United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

BIG, double-deck, four-engine, medium to long range, high altitude, high speed, commercial transport airplane
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FAC257
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Re: United Airlines

Post by FAC257 »

FoMoCo63,

Your passion for repainting the 377 has had on odd effect on me. :)

Typically, since the 377 came out, I have spent the majority of my flight hours either in the American Airlines or the A2A Flagship repaints. The AOA because I just like anything American Airlines and the A2A Flagship, because it symbolizes working with the A2A team to me. :wink:

With the advent of your Transocean repaint, now I'm doing entire flights in 377 repaints that I've never used before except just to see how they look.

Great work on the United livery. So far it looks like a stunner.

Forest
FAC257
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FoMoCo63
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Re: United Airlines

Post by FoMoCo63 »

Meet United Airlines N31225 Ship #7225
Boeing 377-10-34 Hawaii Mainliner Stratocruiser.

Click Here To Download Texture For United N31225 Livery

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United purchased 7 of these aircraft just for the sole purpose to get passengers to and from San Francisco and Los Angeles to the Hawaiian Island Oahu Honolulu Airport. Those were the years 1949 to 1954.

N31225 was the Mainliner Hawaii.


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The other 6 remaining aircraft
N31226 Mainliner Kauai, N31227 Mainliner Hana Maui, N31228 Mainliner Waihapu,
N31229 Mainliner Hilo, N31230 mainliner Oahu, N31231 Mainliner Kano.


Unfortunately, and a sad ending came to N31230 when it was written off the books when the aircraft went down in the San Francisco Bay the 12-September-1951. The aircraft serviced, and accommodated passengers to and from Oahu/San Francisco.

Official Report on N31230:
September 12, 1951
United Air Lines Flight 7030, a Stratocruiser 10-34 (N31230, named Mainliner Oahu), was being used for a semi-annual instrument check of a captain. At 10:39, the flight was cleared for an ILS approach to the San Francisco Airport. The aircraft, with No. 4 propeller feathered, stalled and abruptly dived from an altitude of approximately 300 feet and was demolished upon impact in San Francisco Bay. All three crew aboard were killed. The probable cause was an inadvertent stall at low altitude.

Click Here To Download Texture For United N31225 Livery

Image
No higher praise has a painter than to see his aircraft posted in photo :)
Last edited by FoMoCo63 on 01 Aug 2015, 18:55, edited 7 times in total.

speedy70
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Re: United Airlines

Post by speedy70 »

Thanks a bunch
Cheers Chris

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FlameOut
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Re: United Airlines

Post by FlameOut »

Thank you !

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Paughco
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Re: United Airlines

Post by Paughco »

Beautiful paint job on a fine bird! Thank you!

Seeya
ATB
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triflyman
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by triflyman »

FoMoCo,

Thank you...much better repaint than the previous UAL I had downloaded...love the white top (1950).

I'm curious about your note that UAL flew the 377 into Hilo...from what I could find that field was only 6500ft back then and the runway was not lengthened to accommodate flights to the mainland until about 1958. Could not find any UAL Timetables for 1949 through 1953, but in 1954 they only show going to Honolulu.

Thanks again...great job.

FoMoCo63
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by FoMoCo63 »

Upon further research I also noticed all flights from San Francisco, then later added in Oct. 1950 was deemed meeting CAB regulations/requirerments and obtaining the Certificate, from Los Angeles that all flights flew to the main island Oahu-Honolulu airport. Biggest reason I could see for this was because of the availability of Fuel on the other islands.

It seems that all ships were named to honor the newly added Islands of Hawaii to the timetables of United. Some were christened to honor the Hawaiian people of Stature from where they were on the Islands. It appears that just because the ship was tagged with a Mainliner Hawaiian name it seemed to honor events and people of Hawaii perhaps.

The photo here from is from a timetable of United in 1953. I filled in the airport name that were just black dots. With the exception Honolulu.
Image
As you can see routes were flown out of Honolulu to the other Islands. I have not ran across any United timetables specific to the Hawaiian Islands yet. Nor have I ran across any rhyme or reason why every ship received their name. A few have been accounted for, the rest are just pure speculation on my part at present. What I do know is the names on the ships I listed prior are the correct names, just how and why they received that particular name is a mystery yet.

However the Hilo airport you had in question was indeed flown to from Honolulu, in the Mainliner Stratocruiser in April of 1950, as you will also see below in the list of reports I found from the Honolulu airport records from that time period.

December 19, 1949
United Airlines’ Stratocruiser arrived at Honolulu Airport on initial familiarization flight from San Francisco.

January 14, 1950
United Air Lines’ Stratocruiser was christened Waipahu at a Honolulu Airport ceremony by Mrs. Hans L’Orange,
wife of the manager of Oahu Sugar Company.

January 15, 1950
United Air Lines began Stratocruiser service between San Francisco and Honolulu.

April 15, 1950
United Air Lines’ Stratocruiser flew to Hilo for the Hawaii County Fair. The trip was made in 47 minutes and
35 seconds.

April 29, 1950
United Air Lines’ Stratocruiser flew from Honolulu to Kahului to hold an open house for the people on Maui.

October 1950
United Air Lines inaugurated Los Angeles-Honolulu service with the arrival of its Boeing Stratocruiser
Hawaii with 48 passengers.

October 1950
United Air Lines’ Boeing Stratocruiser was christened Oahu at a colorful ceremony held at Honolulu Airport
before its departure for Los Angeles with 34 passengers. Heretofore, UAL flew only between San Francisco and Honolulu but was recently authorized by the CAB to fly between Los Angeles and Honolulu.

January 1951
United Air Lines celebrated its 10,000th crossing of the Pacific between California and Honolulu. Although UAL
inaugurated its commercial flying service in Honolulu in May 1947, it had more than eight years of trans-Pacific flying experience, including both commercial and military contract operations.

March 1953
United Air Lines inaugurated air tourist flights between Honolulu, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

May 1954
United Air Lines’ newest passenger aircraft, the DC-7, arrived from New York via San Francisco in a
pre-certification flight.

January 1, 1955
United Air Lines inaugurated the first DC-7 passenger service to Hawaii. The new service replaced United’s
Boeing Stratocruiser flights and reduced flight time between California and Hawaii by more than one hour.

When I run across more I will post :)
Last edited by FoMoCo63 on 09 Aug 2015, 21:39, edited 3 times in total.

triflyman
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by triflyman »

Wow...you really have some historical sources I have not seen. I believe the visits to the other islands by the UAL 377 were strictly promotional as most of those airports at that time did not have the runway to handle a B377 loaded so were probably flown out of Honolulu and were very light.

As for the UAl schedule showing the rotes to the other Hawaiian cities...I believe they were flow by Hawaiian Airlines but I could find no exact reference as to whether it was Hawaiian or Aloha.

Would like to know where you got the 1953 UAL schedule...timetableimages.com has a gap in the UAL schedules from 1948 until 1953.

Thanks...fun information.

FoMoCo63
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by FoMoCo63 »

I'm pretty sure United was just showing off when it flew to the few fields it did on the other Islands. I probably would of done the same :)

Then I just had to know myself who flew service to the outer Islands once United got the passengers, cargo, and mail to Honolulu from the main land. Wow what I ran across and read just kept me glued to the chair and screen. What a battle that ensued. Hawaiian Airlines did not like anyone else coming in on their monopoly they had going transporting passengers and mail. Especially after being denied a CAB certificate for service for the Trans-Pacific flight between Los Angeles and Honolulu. Which was granted to United Airlines.

It was the CAA early on, then CAB that set the rules for who flew service where on the Islands. In the time period were talking about.

Two Airlines granted CAB certificates actually flew the passengers to the outer islands from Honolulu.
1) Hawaiian Airlines (early CAA, then CAB certificate)
2) Trans Pacific Airlines (CAB Certificate)(CAB Certificate for Mail)


Here's a few highlights.

Since 1929, Inter Island Airways held a monopoly on inter-island air traffic. Inter Island Airways changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines (HAL) in 1940.

In 1947, the CAB had two applicants seeking the right to operate inter-island air service. Trans-Pacific Airlines, Ltd. (TPA later known as Aloha Airlines), and Trans-Air Hawaii, Ltd. which , had become the largest air cargo carrier in the Islands.

Trans-Air Hawaii Ltd. led by Islander Ruddy Tongg, who then led a group of Asian American businessmen to form TPA (Trans-Pacific Airlines Ltd.) I don't think HAL cared for this :) lol

February 17, 1949 President Truman approved the application for TPA to compete with HAL, and allow two service carriers for the outer islands.

By 1950 TPA was in financial difficulty that made it unable to offer a full flight schedule to the neighbor islands. From what I seen seemed to continue some service.

March 1951 CAB awarded TPA the right to carry mail on its Hawaiian flights. 1954 received a permanent certificate. I was kinda thinking to myself that the President was a little irritated with HAL

This one made me smile and chuckle
1958 TPA tried an unsuccessful merger with HAL. TPA was operating in the red real bad. I was thinking that HAL would of liked nothing better than to see TPA fold, but however TPA managed to secure a large mainland loan. Out of this action Aloha Airlines was born.

Click here for a link to the 1953 United Timetable and others :)
Last edited by FoMoCo63 on 09 Aug 2015, 21:58, edited 5 times in total.

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FAC257
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by FAC257 »

FoMoCo63,

This is a little off topic, but thought you might find it interesting info to add to the early days of commercial flight to Hawaii.

The old gentleman in the photo is Bill Nash. He's a local and showed up for a few years to the annual fly-in at our local grass runway of an airport. :-)
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He started flying for Pan Am back in 1942, flying back and forth to Hawaii piloting Boeing 314 Clippers. He kept flying them during the War, and then finally retired from Pan AM in 1977. If I remember right, he told me that by the time he retired he was flying 727s.

I talked to him for quite a while the first time I met him, as he turned out to be far more interesting than most of the aircraft that flew in that day.

There's a pretty interesting story piece he wrote about the oceanic commercial flying back then, down at the bottom of this page:
http://jpbtransconsulting.com/2013/08/2 ... ying-boat/

I think he's one of those guys that you can put in his name along with "Pan AM" in a search engine and probably find some neat stuff.

I rank him up there as one of my favorite historical aviation pioneers that I have ever met face to face. :)
FAC257
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FoMoCo63
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by FoMoCo63 »

Very interesting, enjoyed reading about Captain Nash and his experiences he had flying that trans-pacific route for Pan Am. In a Boeing 314 "Clipper" as well, at times not so very nice weather.

We don't normally get the chance to meet as you said it well, Pioneers of Aviation from that time. It must of been a wonderful time for yourself, and for Mr. Nash being able to tell the stories once again :)

Thanks for sharing FAC257.

triflyman
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by triflyman »

Wow...great stuff.

Thanks for sharing.

FoMoCo63
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by FoMoCo63 »

Been a bit since I've been here. Hope all is well with everyone :)
Still a sharp looking bird, almost makes me want to get started again with something.

BraselC5048
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by BraselC5048 »

triflyman wrote:FoMoCo,

Thank you...much better repaint than the previous UAL I had downloaded...love the white top (1950).

I'm curious about your note that UAL flew the 377 into Hilo...from what I could find that field was only 6500ft back then and the runway was not lengthened to accommodate flights to the mainland until about 1958. Could not find any UAL Timetables for 1949 through 1953, but in 1954 they only show going to Honolulu.

Thanks again...great job.
A bit late, (I followed the link in the repaint thread), Two things - one, I don't know why A2A didn't i include a United livery to begin with; it was literally the only airline that owned them they DIDN'T include, and it was a bit surprising. Also loks like yours it better than the older one I have. Second - A b377 at MTOW can, just barely, get off the ground is ~4500 ft. (The longer of the two runways LaGuardia in the CalClassic scenery, which I actually updated, then lost interest in an expanded project to upgrade all of New York harbor.) Likely wasn't against the regulations then, but it would be now. (If you lose an engine, you're going to run out of runway.) As for landing - it stops in a really short distance, especially with reverse pitch.

Flyboy 88
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Re: United Airlines N31225 (Texture Now Available)

Post by Flyboy 88 »

Thanks unfortunately we dont have a DC-7 thats comatible fully to fsx so this will be perfect for my la to chicago routes :lol:

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