WIX Archives
Re: The aircraft of Air America
Posted by Larry Kraus on Sat Nov 01, 2003 06:43:58 PM
In reply top The aircraft of Air America posted by Paul McMillan on Fri Oct 31, 2003 04:12:55 AM
: I was made aware of this website...
:
: http://www.utdallas.edu/library/special/aviation/AirAmeric
: a/
Thanks for the link Paul.I was able to read the history of the former Air America Volpar Tubine Beech that I flew for around 350 hrs. a number of years ago when I worked for Express Airways hauling explosives around the U.S.A. We had the Air America maintenance records which included daily flight logs containing useful squwaks to the mechanics.One that I recall was: left boost pump sounds like its grinding rocks.It was signed off as: nomal for this consignment of boost pumps.More useful in the long run were the engine performance charts which were filled out for each flight.I developed a variation that we use in the DC-7 mostly for trend monitoring.As the pilot's manual for the "VTB-18" was something like 20 pages,we meeded all the help that we could get.We had aquired the airplane from Trans Mountain Airways out of Denver to carry some explosives to Switzerland one February.I was fortunate enough to lack Passport so was able to dodge that partiular adventure.Hence the change in registration from N9518Z to N16TM.I never was too impressed with the performance of the airplane,however the Garret TPE-331 engines made an impressive amount of noise and it was easy to get jet fuel vs. Avgas at military bases by the mid-80's.