it.

If I am the Ed you are referring to I never mentioned Mr Godfrey??? I was referring to Phil Bayly I have his signature in my B-47 book . He was in the 15 AF 43rd BW  63 rd BS   Davis Monthan AFB AZ           We are still good friends.  He is a long time CL flyer. He should be at the KOI this year.
Ed

[Steve Fitton]

ED,

... I knew a B-47 pilot also, and he told me how they flew out of Europe and over Russia for the purpose of spying. They did this with out fear of being shot down because  the RB-47 could fly high and was to fast for the Russians to catch it.

That worked good until the MiG 17 got the afterburning engine.  Once a few RB-47s came back shot up, they stopped overflights until the U-2 came online.

[EddyR]

Here is a page out of the B-47  book telling about the A bomb launch. The 47 would pull up in to a half loop and roll out. Not mentioned here but some would do several rolls keeping at least one G on the internals so every thing kept operating. It does mention the planes coming apart at the top of the loop.
Ed

[don Burke]

I have a friend who was a B-47 pilot. He said" the plane was very high performance for its day and could out run most fighters in the early 1950's.This got many pilots in trouble as they tried many things outside the normal flight envelope. One maneuver that they practice was to come in very fast and pull up and launch a atomic bomb. Several planes had the wings come off right at the center of the fuselage. He knew of several that rolled and didn't do any damage. The wings were so flexable that they had aileron reversal above 325 MPH
Ed

My dad was CO of an army base in VA in the mid 60's.  The base had among other things a bombing range used by TAC.   I used to watch TAC F-84s, B-57s, etc practice the "over the shoulder" or "toss bombing".   Three quarter loop followed by roll out.  Shoulder or toss depended on the release point and angle.  I could see them zooming up from a classroom of the high school I was in.   I never saw a B-47 but I know they practiced doing it but not at that range.    It was a nuclear bombing technique to allow the delivering airplane to flee the scene before the nuke went off.  The bomb had to go way up before turning back and impacting.  Although there were many hits on the target pylon from the practice bombs there was a report to the base of impacts seven miles from the target in an adjacent farm.  Three 25 lb practice bombs in the same field.  Apparently the pilot did toss deliveries but the mechanism was set for over the shoulder.  Accurate but slightly off target!

[Shultzie]

Tex Johnston  was a regular visitor to the Boeing Wind Tunnel...and was a very close personal friend of T.A Wilson who in his early career before becoming President and CEO of The BOEING COMPANY was  a gifted design engineer.

 Both TEX and TA WILSON would often...unannounced.... drop by our model shop just to see what was being built on the work tables...

 Here is a shot that I took one morning (after working through the night on this "drop dead deadline" flutter model shown in the foreground with my "borrowed" shop camera with my hard overtime working partners in crime.
In truth...
Tex often shared many stories about special flying projects not only on his famously imfamous barrell roll. Here is a photo that Tex signed for me and my son at one of our annual wind tunnel Christmas party open houses.

Later on....I was asked to work wo with the Tex and the Boeing Archives...enhancing some of his old photographs before his Book was published.

 Here is one of favorites..that was on the back of his book.  To meet a deadline for the publisher I had to "airbrush out a couple of helments with my IWATA HPC because they contained the names of other test pilots. Also carefully masked off his image and covered over other distracting shop supplies etc...so that his image would STAND OUT!
REMEMBER....THIS WAS THE AGE BEFORE "PHOTO SHOP!"  

[Shultzie]

Shot of Shultzie's airbrushed enhanced photo for Tex Johnston books back cover photo...and a photo of an article that Tex and the Archives gave me for helping them meet the book publishers dead line that ended up in a 2010 newpaper article.

[EddyR]

Here is the video of the Dash-80,,707 doing the roll

 

[Shultzie]

Thanks Ed...
For sharing this video of Tex
He was truly one of the most amazingly gifted Boeing Test Pilots...in which they are many over the years. Although I have posted many times about another equally famous Boeing Test Pilot....one can not help but mention (Again and again for me) was the amazing Lew Wallick Jr. who tested soooo many airplanes and was still employed when I first began a new career as a wind tunnel flutter modelmaker in the early 70's.

He was heavily involved with the 727 program from the beginning...later 737-the first 747 757-767 and preflight programming for the 777 simulation studies.
He was so well known for his love for flying that beautifully restored old Boeing P-12 Biplane that he kept at the Boeing Flight Center Building and so often flew it during lunch (minutes--often turned in lunch hours) where we would gather on the roof tops of the Boeing Wind tunnel facility...and watch Lew demo that great little airplane for everyone...including the near by I-5 freeway...which then would often come to a traffic standstill during those performances.
He has crossed over...and sure a shootin' I would bet he is at peace...flying daily...where the angels fly...between the earth n'  sky.
Here is a couple of  attached photos of Lew with that amazing little Bi Plane.

I was lucky enough to talk with Lew many times during my career...and also attached is my old recognition poster that was set up at The 4 Seasons and then all around the various local Boeing programs for border signing.
After he retired he spent so much time flying his seaplanes up into the high mountain lake for fly fishing. He too was an avid ski bum and loves HIGH PLACES!
LONG LIVE HIS MEMORY! HE HAS BEEN SORELY MISSED BY SOOOO MANY!

[Chuck Feldman]

No Ed I was not saying that you mentioned Mr Godfrey.  Phil Bayley is an old friend of mine. So I know more than one ex B-47 pilots. This is am interesting subject.

[billbyles]

727 had 3 engines in / on the aft fuselage. center engine had a big S shaped air inlet duct that routed air to its position between the 2 nacelle engines. look at  the 727 from straight behind and you see 3 exhaust in a row.

Exactly...there is a derelict 727 sitting on the ramp at Chino Airport here in So Cal that is still all together & there are definitely 3 engines.  The DC-9 had two engines on the sides of the rear fuselage.

[Douglas Ames]

Wasn't that the late Capt. John Testrake?  Didn't know he'd rolled the thing.

I was debating wether to post a link to your response but considering this thread is going off in several tangents, here is the NTSB report on the incident. Yes, the pilot rolled it. 

http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR81-08.pdf

Very simply there was an unauthorized configuration back in the day used to increase cruise speed of a 727 by extending the flaps electrically (backup to hyd.) to increase the wings chord span (Flaps move aft then down progressively) This necessitated a slight nose down trim which would fair the fuse with the airstream for an increase in airspeed without touching the throttles.
Thing is, one of the req. to accomplish this is to pull the leading edge slat motor circuit breaker to prevent deployment of the leading edges. This happened while the F/E was on a Lav. break, he came back in the cockpit and saw the breaker out and pushed it in not realizing that the Captain had extended the flaps slightly with the switches (Not the handle). This activated the standby hydraulic pump which pressurized the L/E hyd. motor and the slats deployed...#7 separated an all hell broke loose.  

I remember my co-workers at Eastern duplicated this senario during a gear swing in the early 80's by putting the plane in "in flight" on jacks.
I have 19 years Overhaul experience on that jet - still miss it, it was a damn good Airliner.

[Shultzie]

I was debating wether to post a link to your response but considering this thread is going off in several tangents, here is the NTSB report on the incident. Yes, the pilot rolled it. 

http://www.airdisaster.com/reports/ntsb/AAR81-08.pdf

SPEAKING OF GOING OFF TANGETS....
Regardless FLIGHT the movie is worth seeing. Quite entertaining with some pretty good morality sense themes thrown in~
My guess that plane might have been an old MD-80 series?

[EddyR]

I was doing quite a bit of business traveling at the time the 727 went into service and there were three crashes that came quite close together. All three were said to be pilot caused. I flew on the original smaller version before the fuselage extension.
Ed

[Chris McMillin]

First thing, the movie aircraft IS NOT a Boeing 727! Geesh, it only has two engines.
It is a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 or a DC-9-50.
The Airline I work for can't even give them away, their being sold for scrap (MD-80's).

As far as rolling 727, you need to ask a couple of TWA pilots that one. It's an Airline legend - TWA Flight 841

Captain Hoot Gibson and the 727; They didn't roll, it had an autopilot malfunction at max altitude and rolled off to around 110 degrees and the nose went down to 70 degrees. They couldn't disconnect the autopilot using any of the usual means and the airplane exceeded Mach 1. At this point they were getting low and fast and put the gear down in an attempt to slow the airplane, at this point the gear doors and gear actuators tore off from air loads and this evacuated both hydraulic systems, this disconnected the auto pilot. Hoot landed the airplane and it was a heavy 727-100 that was a popular airplane for freighters and it was later bought by fed Ex and up until the late 90's was still operated by them.
The trial of the crew was not over as American, United and TWA as operators as well as Boeing and the autopilot manufacturer (can't remember who it was) had a lot of dough at stake and the crew is the best entity to blame it on, even though the airplane had a history of difficulty in autopilot disconnecting (which was very uncharacteristic in my much later experience in the airplane, it'd disconnect by snapping the wheel mounted chart holder hard) so the Flight Engineer was targeted to testify that he re-entered the cockpit after a rest room visit and found all of the slat and leading edge flap circuit breakers pulled. Seeing this he was told to say he reset them all without telling the Captain or FO. The story being that the Captain and FO pulled them in his absense, selected flaps 2, which would move the fowler flaps rearward only and increase the wing area enough to allow a higher altitude in cruise flight thus enabling a non-stop flight to destination westbound into the prevailing westerly winds. This was known as the "west coast technique" by American Airlines crews, but no one at TWA I knew had done it, or ever knew anyone that did do it.
The Fight Engineer quit after the hearings, the FO never upgraded to Captain before he retired early and the Captain was a colorful character and he did retire as an International Captain.
The crew was hung out to dry by the industry.
Chris...

P.S. I just read the Wiki article, it describes a lot of the intrigue involved, but the two rolls is in direct opposition of my training about it at TWA and my father and Hoot's stories. Hoot did say the airplane rolled in the TV Hearing and since then the instructions by all pilot unions is to NEVER make a public statement and they protect the pilots from such a circus by threat of legal action against the airlines. Works like a charm, no BS statements under stress, etc.  

[Chris McMillin]

Wasn't that the late Capt. John Testrake?  Didn't know he'd rolled the thing.

John was the Captain of the 1985 Beruit hijacking where a Navy SEAL was killed. The airplane number was 4339, I used to fly it all of the time.
Chris...

[Chris McMillin]

Did you see the RC 727 crash last night?

What a Mickey Mouse operation.!  Flying a 727 from a Cessna Skymaster with a chincy toy RC transmitter.  They missed the target by a mile.  Lucky not to kill a lot of people.  At least they did it in Mexico, not the USA.  They could have stopped by any RC model field anywhere and picked up ten better pilots.

Yeah,
Chip Shanle, the principle in the operation on the show, is an American Airlines FO that which I have had the pleasure of him flying for me on a dozen occasions (including his very able assistance when we flew through a crop pf migrating ducks climbing out of DFW taking out our radome and several going down the intake of the left engine and returned to base making an emergency landing one fine fall morning). He is an Air Force experienced pilot, flying F-4's among other fighters. He and a team of learned men developed the operation for the crash scenario over a number of years. He was the pilot flying the 727 with the "toy" Spectrum transmitter. (Actually it's a well respected R/C unit.) It was done in an empty Mexican desert and the target area was a "nice to hit" option.
Mr. Smith is an opinionated person for sure, but in this case is completely out of his depth commenting at all about said operation, let alone speaking of a pilots abilities. Regardless of Mr. Smith's posted comments, for those that haven't seen the show, no one was hurt. Let alone killed.
Just another of his typical troll-like antics.
Chris... 

[john e. holliday]

As I stated earlier, I have seen the  documentary and it was very well done.   They followed all the safety practices they knew about.  It is also why they chose the site they did.  The crash airplane was under control of a pilot and co-pilot, minimum crew, until they got within a certain range of the target area.   A simulated airstrip carved out of the Mexican desert.  If the pilot and co-pilot had stayed with the plane a little longer, it would have made the target.   Too bad they had to have trouble with the chase plane that could keep up with the big plane.

[Mike Keville]

John was the Captain of the 1985 Beruit hijacking where a Navy SEAL was killed. The airplane number was 4339, I used to fly it all of the time.
Chris...

Yep, I confused the flight numbers.  John Testrake (a real hero) was Capt. of TW 847, not 841.

[Howard Rush]

Captain Hoot Gibson and the 727; They didn't roll, it had an autopilot malfunction at max altitude and rolled off to around 110 degrees and the nose went down to 70 degrees. They couldn't disconnect the autopilot using any of the usual means and the airplane exceeded Mach 1. At this point they were getting low and fast and put the gear down in an attempt to slow the airplane, at this point the gear doors and gear actuators tore off from air loads and this evacuated both hydraulic systems, this disconnected the auto pilot. Hoot landed the airplane and it was a heavy 727-100 that was a popular airplane for freighters and it was later bought by fed Ex and up until the late 90's was still operated by them.
The trial of the crew was not over as American, United and TWA as operators as well as Boeing and the autopilot manufacturer (can't remember who it was) had a lot of dough at stake and the crew is the best entity to blame it on, even though the airplane had a history of difficulty in autopilot disconnecting (which was very uncharacteristic in my much later experience in the airplane, it'd disconnect by snapping the wheel mounted chart holder hard) so the Flight Engineer was targeted to testify that he re-entered the cockpit after a rest room visit and found all of the slat and leading edge flap circuit breakers pulled. Seeing this he was told to say he reset them all without telling the Captain or FO. The story being that the Captain and FO pulled them in his absense, selected flaps 2, which would move the fowler flaps rearward only and increase the wing area enough to allow a higher altitude in cruise flight thus enabling a non-stop flight to destination westbound into the prevailing westerly winds. This was known as the "west coast technique" by American Airlines crews, but no one at TWA I knew had done it, or ever knew anyone that did do it.
The Fight Engineer quit after the hearings, the FO never upgraded to Captain before he retired early and the Captain was a colorful character and he did retire as an International Captain.
The crew was hung out to dry by the industry.

Balderdash.

[Douglas Ames]

<snip> Captain Hoot Gibson and the 727; ~ Hoot did say the airplane rolled in the TV Hearing and since then the instructions by all pilot unions is to NEVER make a public statement and they protect the pilots from such a circus by threat of legal action against the airlines. Works like a charm, no BS statements under stress, etc.  

Chris, I was just repeating what was told to me 30 yrs ago, but it is plausable. I realize the truth is there somewhere. The Flight Data recorders of the age were lacking in data collection compared to today. One of the mods I've done over the years is adding sensors to the MD-80 series to bring them into compliance. Today's FAA is staffed with alot of former Airline Pilots who bump heads with the NTSB over flight safety data and who controls it. 
The Airline I currently work for overhauled FedEx 727's in the mid/late 90's, so I probably worked on that airframe. I know I came across some ex-EAL "Shorties" in FedEx livery on that line. Geesh, we (EAL) got rid of them in 1984, they were in rough shape with high cycles back then.

[Shultzie]

Balderdash.

Howard!!!!
I JUST LOVE THAT WORD "BALDERDASH!"