I remember CLEAR AS A BELL flying at night in a Connie from Miami to Panama. Being a 5 year old boy, I got to sit in the cockpit for a few minutes - I still remember the cockpit layout and seeing the tip of Cuba (pre-Hope&Change)... Thanks for the picture & the memories.

Hi -

Never flew a Connie, but there is no doubt that it remains one of the most beautiful planes in flight ever build. Shucks, even on the ground it was ... sublime.

To take a look at a Connie on the ground via a Gigapan, take a look here:

http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9344

One of the snapshots takes you to a Lockheed Constellation...

Can't miss it. :-)

> The only thing better than being lucky enough to have seen a Connie in the air is actually having been in one while it was in the air.

Saturn V launch, Frank. Esp. the night one.

One of the most powerful machines ever created by Man doing one of the most impressive things He's ever done.

The ground literally shaking at 7 miles away, with the sky lit up like daylight for more than 90 degrees on either side of your view of it (I've seen the shuttle launch, too. A much more effective machine, but it's as impressive as a loud motorcycle).

Not buying the notion that an airplane, any airplane, is gonna beat that.
;-)

Gotta go with OHBLOODYHELL on that one. I was camped (in my car) on a beach in Titusville, Florida, Dec 6, 1972 to see Apollo 17 go up at night.

Because of weather concerns, a hold prevented the launch until a bit after midnight, making it Pearl Harbor Day when it went. My position was a bit over 12 miles from the launch pad, and as he noted you could FEEL as well as hear that roar.

THAT will live with me forever.
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Paul, I lived in Orlando at the time. My 9th grade science class went over for it -- I was, I think, just mature enough to really appreciate it.

We were across the highway from the Merrit Square Mall. About 7 miles, as I recall, which about jibed with the sound... that sucker lit up, but it was a full 30-odd seconds before you heard or felt it.

As you say, it's not the sort of moment you forget... for as long as your brain functions.

The Connie that used to fly the US airshow circuit went some years ago to a museum in Korea. I had been owned by a nonprofit sponsored by a syndicate including among others Vern Raburn. It was getting impossible to afford (even when avgas was $3 a gallon) and, in Vern's phrase, the "tribal knowledge" needed to keep it running was fading.

Maurice Roundy in Maine had three of them, of which two went to Lufthansa Stiftung [Foundation] and will be used to provide one flying example for the European airshow circuit, if plans stay on track. Fitting as Maurice's birds were ex-Lufthansa.

They are getting around the tribal knowledge problem, for now, by depending on a lot of octogenarian volunteer mechanics, and bright younger ones with a passion for old machinery.

The Constellation's elegant shape was strictly functional -- the triple tail let it into hangars a large single slab would have locked it out of, and the curvaceous profile view was driven by aerodynamics -- the Connie flew faster and further, burning less fuel (although "less" is relative, in absolute numbers it's shocking) than its competitors, the DC-6 and 7.

One thing to remember is that the Constellation, like a Fokker or Nieuport, seems quaint to us now but was the high-tech of its day. Its fiendishly complex turbocompound radials were the pinnacle of Otto cycle engine development -- the R&D went to turbines and never came back.