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Worlds Oldest Boeing Airliner |
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Esperado XX100The
oldest Boeing Airliner in flying condition
The
four passengers are in two closed cabins, and the lone pilot is
in an open cockpit -- maybe so the air will make him stay awake!
The
airplane is in Spokane, WA and is the oldest airworthy Boeing in
the world.
After
8 years of repair/rebuilding and 8,000 hours of toil the Boeing
40C rolled out last winter as a finished airplane.
They
had to wait a few weeks for the snow to melt to fly this craft.
They received their Standard Airworthiness Certificate from the
FAA and completed the engine pre-oil and fuel flow tests for the
first of the taxi tests.
Facts
for the Boeing 40 project:
The
plane weighs 4,080 lbs empty and has a gross weight of 6,075
lbs.
It is
34 feet long and 13 feet tall with a wingspan of over 44 feet.
Wing
loading is 10 lbs per sq ft and power loading is 10 lbs per HP.
The
wings have 33,000 individual parts in them.
It
should cruise at 115 mph using 28 GPH and 32 GPH at 120 mph.
It
carries 120 gallons of fuel in three tanks.
Over
221 gallons of dope/reducer and 120 yards of 102 Ceconite
fabric;
twelve
gallons of polyurethane paint for the sheet metal; and 350
2" brushes
were
used to apply six gallons of West Systems epoxy.
One-hundred-eighty-one rolls of paper towels were needed for
cleanup.
There
were a total of 62 volunteers who worked on the project to some
degree.
Twenty-one of the volunteers did a significant amount of the
work and
nine
of the volunteers worked continuously during the eight-year
project. |
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©
Society of Airway Pioneers |
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