Connie @ full throttle

The Swiss Breitling Lockheed Constellation takes off into a thunderstorm evening sky with flaming exhausts on June 25, 2005, from Zeltweg airfield in Austria, after taking part in the 50 year celebration of Austrian Airforces "airpower 05".

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Lockheed
• Constellation
• Flames
• airpower

[carollarry]

Are the flames coming out the exhaust normal ?Great sound, so much nicer to hear the beautiful sound of those four engines..

Larry

[aubtri]

Hi Larry, afa I could see, yes. Anyway, she landed safely at Basel airport 90 minutes later, so the path of the flames must have been as designed by Lockheed ;-).

In fact, exhaust flames were a big problem with nocturnal warfare in WW II especially in the days before on-board RADAR - they betrayed the whereabout of the British bombers to the German fighter pilots, and the flames from their DB engines dazzled the fighter pilots themselves. Special exhaust tubing soon was used.

Regards, Helmut

[fourfortyroadrunner]

Truly one of the most elegant aircraft ever built.

[RailcarFerrostaal]

Beautiful sound of propellers @ full RPM's that decrease the sound of the pistons themselves. Flames depend on the mixture!

[PeterNGloor]

@Santoslhelpa

You must be nuts then - she sounds like always, as designed by Curtiss-Wright

[kloakovalimonada]

Superb sound, isn't it?

[carol9for]

1961-boarded a Connie, Charleston,SC.Our pilot poked his head out the sash, he yawned, i frowned, we made eye contact&then he waved smiling to me.(we boarded via a roll-up ramp in those days) boy, me thinks-i hope he's not too sleepy-long way 2 the Azores. seats faced rearward(USAF regs)take off&landing kinetics r reversed. if the engines didn't smoke&spit fire at start up,you weren't going anywhere. 10 hrs into a picture perfect cruise, our cpt preps us intellectually-continued nxt comment

[Santoslhelpa]

damn, ami nuts or is this connie alot more silent than usually?

iwould stuff a squad of russian d27propfans into the bird wiht hightech contraturning props-beleiveme theyfitin perfectly

enforce the completestructur and skin

andthen

notpaint anamerican flag onher but glue a real flag onher

[grogadile225]

The R3350 "flames" throughout its operating stages (auto rich take off mixture to auto lean cruise). Due mainly to the 3 power recovery turbines having cooling air drawn in through and mixing with the exhaust gas from the engine cylinders. Extra air in the exhaust burns the hot mixture. A bit like emission controls added to 1980's motor vehicles. This was called "pulsair". Wright Aero tried hard to lower the R3350 TC18 from "flaming" from the 3 exhaust stacks through its life.

[ridedirtba]

I think it's just unburned fuel hitting the hot exhaust and burning off. I'm sure the mixture is pretty rich.

[sarmar67]

flames from exausts... bad gasoline, no more 100 or more octane fuel available... thats what an old pilot explaned me..