
The Curse of the Cargomaster (2010) - maxerickson
https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/the-curse-of-the-cargomaster-2241392/
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lostphilosopher
> "Ken Kozlowski, a former C-133 crew chief who served as chief mechanic and
> flight engineer on a privately owned Cargomaster that flew until 2008.
> Through monastic devotion to understanding every system on the C-133 and by
> developing his own maintenance procedures, Kozlowski kept the civilian
> Cargomaster flying as a bush airplane—and slamming onto remote Alaska gravel
> runways—nearly 40 years after the Air Force let it go."

My favorite part so far.

EDIT: Adding another interesting bit:

"Was the Cargomaster dangerous? Ten had crashed, and 61 men had been killed.
In 1964, the C-133’s accident rate per 100,000 flying hours stood at 2.7,
while the C-130’s was 1.9. The overall Air Force rate was 7.7."

7.7 is higher than I would have expected. I wonder what planes are pulling up
the numbers? The article makes this plane sound like a mysterious and
dangerous machine, but 2.7 is well below 7.7...

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Fighter planes. Today, we have few accidents, but during the Cold War, it was
common. "F-100 Super Sabre fighter had an average of 21 Class A mishaps per
100,000 hours"

~~~
mcguire
[https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Airc...](https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Aircraft%20Statistics/F-16.pdf)

F-16 Flight Mishap History (1975-2018). Lifetime Class A rate is 3.39. ("
_Class A Mishap. A mishap resulting in one or more of the following: 1. Direct
mishap cost totaling $2,000,000 or more ($1,000,000 for mishaps occurring
before FY10). 2. A fatality or permanent total disability. 3. Destruction of a
DoD aircraft. NOTE: A destroyed UAV /RPA is not a Class A mishap unless the
preceding criteria in “1” or “2” are met._")

See [https://www.safety.af.mil/Divisions/Aviation-Safety-
Division...](https://www.safety.af.mil/Divisions/Aviation-Safety-
Division/Aviation-Statistics/) for the whole shebang.

~~~
lostphilosopher
Thanks for the link! Haven't gone through all the historical data, but a data
point that stood out: F-100 hit 1724.1 in '85\. I suppose numbers like that
could bring averages up in a hurry.

~~~
mcguire
Well, yeah, 1 destroyed in 58 flying hours will do that. But the F-100
lifetime rate is 21/100,000 hours. Ick.

I personally like the U-2
([https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Airc...](https://www.safety.af.mil/Portals/71/documents/Aviation/Aircraft%20Statistics/U-2.pdf)).
'63-'69: 4 totally destroyed, 1 pilot death, 0 flying hours. Lifetime Class A:
4.84/100,000hrs.

------
nerpderp82
> Acquired under a new system of concurrent development and production, an Air
> Force attempt to limit procurement costs and delays, the C-133 program had
> no prototype phase; the aircraft had gone from drawing board to production
> line.

I see this done for software, and some forms of hardware. But for a plane,
back then, wow. Seems totally crazy. Or maybe they didn't have prototypes but
lots and lots of scale models and wind tunnel testing.

~~~
benj111
I suppose it was a time where you had continuous aircraft development since
1939, so designers could have got a good feel for what would work, and what
wouldn't.

I'm not convinced by the idea, but its plausible they could have been.

------
a3n
> “We had to redesign all the sections of the airplane three times,” Isaacs
> recalls, “and we had to lighten [the airframe] and get the weight down to
> accommodate the engines. Consequently, it made the airplane have a bunch of
> problems. That engine is the downfall of the C-133.”

Immediately reminded me of the current problems and workarounds in the 737 Max
10. The changes and kludges were in part to compensate for its larger engine's
effects on the 737's flight characteristics, warped by Boeing's need to not
require crew retraining.

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knob
That was a fascinating read. Up there with the SR-71 stories.

