I recall recently some folks asked if N381AA was still flying. They flew tonight, 09/24/02, down to MUGM (Guantanamo Bay) from KOPF. She is still turnin boys...as stated

Mark H,

How do you get these ATC charts?

Mark

Mark, what you see is called an ASD or Aircraft Situation Display. There are several of these tools available to FBOs and airlines to watch operations. Most dispatch departments use these also. The one you see is a screen shot from a service called Flight Explorer. This service has two packages; one for corporate use which has WX overlays and flight plan data entry (what you see) and a personal edition which is available to the public at 10.00 a month for 10 hours of use. It does get very costly once you step over the limit. These services on the corporate end run anywhere from 250 to 500 USD a month. A great tool for folks wanting to get the barebones info is FBOWeb. This is a public website that hosts many neat features such as flight tracking and airport traffic summaries. I believe it is 9.95 a month for the services it offers. The website address is www.fboweb.com. For propliner fans, these tools are both 90% of the time not useful since most heavy props fly under VFR / Part 91 flight rules and do not file an IFR flight plan. An IFR flight plan is required to see them on an ASD or on online tools such as FBOWeb. In this case, N381AA filed an IFR flight plan (because of the nature of the destination) so it was visible. But many times, they do not, so it is a hit or miss. The most prevelant propliners you will see on these systems will be the ones in Alaska which many are under IFR flight rules because of the environment and Part 121/125 operations. Again though, many fuel delivery flights in the Alaska interior such as Everts Air Fuel and Brooks Fuel, you will rarely see since they are under VFR/Part 91 flight rules.

I work for American Airlines (TWA, LLC. actually) in the flight safety department, so we have this service available at all times.

What a great program to have on the rare occasions we see dramatic flights like the Dutch Connie, the European DC-4's etc...but as you say it is a hit and miss situation depending upon the flight rules. It would be fun to have such a service for this board in order to follow such flights in the future. The price however would not be fun. But...It would have been worth the price to follow the route of the Dutch Connie...had she been IFR.

By the way, I noticed all of the strung aerial wires from atop the cockpit section of the connie to the tailfins...ala the golden days of airliners.
I am not in any way a technical person when it comes to radio gear and such. Was that actually VHF radio antenna wiring? And if so, were they
using VHF radios during the flight? I have no idea what kind of transmitting gear is being used presently on commercial aircraft. Anyway it was good to see all of that wiring flying through the air atop the connie

Oh, are there any more photos of the crew and the connie during and after its journey? I can't get enough of this stuff.

Will there be more news and pictures regarding the continuing restoration of the Constellation including the updating of the Royal Dutch livery?
I would very much like to see any sketches which may be available concerning the plans for the interior of the passenger cabin, galley, restroom areas, first class and coach sections. Also, did you have on board a navigator/radio operators compartment. If not, will this be included in the
interior restoration of the aircraft?

Doug

Doug,

Those long wires were not for VHF radios, but mostly used for HF radios, typically on frequencies between 2 and 24 MHz. Just for reference, AM broadcast stations operate from about 0.5 to 1.7 MHz and CB radio is from about 27 to 28 MHz. VHF radios approx 110-140 MHz typically use short vertical blade or whip antennas. HF can give communications over THOUSANDS of miles if ionospheric conditions are right and provide reflections of the signal. This "skip" or "bounce" phenomena allows me to hear transatlantic aircraft in CA with inexpensive receivers (you can get something for $100 that will do the job). It was predicted that satellite comms would render HF radio obsolete, but that has not happened. HF radio is now used to give automated position reports, send email type messages, etc. Most large aircraft have SELCAL systems which allow ATC and others to dial them like a telephone number and a ringer goes off in the cockpit alerting them to an incoming HF call.

Surprisingly, vacuum tube gear still survives on HF. The very high cost of new solid state HF gear (typically well over $10,000) has kept some older tube or hybrid gear in service. The Collins 618T is an old workhorse HF radio employing tubes (a few transistors too) and is still used on some big second tier cargo jets (DC 10s etc).

The old HF radios used AM, but now all ATC HF comms are in upper sideband (USB). This modulation method puts all the power into the voice sideband and deletes the carrier signal which carries no voice. The old CW or code signals just used the carrier signal and swictched it off an on in morse code dots and dashes.

Mark

Thank you mark. I had completely forgotten about the old high frequency radios, and those are the ones I meant...sorry.

If the vacuum tubes work why not use them...and display all of those wonderful wires we use to see on the aircraft years ago. Shows you what kind of a
dreamer I am for the old days.

I know I ask a great deal of questions...probably to the point of you and the others wanting me to hold off for a while in asking them, but the enthusiasm of you and Aviodome has infected me to the point that I cannot be quiet about your journey and the Connie in particular.

Thanks again.

Doug

Actually Doug, I saw the Dutch L749 several times on the ASD. The last leg I caught it on was between Alpena and Goose Bay. From now on, if I see anything out of the ordinary, I will surely post a screen shot for you and everyone to see. I caught one of the C-54s also the other day heading for Goose Bay...

Marc,

Check this out:

Will this inexpensive software do something similar to what your expensive system will do?

www.airnavsystems.com

Mark M

Hi all,
I've been using Flight Explorer for several years and can't recommend it enough. The service is offered through several third party websites. I started out using the service through AVweb (http://www.avweb.com) and just recently switched the service to AOPA's version which is identical. The AOPA was simply the first to switch to the updated software and I couldn't wait on AVweb (both services are now using the new software that has more options).

If you're interested in tracking the AHM Connie, nearly every flight is filed IFR and you would simply search by the n-number (N6937C). The MATS Connie is also a regular on FE.

Again, I highly recommend it. Cost is fairly cheap unless you go beyond the allotted hours.

=V=

Nice article by T Block on his experience as co pilot on this plane. Capt. of the DC 7B was Frank Moss of Carvair fame. Frank lost his personally restored Carvair in AK, uncontrollable engine fire and emergency crash landing as I recall.