Last Updated: 1/4/2008

Post-War Years

"Airshow" by Michael B. Kane


 

The painting "Airshow" by Michael B. Kane won the 1995 Experimental Aircraft Association’s "Par Excellence" award in their annual aviation art exhibition. In 1939 Howard Hughes, who had purchased control of TWA, and Jack Frye, its president, laid out plans for an advanced airliner that would become the Constellation. It was to be pressurized so that it could fly at 20,000 feet, well above turbulence. The rarefied air at that altitude would reduce drag, but also meant that the engines had to be supercharged. WW II interrupted TWA's plans, and the first 22 aircraft were "drafted" into the Army as the C-69 transport. The "Connie" pictured was one of 856 that were built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958. In its day the Connie reigned as "Queen of the Skies"; all the major airlines flew them. It was the Connie that opened postwar Europe to hoards of American tourists who could not afford the time or money to cross the Atlantic by ocean liner. With its triple tail (only two can be seen in the painting) and dolphin-shaped fuselage, the Connie is arguably the most beautiful air transport ever built.

This particular Connie, 48-609, was sister ship to President Eisenhower’s Columbine II (tail number 48-610). She supported the Berlin Airlift in 1948 and ended her military career in VIP service at Andrews AFB in 1968. From 1970 until 1984 she was used as a spray plane in Canada. In 1984 she was bought by John Travolta, who had planned to restore her, but he sold her three years later. Her restoration by a private group began in earnest in 1991, and until 2005 she flew a full schedule of air shows and tour stops.  In April 2005, having been bought by United Technologies and donated to Korean Air, she was flown to Jeju Island for static display at their training facility.   

 

"Beech 18" by Keith Ferris

 

Production of the Beech 18 series began in 1937; there were 32 variants, including both civilian and military models. Various models were used as executive aircraft, trainers, gunships, flying hospitals and short-route air carriers over the years. The power plants ranged from 200 hp in early versions to 450 - 525 hp in postwar models. By the time the last one rolled off the assembly line in 1969, more than 9000 had been built.

The UVa Aerospace Engineering Department obtained a Beech 18 from military surplus at Friendship Airport (now BWI) in the 1960s. It was brought to the UVa airport at Milton and reconditioned for use as an executive transport, but for lack of qualified pilots was declared surplus only a year later. Other aircraft once owned by the University include a Grumman Wildcat, Spartan NP-1, Stinson L-5, Stinson 108, Consolidated L-13 and Piper J-3.
 
 

"Homecoming Queen" by Burt Mader

NC6865H, a 1946 J-3 owned and flown by Sentimental Journey’s E.J. "Doc" Conway, enters downwind for runway 27 at W.T.Piper Memorial Airport, in Lock Haven, PA, where most Cubs were built. Veterans of the annual Sentimental Journey fly-in will recognize elements of the landscape: the flood-prone Susquehanna River, the new dike construction and the old Piper plant, all lying between the city of Lock Haven and the none-too-distant ridge which hunches up, often hidden in the near total obscurity of fog or clouds. The Piper J-3 Cub was produced and sold in such numbers ­ 28,000 from 1936 to the mid-fifties ­ that the proprietary name "Cub" almost became the generic term for ALL light aircraft.*

 

 

"Air Force One" by Mike Machat


 

Aircraft 58-6970, seen in this Mike Machat work, was one of three Boeing 707’s bought for VIP service in 1958. The Soviets had just beaten the U.S. into orbit with Sputnik 1, and Secretary of State Dulles warned the President that U.S. prestige suffered every time he arrived at an international conference in a propeller-driven aircraft. "Queenie" as she was known, never was designated the "official Presidential aircraft," but served as Air Force One (the radio call sign for any Air Force aircraft carrying the President) many times. Without President Eisenhower’s knowledge, the CIA outfitted ‘970 with secret reconnaissance cameras in preparation for his planned trip to Moscow. That trip was scuttled, ironically, because of the shooting down of Francis Gary Powers in his U-2 spy plane over the USSR on May 1, 1960. In 1962 ‘970 carried John Glenn to Washington the day after his orbital flight.

After the delivery of Aircraft 62-6000, a more modern and longer range 707-320B, in 1962, ‘970 was relegated to service as backup. At that time her plain Air Force markings were replaced with the striking blue and white livery designed by noted stylist Raymond Loewy, in consultation with Jacqueline Kennedy. In the early 1970s, while Professor Robert Ribando was a maintenance officer in the Presidential Wing at Andrews AFB, she shuttled Henry Kissinger to Paris for the secret peace talks with North Vietnam. She continued to fly VIP’s until 1996 when she retired to the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle.

 

"Supersonic Countess" by Mike Machat

Depicted here on an early morning departure from New York, British Airways' Concorde G-BOAC accelerates to supersonic cruise speed high over the New England coastline. The missile-like craft will touch down at London's Heathrow Airport just three hours and 30 minutes later! It seems hard to believe that this marvel of aeronautical engineering celebrated its twentieth anniversary of commercial service in 1996, but the aircraft remaining in service today are expected to fly through the end of the century.* (Click here for latest news of the Concorde retirement. The final disposition of the particular British Airways aircraft (G-BOAC) pictured here is Manchester Airport in the northwest of England.)
 


 
 
 
 

For Further Reading:

Dick, R., and Patterson, D., American Eagles, A History of the United States Air Force, Howell Press, Charlottesville, VA, 1997.

Dryden, C.W., A-Train, Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman, The University of Alabama Press, 1997.

Maurer, D.A., "A Moment in Britain's Finest Hour - U.S.-born pilot downplays his honors in RAF," The Daily Progress, Charlottesville, VA, Feb. 21, 1993, pg. D1.

TerHorst, J.F., and Albertazzie, R., The Flying White House - The Story of Air Force One, Bantam, 1979.
 

An asterisk (*) at the end of a description means it was provided by the artist.