C-82

[rr01]

The C~82 and '119 were two beautifully designed aircraft. One of those C~82s moved around the scrap yards of Tucson until finally disappearing about ten or so years ago. The unfortunate reality then and now is that the owners of those yards continued to believe they were holding valuable artifacts when what they actually had were unscrapped hunks of aluminum. The last '119 in Tucson went to the scrapper a few months ago with the owner still insisting on an ungodly sum instead of the compromise he was offered.

I got to go through a C~82 not too long ago and spent a lot of time looking for the entrance to the flight deck. That might seem silly but when you consider that just about every transport has the entrance to the flight deck to the immediate left of the crew entrance door NOT finding it in the same place on the C~82 was puzzling. Soooooo, there is a ladder affair built into the ribs on the L/H side of the fuselage about 1/3 way back into the cargo bay.

I think there is one example in Md {http://www.hagerstownaviationmuseum.org/} which I hope will someday be returned to flyable status.

I still toy with the idea of a truly long term project of building a static display replica of the final version of the "Phoenix" that flew out of the desert in the original "Flight of The Phoenix".

[Gregory]

The C~82 and '119 were two beautifully designed aircraft.

Yes, you are right. The C-82 represented entirely new in the USA philosophy of rear-loading transport plane, the same as CG-10 cargo glider.

[Gregory]

The C-82 represented entirely new in the USA philosophy of rear-loading transport plane, the same as CG-10 cargo glider.

..., though C-82 was not the only one during WWII that represented a revolution in the form of rear-loading technique. It would be unjust towards the Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter which is WWII era as well and was designed as a rear-loading transport plane as well.

 

Here is a clipping from the Air Tech, Vol. 6 No. 6, June 1945.