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Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo flying boat - photo
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Ambition run wild, I'd say.
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I've been slowly going through the 1930's issues of Popular Mechanics on Google Books, it's amazing to watch the progress of aviation during that span of ten years
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an interesting aircraft. And an unfortunate demise.
I am inclined to think there may have been a combination of contributing factors which caused the wreck. Primarily the unsecured cargo was most likely the main culprit.
Run this scenario while gaining takeoff speed the craft crossed the wake of the offending boat this caused the bow to buck and rise the unsecured cargo shifted due to the sudden violent movement of the plane causing the bow to lift even further thus changing the attitude of the vast amount of wing surface the pilot feeling the bow rise misinterpreted this as having achieved take off speed, we must remember this was only the second time he had attempted takeoff. Flogging the power to the 8 engines totaling 3200 hp the aircraft only weighing 57,000 lbs fully loaded had a horse power to weight ratio of less than 18 lbs per horsepower and the stupendous amount of wing surface area. As soon as the pilot felt the rate of climb was too steep he reportedly reduced power something you would never do during take off or very low altitude low speed flight. The use of flight surfaces to try and bring the nose to a lower attitude while staying at the throttle setting you happened to be at to gain speed would have been the prudent thing to do even a gain of just a few more MPH forward speed while continuing to climb could possibly have averted the crash. And maybe have saved the fabulous aircraft for further testing.
I was flying with a friend one time in his twin engine Beechcraft super V he was hauling a load of machine parts and had the craft way too overloaded and new it the super V is a unique craft as having a vee tail design making the rudder and horizontal stabilizers as shared surfaces. As he was speeding us down the runway being so heavily loaded he needed to keep the aircraft on the ground as long as possible maintaining negative flaps and positive rudder/ailerons he got us up to nearly 1 1/2 times normal take off speed before allowing the plane to rise in an almost flat assent until we were a few hundred feet in altitude. Only then did blood return to his knuckles and relax into a near normal flight.
Then he turned to me and said I think I may have loaded a 1000bls too much for this flight. We are in the air and only God knows if we can land without crashing
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Wow! That is one fantastic and fascinating aircraft. My first thought was, DID THAT THING ACTUALLY EVER FLY? It would have required a lot of power to move it through the water, much less reach flying speed and actually lift off.
In my youth I built and flew many model aircraft and I think that would be a great one to build an RC model of. I wonder how much remains of the details of construction. The previous post says it had eight engines but even that is hard to see in the photos posted. I see perhaps four nacelles but they do not appear to have pusher props in the rear. Was each prop powered by two engines in tandem?
OMG, here comes another item for my bucket list. And not an easy one either.
