Constellation passenger plane _ Constellation passenger plane picture

How did modern civil aviation flight come into being?

Modern transport aircraft can be said to have appeared in1February 8, 933. On this day, a full gray Boeing 247 prototype carried 10 passengers and made its first test flight in Seattle, Washington. Boeing 247 is a cantilever lower monoplane aircraft, equipped with two 409.5 kW air-cooled star engines produced by Pratt & Whitney, and the engines are equipped with fairings. Boeing 247 is an all-metal structure with a single vertical tail and a single rudder, and the main landing gear can be retracted.

Before Boeing 247 appeared, there were many kinds of passenger planes used by airlines all over the world, including biplane, upper monoplane and lower monoplane. Most of these planes are made of wood and covered with cloth, but some of them are all-metal structures. Fokker monoplane has a metal fuselage structure, a cloth cover, and a wooden cantilever wing, but the landing gear cannot be retracted. The monoplane of the YXKS watch is all-metal structure, but the aircraft skin it carries is wrinkled and the landing gear can't be put away. In the United States, although Ford's "three-engine" transport aircraft has made great contributions to the development of air transport, it adopts the layout of Fokker aircraft and the structure of Junker aircraft.

Therefore, Boeing 247 completely got rid of the shackles of the old times; It represents a new generation of transport aircraft that early aircraft can't match. The aircraft has a cruising speed of 250km/h, a range of 780km and a service ceiling of 5600m m.

At that time, TWA was eager to buy Boeing 247, but Boeing could not deliver it on time. Therefore, TWA hopes to have a new type of aircraft (imagine installing three engines) and puts forward the index to compete with Boeing 247. Douglas Company decided to meet the requirements of TWA and designed DC- 1. The layout of the aircraft is similar to that of Boeing 247, but its performance has been improved. More importantly, its spar passes through the floor and has no effect on the engine room.

1 933 July1day, DC- 1 maiden flight. 1934 was delivered to twa in February. At the time of delivery, DC- 1 flew from L.A. to new york with mail, setting a flight record of 13 hours and 4 minutes. TWA later ordered 28 improved DC-2 aircraft, which can carry 14 passengers, and put them into use in July 1934. It was the most advanced passenger plane in the world at that time. DC-2 aircraft was equipped with variable pitch propeller from the beginning, which greatly improved its performance, and its single engine performance surpassed that of any previous twin-engine aircraft.

1934 10 10 In October, a DC-2 aircraft of KLM took part in the British-Australian aviation competition and won the "cross-country" competition. It arrived in Melbourne only a few hours later than the winner of the speed competition, the specially designed competition plane comet. This victory, coupled with the excellent performance of DC-2 in American shipping service, won some foreign orders for this aircraft. Later, many major airlines in the United States and airlines in Europe, South America, Australia and China also used 1) 12-2. 1)C-2 produced 220 aircraft, of which 160 aircraft were used for flight. The DC-2 is equipped with a 528.95kW "Cyclone" engine produced by Wright Company, with a cruising speed of 274km/h and a range of 19 15km.

After DC-2, the most influential transport plane in history appeared-Douglas DC-3. The contribution of this aircraft to the development and establishment of a reliable world aviation network and the promotion of air transport is incomparable to any other aircraft. With the prosperity of air transportation, modern four-engine passenger aircraft appeared.

DC 3 is directly developed from DC 2, and its volume is larger than DC 2. At that time, American Airlines needed a passenger plane with a sleeper for trans-American flights. In order to meet the requirements of American Airlines, Douglas Company designed DC-3. At that time, American Airlines used Curtis's "Condor" biplane as a sleeper plane, but it turned out that this plane was not a competitor of Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2. Obviously, if American airlines want to attract a certain number of passengers, they must buy a new plane.

DC-2 can't be equipped with a sleeper because of its narrow fuselage, but a new design called DST (short for Douglas Johnson Sleeper) can provide a sleeper for 14 passengers. During daytime use, its spacious fuselage can carry 2 1 passenger, which is 50% higher than DG2, while the unit price and use cost only increase slightly.

193565438+February 17, the first flight of the prototype; Both BST (sleeper type) and DC-3 (daytime type) are put into production. In June, 1936, American Airlines launched DC-3 on the new york-Chicago route. In September of the same year, DST was adopted for the route across the United States, with a flight time of 1734 hours to the west and 16 hours to the east.

DC-3 and DST began to use Wright's 745 kW "Cyclone" engine, but soon, DC-3 series was changed to Pratt & Whitney's "Double Hornet" engine as the main power plant.

By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Douglas had manufactured more than 800 DC-3 aircraft, of which about 450 (including 38 DST) had been delivered to airlines. During the war, DC-3 military aircraft were mass-produced, mainly C-47 and C-53. At that time, the Royal Air Force named this aircraft "Dakota", and now many people call DC-3 by this name. The former Soviet Union obtained a patent and mass-produced DC-3, which was originally code-named PS-84 and later renamed Li-2. Japan also produced some DC-3; For some time after the war, the DC-3 civilian model once resumed production. There are different opinions about the total output of this aircraft, which is about 1 1 000. In other words, the number of DC-3 and its modifications greatly exceeds that of any other transport aircraft.

Even after the war, DC-3 is still the main commercial aircraft in the United States. Not only the air forces of most countries in the world have used DC-3, but also almost all large airlines and many small airlines have used this kind of aircraft.

DC-3 has carried out almost all kinds of civil and military transportation tasks: it was once used as a tractor for gliders, and one of them was changed into a glider; It uses a sled landing gear; There are also double pontoon seaplanes; In the Vietnam War, it even carried out an attack mission as an armed plane.

According to the design, DC-3 has only 2/kloc-0 seats, but 28 seats have been arranged for many years, and some DC-3 can carry 36 or more passengers after adding seats.

As we all know, a DC-3 has flown for more than 84,000 hours. Most of the tasks undertaken by DC-3 have now been completed by other newer aircraft, but despite many efforts, M/KLOC-0 has not successfully developed an aircraft that can completely replace DC-3. Thirty-five years after the advent of the aircraft, some air transportation tasks can only be completed by DC-3.

The typical cruising speed of DC-3 is 290km/h and the range is 24 15km.

Lockheed's SkyExpress monoplane, Vega's upper monoplane and Horion's single-engine lower monoplane have all achieved considerable success. Some of these "Horion" are used by airlines-Vanni in the United States and Swissair in Europe use this kind of aircraft. At this time, Lockheed decided to manufacture a streamlined lower monoplane L.10 "Electra", with two engines and all-metal structure. The aircraft made its first flight in February 1934, and began to be used in Northwest Airlines in August of the same year. "electra" is similar to Boeing 2.47 and Douglas 1 (2-2), but the size is much smaller, but the difference is that it is equipped with two vertical tails and rudders; The plane can only carry 10 passengers, but the flight speed is faster than the early Boeing 247 and DC-2. Electra has produced a total of 148 aircraft, most of which are equipped with Pratt & Whitney's "Little Hornet" engine, which is used by airlines in many countries.

Lockheed 14, also known as "Super electra", is the successor of "electra". The improved electra is larger in size and has several important new functions, including a fuller flap for increasing the wing area (when the stall speed of the aircraft is kept at an appropriate value, the wing can bear more loads), a two-speed supercharger and an under-floor cargo hold. 1937 On July 29th, Lockheed 14 made its first flight, which was widely used by airlines. British Airways owns a batch of Lockheed 14 aircraft, which are also used by airlines in several other countries in the world.

On September 2 1, 1939, the development type L. 14 of Lockheed made its first flight. The passenger capacity of this aircraft is 14, and it is equipped with two R-820 engines of 149 kW produced by Wright Company. 1940 in March, inland airlines began to use this kind of aircraft. There are more than 600 kinds of Polaris, which are widely used in civil aviation and military transportation.

The total output of Lockheed aircraft mentioned above reached about 1 1,000, which provided valuable experience for the later four-constellation and super-constellation series aircraft.

Boeing 247 and Douglas "commercial aircraft", together with Lockheed "electra" series aircraft, laid the foundation of modern transport aircraft. At first, they adopted the design of cantilever lower monoplane, with smooth load-bearing metal skin, retractable landing gear, flaps, variable-pitch propeller, deicing equipment, autopilot, two sets of control systems and flight instruments. Later, many types of four-engine monoplane aircraft, including today's turbojet aircraft, were attributed to the twin-engine aircraft of Boeing 247 and Douglas, which set a new standard for air transport aircraft 35 ~ 40 years ago.