Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

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flapman
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Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by flapman »

Does the real L-49 not have full rich and manual leaning ranges in the mixture, like the B-377? I would imagine these are standard ranges/positions for these types of engines. Do we have a simplified version of mixture management?

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CAPFlyer
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Re: Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by CAPFlyer »

The arrangement is correct for the L049. It was with later versions that they introduced a manual leaning zone to the airplane.

Remember, the entire C-69/L049 production occurred before the R4360-powered B377 even flew, so there are very few similarities between the two. Additionally, the Constellation line uses the Wright R3350 while the B377 uses the Pratt & Whitney R4360. These engines, while similar in output, are two totally different beasts in operation and control.

Even at that, there were plenty of internal differences, especially in the panels, between L049s and B377s operated by different airlines as back then, it was the Chief Pilot for a given type at the airline that specified the panel arrangement. United was famous for having changed Chief Pilots part way through the DC-6 purchase and having 2 different panel arrangements in their airplanes because of it for a time. Even today, there are plenty of aircraft from the 1960s and 1970s (727s notably) that have fairly extensive differences between aircraft from different operators. You can tell who the original operator of a 727 was by walking onto the flight deck after a while. I got pretty good when I was fueling them back in the early 2000's as they were plentiful as cargo haulers and there were still a few pax birds flying then.
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flapman
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Re: Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by flapman »

Thank you!

flapman
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Re: Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by flapman »

A personal anecdote to your, 'different panels for different operators' discussion.

Sitting at the terminal in DCA we watched as the ground crew towed our aircraft (covered in 2" of snow) up to the jet bride. They deiced the aircraft before letting the crew on. As soon as we entered the cockpit we noticed something was amiss. Although the aircraft was our same make and model, and wearing an identical paint scheme, we could tell it was not our company's just by the location of instruments in the cockpit (and the N number).

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DC3
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Re: Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by DC3 »

Cap, it would be interesting to me to see examples of the different panel layouts. Is there a web location that might feature some of these? Also, in todays commercial aircraft does the chief pilot still determine layout? If not, who does?

Thanks in advance.

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CAPFlyer
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Re: Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by CAPFlyer »

The B377 forum somewhere shows some of the differences as it was one of the worst. Hell, United didn't even have a Flight Engineer! They had the FO's seat on a long track and he slid back to a pseudo FE panel after takeoff and many of the FE's other controls were moved forward onto the overhead and a reworked center console. If you do Google searches for a specific airline and type and then "cockpit" you can usually find pictures. Doing a search, for example, for Pan Am 707 Cockpit and American Airlines 707 panel will probably find you some good examples. Also doing the same for Pan Am versus American DC-6s. I don't know that there's any specific site that shows the differences.

As for when the panels standardized, it started with the introduction of the jets (707, DC-8, Comet) when it started to be realized that the non-standard layout was a contributing factor in several major accidents, but it didn't really get "clamped down on" until the 1970s when the "Standard T" / "Six Pack" became the industry standard. The manufacturers still allowed minor differences between aircraft, but the majority of the cockpit would be laid out identically for the entire production of a given model with changes only being large ones like different radios, instruments (in the same layout, just different make/model), different autoflight systems, etc, but all their switches and locations of a type of instrument would remain the same.
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DC3
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Re: Mixture Settings: No Full Rich/Manual Lean?

Post by DC3 »

CAPFlyer wrote:The B377 forum somewhere shows some of the differences as it was one of the worst. Hell, United didn't even have a Flight Engineer! They had the FO's seat on a long track and he slid back to a pseudo FE panel after takeoff and many of the FE's other controls were moved forward onto the overhead ...
Thanks for the info. I will search as you suggested. It is interesting to think that different chief pilots would layout the panel according to layouts they were used to or according to what they saw as the most and least important instruments.

Thanks again.

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