What's this thing do?

[Richard D]

Hello Electron john, You found me out. I was probably 13 to 15 years old when we had access to the aircraft. There were all kinds of stories going around. The new private owners could not get an Faa airwortheness certificate, it was going to be turned into a flying casino in South America, the owners tried to torch it to collect insurance, who knows. The other one became a advertising sign and canopy for an Alamo gas station somewhere out west. We had to enter the aircraft by climbing up the nose wheel and strut. When I first saw it the cockpit was in pretty good shape, no burn damage, a few instruments missing. As time went by vandals broke the instrument window glass, what a shame. It's huge main gear had some of the biggest DC motors I ever saw whose job was to spin the main gear up before the tires hit the runway, talk about heavy. I bet it would have weighed half as much if built with modern knowhow. The alumunum skin had to be twice as thick as modern airliners. The electronics bay alone had to weigh many tons. Getting off topic here, sorry.
Richard.