Aerei Flop

[richelieu]

..... o uno dei due ha raggiunto il suo punto di rugiada della vodka .....

Stupendo .....

..... oppure era un tipo alternativo di rifornimento in volo .....

Infatti ..... e venne solo usato fra i Tu-16 e i Tu-4 (soviet B-29) .....



I Cinesi, a quanto pare, sono un pò più ortodossi .....



.....

[i-daxi]

Fokker F26

Prima della seconda guerra mondiale la ditta Fokker era una delle principali case costruttrici di aerei di linea. Dopo il conflitto l'azienda iniziò la ricostruzione delle proprie fabbriche, distrutte dai bombardamenti, e tentò di riconquistare il mercato dell'aviazione proponendo, nel 1946, un nuovo modello di aereo civile.

Il progetto, chiamato Fokker F26 e realizzato dalla collaborazione tra la Fokker, la KLM e l'Istituto Nazionale Olandese per Sviluppo dei Velivoli (il Nationaal Instituut voor Vliegtuigontwikkeling), venne presentato ufficialmente al Salone internazionale dell'aeronautica di Parigi-Le Bourget del 1946, suscitando subito notevole interesse.

Un ulteriore sviluppo del Fokker F26 è stato impedito dalla KLM, sostenendo che la progettazione, la vendita e la produzione di un nuovo aereo di linea sarebbero stati un progetto troppo ambizioso per la sola Fokker. Ciò ha spinto la Fokker a collaborare con la ditta britannica De Havilland.

Il Fokker F26, interamente in metallo, aveva una fusoliera pressurizzata dotata di 17 posti, carrelli completamente retrattili e due motori a propulsione Rolls-Royce. La disposizione dei posti nella cabina passeggeri aveva due sedili sulla fiancata destra ed una singola fila sulla fiancata sinistra. La coda ospitava i bagni e la zona bagagli.

Tipo Aereo di linea
Equipaggio 2 (comandante e copilota)
Costruttore Fokker
Data primo volo 1946

Lunghezza 15,4 m
Apertura alare 18,2 m
Altezza 4 m
Superficie alare m²
Peso a vuoto 6.300 kg
Peso carico kg
Peso max al decollo 11.500 kg

Motore due Rolls-Royce Nene RB.Mk.41

Velocità max 845 km/h
Velocità crociera 800 km/h
Autonomia 1.000 km
fonti non citate

In 1946, at the first post-war Paris Air Show, Fokker displayed the model of a remarkable new airliner. Verging on revolutionary by its proposed use of jet engines, the aircraft was named the F26 Phantom. The model attracted quite some attention but it was not Fokker's idea to offer the F26 to the airlines. It was essentially a study project and was never built, even as a prototype. The raison d'être of the F26 was that both Fokker and KIM wanted to know more about the economic feasibility of jet airliners. At that time, only a year after the Second World War, commercial aviation was not yet ready for jet equipment. Nor were jet aircraft ready for commercial aviation: even so, the end of the piston engine era loomed. Fokker had determined that it would make its come-back in the airliner market and wanted to know at the earliest possible moment as much as it could about the pro's and con's of jet airliners.

Low wing
The F26 was a low wing all-metal aircraft seating 17 passengers. As a novelty for a Fokker aircraft, there was to be a pressurized cabin. The proposed engines were Rolls-Royce Nenes, the most powerful turbojets at the time. To assist accessibility, the engines were positioned beneath the front fuselage - again an innovation. And the low-mounted wing was to be equipped with flaps. A three-man crew was envisaged: two pilots side-by-side, and behind them a wireless operator facing aft. The passenger cabin had a double row of seats on the starboard side and a single row on the port. At the rear end of the cabin was a toilet as well as two cargo holds. The retractable landing gear was of tricycle layout. A cruising speed of 500 mph and a range of 620 miles were given in a brochure. Later descriptions in the aviation press refer to the F26 as a "praiseworthy effort to develop a jet airliner". KIM was quite interested in the Fokker concept as can be seen from the minutes of a meeting on 6 October 1948 when a number of Fokker specialists briefed KLM boss Plesman and technical director Henk Veenendaal. Encouraged by the airline's response, Fokker's Preliminary Design Department made a few more designs of twin-jet airliners which were discussed with KLM and the Netherlands Institute for Aircraft Development (NIV). In Plesman's view however, the development of a jet airliner would be too much for Fokker to manage alone. He proposed cooperation with cle Havilland in England who were known to be working on a jet liner - later named the Comet. Subsequently there was some contact and an exchange of information between the two companies as shown by design drawings in the Fokker archives. In October 1949 Ir. P. J. C. Vos, a director of Fokker, wrote to Professor Dr. Ir. H. J. van der Maas about a comparison between a jet and turboprop airliner. This as yet undesignated turboprop was later to become the F27.

[povvo]

devo dire che l'f26 è molto carino

[i-daxi]

Fokker F.24

After the F.XXXII and F.XXXVI it seemed as if - at least for the time being - Fokker no longer had a role to play as a producer of commercial aircraft.

Between 1935 and 1939 Fokker did offer a number of new designs to KLM, but none of these reached the hardware stage. As Fokker was aware, he was late in switching from wood to metal construction. His response was to design the all-new, all-metal F24 which could have been the start of a fresh era for Fokker.

During the late 'thirties, KLM acquired no aircraft from the Dutch aircraft industry. The airline felt that better equipment was available from abroad and at shorter delivery times.

This led to KLM announcing, on 13 January 1939, that it had ordered DC-5s from Douglas in the 'States.
ln interviews with the Press, Plesman stated that KLM was also interested in in the DC-4E. This was too much for van Tyen, a Fokker director. He contacted the Dutch prime minister and complained that both civil and military aircraft were being ordered from overseas without Dutch manufacturers being given an opportunity to build competing types.

As a result of this complaint, the government appointed a committee to investigate the possibility of Fokker building airliners. This committee in turn appointed the 'small contact committee'. Its chairman was Dr. Ir J. A. Ringers, general manager of the Ministry of Waterways as well as being a member of the KLM board. Other committee members included representatives of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Dutch airworthiness authority. During negotiations with KLM, Dr. Ringers succeeded in persuading the Dutch airline to order what was at that time known as Fokker design 193 and soon became designated F24.

This was to be an allmetal airliner for short-haul routes. Official confirmation of this order came on 6 October 1939 when the Ministry of Waterways gave KLM permission to order six Douglas DC-4E long-distance aircraft, four Lockheed 44E Excaliburs, four Fokker F24s as replacements for the airline's DC-2s and DC-3s, and one Fokker design 180 long-distance airliner. This latter aircraft was an allmetal design with twin booms not unlike the Fokker G. 1.

It was to carry 26 passengers. The government made 800,000 Dutch guilders available for development of the F24, plus a further 400,000 for tooling-up for production of the aircraft.

High wing


The F24 was to be a high wing twin-engined airliner initially with a twin fin and rudder layout similar to the Fokker T.IX bomber.

This military aircraft also used all-metal construction, and design 175 - an early version of the F24 - was actually a derivative of the T.IX, having the same wing, engines and tail. The fuselage of course, was different, being designed to accommodate 18 passengers. Subsequent market analysis showed however that a somewhat bigger aircraft would have better prospects and so design 193 was prepared for 24 passengers.

Originally it retained the twin tail layout until wind tunnel tests showed that the longer fuselage had sufficient longitudinal stability to allow use of a single fin and rudder.

The undercarriage was an innovation for Fokker, being of tricycle design as well as retractable. The main gear, which retracted forwards, had twin wheels and the nose gear a single wheel.

Two Wright Cyclones were envisaged as the powerplants, each delivering 1,600 hp and driving three-bladed Hamilton propellers. The flight crew consisted of two pilots, a wireless operator and a flight engineer.

Immediately aft of the cockpit was a cargo hold with a loading door on the starboard side. The crew could enter the cabin via the cargo hold and a door between the cargo hold and the cabin. There were eight double seats on the right side of the passenger cabin and eight singles on the left, but these seats were not in continuous rows.

At the location where the wing passed through the fuselage, the ceiling was lower. The floor was also lowered in this area so as to allow sufficient standing height for the cabin crew working in the pantry postioned there. Two small cargo holds were planned for the wing center section. The F24 was provided with an integral stair which folded into the side wall opposite the pantry. Aft of the cabin was a toilet plus another cargo hold. There were hatracks which was not unusual - and, as a novelty, each passenger had a reading light and a bell to call the steward.

The fuselage underside was specially reinforced to protect the passengers in case of an emergency wheels-up landing. At the time that detail drawings of the F24 were being prepared, experience with building metal aircraft at Fokker was still very limited. The one and only example of the T.IX bomber was all-metal and so were some parts of other Fokker aircraft such as the G.1 twin-boom fighter but that was all.

The outbreak of World War Two meant that the F24 never got beyond the drawing board. Despite ongoing hostilities, design work on the aircraft continued on a limited scale as it was hoped to deliver the F24 to KLM after the War. But when the war did finally end, Plesman wanted aircraft immediately and bought them from American surplus military stock.

Talks between KLM and Fokker on the F24 continued until 1946. However as the company's factory had been completely destroyed during the war and had to be rebuilt, Fokker had great difficulty in quoting prices and delivery times. So KLM decided to order Convair 240s in America and development of the F24 was hatted.

The Convair aircraft were delivered much later and at a considerably higher price than had been originally agreed - but that is another Story.


Typenumber F.24.
Type of aircraft Passengerplane
Country The Netherlands
Date 1939, drawing, not build
Crew 4
Wingspan 28.50 m
Lenght 20.70 m
Height 5.20 m
number of passengers 24
Enginetype 2 x Wright Cyclone
Engine
power 1600 hp each
Max. take-off weight 13250 kg
Cruise speed 330 km/h
Range 1200 km

[i-daxi]

Fokker F.29

In the early 'seventies Fokker began looking at the possibility of developing a jet airliner of rather more capacity than the Fellowship. This resulted in a number of design studies with designations such as F28-2, Super F28 and, later on, F29.

The F29 was the biggest design ever to appear on Fokker drawing boards. Early designs seating 100 passengers clearly showed their F28 ancestry, hence F28-2.

The problem with an aircraft of this size was that there was no suitable engine available. In discussions with Rolls-Royce, an improved variant of the Spey 555 turbofan as used in the F28, was proposed.



However, for one reason or another, both parties appeared reluctant to go ahead with it.

Later, Rolls-Royce proposed the RB432 and Fokker also looked at the CFM56 of General Electric and SNECMA,





but these engines were really designed for bigger aircraft. What Fokker needed was a considerably de-rated version of either of them, but the manufacturers preferred to develop more powerful uprated variants which held more promise of being sold in large numbers.

This was something Fokker could not promise because airlines in the 'seventies were starting to become increasingly lukewarm about 100-seaters.

Market research showed that interest was moving to larger aircraft, leading to a Fokker design for a 115-seater called Super F28. But this also was considered too small by the airlines.


New start


In 1979 Fokker's Preliminary Design Department started afresh, from scratch. Until then the F28 had been the basis for new designs, but now a new proposal was made: the F29. It was to have a wider fuselage with three seats on either side of the aisle. Normal capacity would be 132 passengers, rising to 150 in a high density configuration.

A stretched version would accommodate 156 and 179 respectively. The fuselage had a double-bubble cross-section in the shape of a figure '8'. Unlike on the F28, the engines were to be mounted under the wing.

Two types of turbofans were proposed to potential customers: the 20,000 lb thrust Rolls-Royce RB432 (later to be embodied in the IAE V2500) and the CFM International CFM56-3 of 21,000 lb thrust.

The wing would have a high aspect ratio and a supercritical profile. The Dutch NLR (National Air and Space Laboratory) had progressively refined this type of airfoil over the past ten years or so.

Now, the results of these investigations could be applied to the F29. For the first time at Fokker, computers were used for design work. Also, much attention was given to modernizing the cockpit by introducing an electronic flight instrument system or EFIS.
This meant that a large proportion of the traditional instruments would be replaced by TV screens that displayed the required information on demand. This form of computerized cockpit, which had already been introduced on the Airbus A310 and the Boeing 757 and 767, reduced crew workload and greatly increased flight efficiency. Prospects for the F29 seemed good. Market analysis showed a requirement for some 1,500 150-seaters through to the year 2000. These would be replacements for aging Boeing 727s and 737s and Douglas DC-9s.

The F29, with a fuel consumption almost 25% lower than these older types, would also be less noisy. In the aviation world, 150-seat aircraft were the talk of the town but somehow nobody - including Fokker - had the courage to launch it.


Partners


If Fokker had decided to produce the F29, the company would have entered a new market which it was not familiar with. The F27 and F28 had been sold, usually in small numbers, to mainly small and medium-sized airlines. In contrast to this, the F29 was an aircraft for the big carriers who were used to buying their aircraft in large numbers.

The Fokker Board of Management, with Frans Swarttouw as chairman since 1978, felt that the F29 was too big a project to be handled by Fokker alone, especially from the financial point of view. Cooperation with other aircraft manufacturers was deemed necessary.

Boeing was one of the potential partners. In 1980 a preliminary agreement was signed

with this American aircraft manufacturer for delivery of 737 fuselage sections that were to be used as components for the F29 fuselage. If the F29 project went ahead, Boeing would be a risk-sharing partner just as the Japanese industry which Fokker had contacted on developing and producing the wing.

Detailed discussions were also held with Airbus Industry. The European consortium had plans for its own 136-seat Jet 1 aircraft and 163-seater Jet 2, the latter eventually emerging as the A320. From the talks with Airbus officials it became clear that if the consortium was to be a partner, Fokker would in effect be required to hand over control of the project.


MDF-100


Very unexpectedly, even for insiders, Fokker on 4 May 1981 announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with McDonnell Douglas to jointly develop a 150-seat aircraft.

To be designated the MDF-100, the new project became the most discussed topic at the Paris Air Show a month later when the two companies took the opportunity to release further information on their plans for cooperation. While the MDF-100 was in fact a further development of the F29, McDonnell Douglas had been working for some time on the design of a slightly larger aircraft.

This was the ATMR (Advanced Technology Medium Range) of about the same size as the Boeing 757. The MDD project however was at an earlier stage of fruition than the F29 and this resulted in a relatively larger Fokker content in the MDF-100.

After less than a year with no orders being placed, the Fokker-McDonnell Douglas agreement was terminated. T

The early demise of the new project reflected the reluctance by airlines to invest in new aircraft during the prevailing oil crisis. Other airframe manufacturers persevered however, oil crisis or no, and the subsequent flow of orders for the A320, MD-80 amd later versions of the 737 seemed to indicate that if it had gone forward, the MDF-100 could have been a success.

But in 1982 it seemed impossible to find launch customers and the risk involved in continuing development of the MDF-100 were considered too great. Back at square one again, Fokker concentrated on radical updates of the F27 and F28.

Type F.29
Type of aircraft Passengerplane
Country The Netherlands/U.S.
Date 1979. drawing, not build
Wingspan 33,91 m
Lenght 38.80 m
number of passengers 132
Enginetype R.R. RB432-05
Engine
power 2 x 9072 LBS
Ceiling 35000 ft
Speed 907 km/

[i-daxi]

Fokker F.25

F.25 Promotor
Role Civil utility aircraft
Manufacturer Fokker
First flight 1946
Number built 20


The Fokker F.25 Promotor, first flown in 1946, was a single-engined, twin-boomed, four-passenger monoplane with a pusher engine mounted at the rear of a central nacelle. One feature of the design was that instead of a 2 + 2 seating, the pilot sat in front to the left, and all three passengers were on a bench seat to the rear of him. The F.25 was evocative of the pre-war G.I design. The F.25 was based upon the design of the Difoga 421 aircraft, home-built and -designed secretly during the World War II by Frits Diepen, a Ford garage owner of Bergen op Zoom, the Netherlands. His intention was to escape from German-occupied Europe to Britain using this aircraft that was powered by a Ford V-8. Although 20 F.25 aircraft were constructed, sales were disappointing for the same reason that thwarted the sales prospects of so many American post-war designs. A newly built aircraft could not compete in cost with the thousands of surplus aircraft on the market in the years following the war.

General characteristics

Crew: 1
Capacity: 3 passengers
Length: 8.53 m (28 ft 0 in)
Wingspan: 12.00 m (39 ft 5 in)
Height: 2.40 m (7 ft 11 in)
Wing area: 18.0 m² (193 ft²)
Empty weight: 960 kg (2,116 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 1,425 kg (3,142 lb)
Powerplant: 1× Lycoming O-435-A, 142 kW (190 hp)
Performance

Maximum speed: 225 km/h (140 mph)
Range: 950 km (590 mi)
Service ceiling: 3,400 m (11,155 ft)

[i-daxi]

VFW-Fokker 614

Role Regional airliner
Manufacturer Fokker VFW
First flight 14 July 1971
Introduced August 1975

Denmark
Cimber Air - 2 aircraft
France
Air Alsace - 3 aircraft
Touraine Air Transport - 8 aircraft
West Germany
Luftwaffe - Three aircraft


The VFW-Fokker 614 (also VFW 614) was a twin-engined jetliner designed and built in West Germany. It was produced in small numbers by VFW-Fokker in the early- to mid-1970s, and originally intended as a DC-3 replacement. Its most distinctive feature was that its engines were mounted in pods on pylons above, rather than below, the wing.

The VFW 614 is often described as being ahead of its time. It was a brave but in the end unsuccessful attempt to build and market a small capacity regional jet, a market sector that has developed only recently with the strong sales of aircraft such as the Canadair CRJs and Embraer ERJs.

The VFW 614 was originally proposed in 1961 by the Entwicklungsring Nord (ERNO) group, comprising Focke-Wulf, Hamburger Flugzeugbau (HFB) and Weser as the E.614, a 36-40 seat aircraft powered by two Lycoming PLF1B-2 turbofans. West German industry was subsequently reorganised and Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke (VFW) was established at Bremen. Development of what was now the VFW 614 continued.

In 1968, the project was given the go-ahead, with 80 percent of the backing coming from the West German Government. Full scale production was approved in 1970, by which time VFW had merged with Fokker (a somewhat unhappy arrangement which lasted for only ten years). Also risk sharing agreements had been concluded with SIAT in Germany, Fairey and SABCA in Belgium and Shorts in the UK. Final assembly of the aircraft would be done in Bremen.


overwing pylon mounted Rolls Royce powerplantThe first of three prototypes flew on July 14, 1971. The aircraft was revealed to be of unconventional configuration, with two quiet, smoke-free, but untested M45H turbofans mounted on pylons above the wings. This arrangement was used to avoid the structural weight penalties of rear mounted engines and the potential ingestion problems of engines mounted under the wings, and allowed a short and sturdy undercarriage, specially suited for operations from poorly prepared runways.

Development of the aircraft was protracted and orders slow to materialise, despite a strong marketing campaign. The orders situation was not helped by Rolls-Royce's bankruptcy in 1971 which threatened the supply of engines.[1] Also, a prototype was lost in February 1972 due to elevator flutter, worsening the order situation. By February 1975 only 10 had been ordered. The first production VFW-614 flew in April 1975 and was delivered to Denmark's Cimber airlines 4 months later.

Only three airlines and the Luftwaffe operated new VFW 614s.[2] Three aircraft were flown but never delivered, and four airframes were broken-up before completion. The program was officially cancelled in 1977, and the last unsold aircraft flew in July 1978. Most aircraft had been disposed of by 1981, with the manufacturer buying the aircraft and simultaneously ending support of the aircraft.[citation needed] Thereafter, only the Luftwaffe aircraft remained in service, being disposed of in 1999. The last in service VFW 614 is in use with DLR for the Advanced Technologies Testing Aircraft System (ATTAS)-Project. Freundeskreis VFW614 e.V. reported that certificate of airworthiness for DLR's VFW-614 ATTAS Project was withdrawn 12 Nov ‘04– and is now replaced by Airbus A320.

There is a VFW 614 on display in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, in the Aeronauticum in Nordholz, another on the visitor's terrace at Bremen Airport, another on display at the Technikmuseum Speyer and a fourth being used as a training aid for Lufthansa Resource Technical Training in St Athan, South Wales.

General characteristics

Crew: Two
Capacity: 40-44 passengers in 4 abreast seating
Length: 20.60 m (67 ft 7 in)
Wingspan: 21.50 m (70 ft 6.5 in)
Height: 7.82 m (25 ft 8 in)
Wing area: 64.0 m² (689 ft²)
Empty weight: 12,179 kg (26,850 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 19,958 kg (44,000 lb)
Powerplant: 2× Rolls-Royce/Snecma M45H Mk. 501 turbofan, 33.2kN (7,473 lbf) each
Performance

Maximum speed: 704 km/h (380 knots, 437 mph)
Cruise speed: 722 km/h (449 mph)
Range: 1,195 km (645 nm, 743 mi) with 40 passengers
Service ceiling: 7,620 m (25,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 945 m/min (3,100 ft/min)

[cabronte]

Ma al Fokker 614 dove gli avevano messo i motori? .....

[Almost Blue]

Indovino.
Beh, volevano mettergli sotto, ma sbattevano per terra. Allora allungavano il carrello, ma allora dove si ritraeva? Forse in gondole sagomate sul bordo d'uscita alare, ma era tutto peso inutile. Allora, con grande gioia dei meccanici che si devono arrampicare fino lassù e andare a spasso sulle ali (chissà che scarpe usano?), i motori dell' F-614 stanno lì dove stanno.

[87Nemesis87]

certo che la fokker ne faceva di aerei strani eh....bellissimi....ma strani!

[Paolo_61]

Non si può dire che non avessero fantasia nel progettare.

[i-daxi]

Metto il link di questo sito, buona visione.

http://www.dutch-aviation.nl/

[Almost Blue]

Lo metto tra i flop, ma ci sta come i cavoli a merenda.
Infatti l' Handley Page modello 42 svolse il suo compito senza nessun problema, solo che venne costruito in un ridottissimo numero di esemplari.
Progettato su espressa richiesta dell' Imperial Airways, questo aereo fu il velivolo dell'aviazione di bandiera britannica tra le due guerre e fu uno dei primissimi quadrimotori passeggeri del mondo.
Era già superato al momento della sua entrata in servizio, ma i suoi progettisti preferirono andare sul sicuro e scegliere soluzioni già sperimentate e tenersi sul "classico", ma privilegiando la comodità e la sicurezza, piuttosto che avventurarsi in sperimentalismi dal risultato incerto.
L'HP-42 quindi fu un grande biplano quadrimotore, con controventature a V, piani di coda anch'essi biplani e quattro motori, due sull'ala superiore e due su quella inferiore e carrello fisso. Secondo alcuni non bello da vedere, esso era in realtà uno degli aerei più confortevoli e sicuri della sua epoca.
Due le versioni, nella "praticità" tutta inglese: la "W", per gli aerei destinati a ovest e la "E" per quelli destinati alle imperiali rotte britanniche orientali. Le due versini differivano per i motori (quattro Bristol Jupiter XIF a nove cilindri, raffreddati ad aria, da 558 CV, per gli aerei E, mentre gli aerei W avevano quattro BJ-XFBM da 507 CV) e per la disposizione interna.
Le versioni E portavano 24 persone, 12 nel compartimento anteriore all'ala e 12 in quello posteriore. In mezzo un grosso vano bagagli e per la posta.
Le versioni W, portavano 38 persone, ma con un bagagliaio più piccolo.
Gli aerei W seguivano rotte Europee, da Londra Croydon, a Parigi-Le Bourget, a Brouxelles, a Colonia, Basilea, Zurigo e giù fino al Cairo.
Gli aerei E invece andavano dal Cairo all' India, al Sud Est Asiatico-Australia, via Karachi e Delhi. Il viaggio Croydon-Delhi era di sei giorni e mezzo, con soste notturne e atterraggi per i rifornimenti e la posta. In sei giorni i passeggeri si conoscebvano e potevanop fraternizzare. Spesso prestavano anche aiuto nei rifornimenti del carburante, anche in stazioni e piste sperse nei deserti dell'Asia centrale.
Le due cabine dell’HP-42 erano accoglienti come quelle di un treno di lusso. Ampie e spaziose poltrone, tavolini, pannelli di legno intarsiato e quadri alle pareti, tendine di tulle ricamate ai finestrini, due bagni. Inoltre ognuno poteva regolare l’aerazione calda o fredda del proprio posto. La notte si atterrava e si dormiva nelle stazioni di posta lungo la tratta. Non era affatto raro che il Comandante o uno dei passeggeri invitasse gli altri a pranzo o a cena, durante le soste programmate.
L’ HP-42 faceva la bellezza di 150 Km/h con vento a favore, a 2.100 m di quota. Il problema era se trovava venti contrari. L’autonomia con vento a favore era di circa 500 Km.
Data la sua lentezza, divenne oggetto anche di aspre critiche, come quelle del direttore della rivista “The Aeroplane”, C.G. Grey, che ironicamente fece notare che: “…..la distanza tra Londra e Parigi non gli era mai sembrata così lunga e che lui non credeva che le due capitali fossero così lontane, tre ore e 34 minuti…”. Il motto dell’ Imperial Airways infatti era “Velocità senza fretta”.
Tuttavia, quello che gli mancava in bellezza e in velocità, l’HP-42 lo recuperava in pieno con la comodità e la sicurezza.
L’equipaggio era dato da pilota (il comandante), copilota, marconista e una o due assistenti di volo. A bordo poi il servizio dei pasti era completo.
L’aereo decollava in poco più di 180 metri di pista e atterrava a 105 Km/h. Gli bastava il piazzale della compagnia immediatamente davanti la dogana di Croydon, anziché la pista in erba.
Il costo del biglietto andata e ritorno per Parigi era di 8 sterline e 15 scellini e la linea ebbe quindi un notevole successo, specie tra gli uomini d’affari. Nel 1932, l’ Imperial Airways si vantava di aver assorbito, grazie al servizio “Silver Wing” su HP-42, ben il 58% del traffico di Croydon.
Nonostante gli incidenti “normali”, questi aerei volarono per 100.000 ore, percorrendo nel loro complesso 16 milioni di Km, senza fare un solo graffio ai passeggeri.
Chi ne sa qualcosa di più parli, adesso devo uscì.
Ciao

[i-daxi]

Handley Page 42

[cabronte]

Ragazzi, è un piacere leggere ciò che scrivete!

[richelieu]

E questo lo conoscete?



Ma è il "fantastico" Gilbert XF-120 .....



Buonanotte .....

[87Nemesis87]

E questo lo conoscete?



Ma è il "fantastico" Gilbert XF-120 .....



Buonanotte .....

di quale film è?

[sidew]

E questo lo conoscete?



Ma è il "fantastico" Gilbert XF-120 .....

Ecco il "Gilbert" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_XB-51

[richelieu]

E questo lo conoscete?



Ma è il "fantastico" Gilbert XF-120 .....



Buonanotte .....

di quale film è?

L'aereo è, come ha fatto osservare giustamente "sidew", il bombardiere leggero Martin XB-51 che nel film del 1956 "Toward the Unknown" (in Italia "Soli nell'Infinito") interpretava nientepopodimenochè l'inesistente caccia, che ora posso a buon diritto chiamare "fantomatico", Gilbert XF-120 .....

Quello vero .....


Quello falso .....


Pubblicità d'epoca .....


Il film .....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049870/

Altre sequenze, non consecutive, riguardanti il Bell X-2 .....


Il Maggiore Bond, abbandonato l'aereo-razzo ormai ingovernabile, precipita da alta quota in caduta libera e soffre per la mancanza d'aria .....


..... ma poi si aprirà il paracadute .....

[L_P]

Aggiungo un altro Fokker alla lista...

Fokker F-60

Incoraggiata dal successo dell' f-50, versione migliorata ed ingrandita del precefente f-27, la Fokker cominciò ad elaborarne una versione allungata du 1,62 metri, con una grande porta cargo subito dietro alla cabina sul lato destro. Sfortunatamente il velivolo non ebbe ordini in campo civile; gli unici 4 esemplari costruiti prima della bancarotta della Fokker andarono alle forze aeree olandesi, precisamente al 334° squadrone della base di Eindhoven, mentre un quinto era ancora in costruzione. Dismessi dalla RNAF i F-60 sono ora accantonati in vendita.

[i-daxi]

A me non dispiace affatto l'F-60, anche se successivamente l'F-50 ebbe molto più successo, come sappiamo, ricordo però che c'era già una versione maggiorata dell'F-27 era l'F-227 fabbricato dalla Fairchild Hiller negli Stati Uniti su licenza Fokker, benchè la produzione non superò i 78 esemplari, qualcuno arrivò anche in Europa soprattutto in Francia dove venne operato dalla Transport Aerienne Touraine TAT.

Uno di questi, utilizzato dalla Aeroanutica Militare Uruguayana ebbe un tragico quanto famoso incidente, quello accaduto al volo 571 che ispirò libri e film.

[i-daxi]

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

Date October 13, 1972 - December 23, 1972
Type Controlled flight into terrain
Site Remote mountainous border between Argentina and Chile

34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639Coordinates: 34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639
Passengers 40
Crew 5
Fatalities 29
Survivors 16
Aircraft type Fairchild FH-227D
Operator Uruguayan Air Force
Flight origin Carrasco International Airport
Stopover Mendoza International Airport
Destination Pudahuel Airport

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known as the Andes flight disaster, and in South America as Miracle in the Andes (El Milagro de los Andes) was a chartered flight carrying 45 rugby team members and associates that crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. The last of the 16 survivors were rescued on December 23, 1972. More than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash and several more quickly succumbed to cold and injury. Of the twenty-nine who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter in the wreckage.

The crash survivors, thinking they would be found and rescued within days, had little food and no source of heat in the harsh climate, at over 3,600 metres (12,000 ft) altitude. Faced with starvation and radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned, the survivors fed on the dead passengers who had been preserved in the snow. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until 72 days after the crash when passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a 12-day trek across the Andes, found a Chilean huaso, who gave them food and then alerted authorities about the existence of the other survivors.

The crash

On Friday the 13th of October, 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force twin turboprop Fairchild FH-227D was flying over the Andes carrying Stella Maris College's "Old Christians" rugby union team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to play a match in Santiago, Chile.

The trip had begun the day before, October 12, when the Fairchild departed from Carrasco International Airport, but inclement mountain weather forced an overnight stop in Mendoza. At the Fairchild's ceiling of 29,500 feet (9,000 m), the plane could not fly directly from Mendoza, over the Andes, to Santiago, in large part because of the weather. Instead, the pilots had to fly south from Mendoza parallel to the Andes, then turn west towards the mountains, fly through a low pass (Planchon), cross the mountains and emerge on the Chilean side of the Andes south of Curico before finally turning north and initiating descent to Santiago after passing Curico. After resuming the flight on the afternoon of October 13, the plane was soon flying through the pass in the mountains. The pilot then notified air controllers in Santiago that he was over Curicó, Chile, and was cleared to descend. This would prove to be a fatal error. Since the pass was covered by the clouds, the pilots had to rely on the usual time required to cross the pass (dead reckoning). However, they failed to take into account strong headwinds that ultimately slowed the plane and increased the time required to complete the crossing: they were not as far west as they thought they were. As a result, the turn and descent were initiated too soon, before the plane had passed through the mountains, leading to a controlled flight into terrain.

Dipping into the cloud cover while still over the mountains, the Fairchild soon crashed on an unnamed peak (later called Cerro Seler, also known as Glaciar de las Lágrimas or Glacier of Tears), located between Cerro Sosneado and Volcán Tinguiririca, straddling the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. The plane clipped the peak at 4,200 metres (14,000 ft), neatly severing the right wing, which was thrown back with such a force that it cut off the vertical stabilizer, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. The plane then clipped a second peak which severed the left wing and left the plane as just a fuselage flying through the air. One of the propellers sliced through the fuselage as the wing it was attached to was severed. The fuselage hit the ground and slid down a steep mountain slope before finally coming to rest in a snow bank. The location of the crash site is 34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639Coordinates: 34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639, in the Argentine municipality of Malargüe (Malargüe Department, Mendoza Province).

Early days

Survivors amongst the wreckage.Of the 45 people on the plane, 12 died in the crash or shortly thereafter; another 5 had died by the next morning, and one more succumbed to injuries on the eighth day. The remaining 27 faced hard survival issues high in the freezing mountains. Many had suffered injuries from the crash including broken legs from the aircraft's seats piling together. The survivors lacked equipment such as cold-weather clothing and footwear suitable for the area, mountaineering goggles to prevent snow blindness (although one of the eventual survivors, 24-year-old Adolfo "Fito" Strauch, devised a couple of sunglasses by using the sun visors in the pilot's cabin which did help protect their eyes from the sun). Most gravely, they lacked any kind of medical supplies, leaving the two first year medical students on board who had survived the crash to improvise splints and braces with salvaged parts of what remained of the aircraft.

The search

Search parties from three countries looked for the missing plane. However, since the plane was white, it blended in with the snow making it virtually impossible to see from the sky. The search was cancelled after 8 days. The survivors of the crash had found a small transistor radio on the plane and Roy Harley first heard the news that the search was cancelled on their eleventh day on the mountain. Piers Paul Read in Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (a text based upon interviews with the survivors) described the moments after this discovery:

“ The others who had clustered around Roy, upon hearing the news, began to sob and pray, all except Parrado, who looked calmly up the mountains which rose to the west. Gustavo [Coco] Nicolich came out of the plane and, seeing their faces, knew what they had heard… [Nicolich] climbed through the hole in the wall of suitcases and rugby shirts, crouched at the mouth of the dim tunnel, and looked at the mournful faces which were turned towards him. 'Hey boys,' he shouted, 'there's some good news! We just heard on the radio. They've called off the search.' Inside the crowded plane there was silence. As the hopelessness of their predicament enveloped them, they wept. 'Why the hell is that good news?' Paez shouted angrily at Nicolich. 'Because it means,' [Nicolich] said, 'that we're going to get out of here on our own.' The courage of this one boy prevented a flood of total despair. ”

Cannibalism

The survivors had a small amount of food: a few chocolate bars, other assorted snacks, and several bottles of wine. During the days following the crash they divided out this food in very small amounts so as not to exhaust their meager supply. Fito also devised a way to melt snow into water by using metal from the seats and placing snow on it. The snow then melted in the sun and dripped into empty wine bottles.

Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. Furthermore, there was no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain. The group thus survived by collectively making a decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. This decision was not taken lightly, as most were classmates or close friends. In his 2006 book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, Nando Parrado comments on this decision:

“ At high altitude, the body's caloric needs are astronomical … we were starving in earnest, with no hope of finding food, but our hunger soon grew so voracious that we searched anyway … again and again we scoured the fuselage in search of crumbs and morsels. We tried to eat strips of leather torn from pieces of luggage, though we knew that the chemicals they'd been treated with would do us more harm than good. We ripped open seat cushions hoping to find straw, but found only inedible upholstery foam… Again and again I came to the same conclusion: unless we wanted to eat the clothes we were wearing, there was nothing here but aluminium, plastic, ice, and rock.”

All of the passengers were Roman Catholic, a point which was emphasized by Piers Paul Read in Alive. According to Read, some equated the act of cannibalism to the ritual of Holy Communion. Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later.

Avalanche

Eight of the initial survivors subsequently died on the morning of October 29 when an avalanche cascaded down on them as they slept in the fuselage. For three days they survived in an appallingly confined space since the plane was buried under several feet of snow. Nando Parrado was able to poke a hole in the roof of the fuselage with a metal pole, providing ventilation and possibly saving them all from suffocation.

Hard decisions

Before the avalanche, a few of the survivors became insistent that their only means of survival would be to climb over the mountains themselves and search for help. Because of the co-pilot's assertion that the plane had passed Curico, the group assumed that the Chilean countryside was just a few miles away to the west. In actuality, the plane had crashed inside Argentina and just a few miles west of an abandoned hotel named the Hotel Termas Sosneado. Several brief expeditions were made in the immediate vicinity of the plane in the first few weeks after the crash, but the expeditionaries found that a combination of altitude sickness, dehydration, snow blindness, undernourishment and the extreme cold of the nights made climbing any significant distance an impossible task. Therefore it was decided that a group of expeditionaries would be chosen, and then allocated the most rations of food and the warmest of clothes, and spared the daily manual labor around the crash site that was essential for the group's survival, so that they might build their strength. Although several survivors were determined to be on the expedition team no matter what, including Parrado and one of the two medical students, Roberto Canessa, others were less willing or unsure of their ability to withstand such a physically exhausting ordeal. Three of the survivors ultimately undertook a one-day trial climb to test their willingness and ability to withstand the challenges of climbing, after which only Antonio "Tintin" Vizintín was declared fit enough to join the other two.

At Canessa's urging, the expeditionaries waited nearly seven weeks, to allow for the arrival of spring, and with it warmer temperatures. Although the expeditionaries were hoping to get to Chile, a large mountain lay due west of the crash site, blocking any effort made to walk in that direction. Therefore the expeditionaries initially headed east, hoping that at some point the valley that they were in would do a U-turn and allow them to start walking west. After several hours of walking east, the trio unexpectedly found the tail section of the plane, which was still largely intact. Within and surrounding the tail were numerous suitcases that had belonged to the passengers, containing cigarettes, candy, clean clothing and even some comic books. The group decided to camp there that night inside the tail section, and continue east the next morning. However, on the second night of the expedition, which was their first night sleeping outside exposed to the elements, the group nearly froze to death. After some debate the next morning, they decided that it would be wiser to return to the tail, remove the plane's batteries and bring them back to the fuselage so that they might power up the radio and make an SOS call to Santiago for help.

Radio

Upon returning to the tail, the trio found that the batteries were too heavy to take back to the fuselage, which lay uphill from the tail section, and they decided instead that the most appropriate course of action would be to return to the fuselage and disconnect the radio system from the plane's electrical mainframe, take it back to the tail, connect it to the batteries, and call for help from there. One of the other team members, Roy Harley, was an amateur electronics enthusiast, and they recruited his help in this endeavor. Unbeknownst to any of the team members, though, was the fact that the plane's electrical system used AC, while the batteries in the tail naturally produced DC, making the plan futile from the beginning. After several days of trying to make the radio work back at the tail, the expeditionaries finally gave up, returning to the fuselage with the knowledge that they would in fact have to climb out of the mountains if they were to stand any hope of being rescued.

The sleeping bag

It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. However, they also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing temperature of the nights, a trek was impossible. It was at this point that the idea for a sleeping bag was raised.

In his book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, Nando Parrado would comment thirty-four years later upon the making of the sleeping bag:

“ The second challenge would be to protect ourselves from exposure, especially after sundown. At this time of year we could expect daytime temperatures well above freezing, but the nights were still cold enough to kill us, and we knew now that we couldn't expect to find shelter on the open slopes. We needed a way to survive the long nights without freezing, and the quilted batts of insulation we'd taken from the tail section gave us our solution … as we brainstormed about the trip, we realized we could sew the patches together to create a large warm quilt. Then we realized that by folding the quilt in half and stitching the seams together, we could create an insulated sleeping bag large enough for all three expeditionaries to sleep in. With the warmth of three bodies trapped by the insulating cloth, we might be able to weather the coldest nights.
Carlitos took on the challenge. His mother had taught him to sew when he was a boy, and with the needles and thread from the sewing kit found in his mother's cosmetic case, he began to work … to speed the progress, Carlitos taught others to sew, and we all took our turns… C, Coche, Gustavo [Zerbino], and Fito turned out to be our best and fastest tailors".


After the sleeping bag was completed and another survivor, Numa Turcatti, died from his injuries, the hesitant Canessa was finally persuaded to set out, and the three expeditionaries took to the mountain on December 12.

December 12
On 12 December, 1972, some two months after the crash, Parrado, Canessa and Vizintín began their trek up the mountain. Parrado took the lead, and often had to be called to slow down, although the trek up the hill against gravity and in low-oxygen was difficult for all of them. Although it was still bitterly cold, the sleeping bag allowed them to live through the nights.

On the third day of the trek, Parrado reached the top of the mountain before the other two expeditionaries. What he saw literally took his breath away. Stretched before him as far as the eye could see were more mountains. In fact he had just climbed one of the mountains (as high as 4,800 metres (16,000 ft)) which forms the border between Argentina and Chile, meaning that they were still tens of kilometers from the red valley of Chile. However, after spying a small "Y" in the distance, he gauged that a way out of the mountains must lie beyond, and refused to give up hope. Knowing that the hike would take more energy than they'd originally planned for, Parrado and Canessa sent Vizintín back to the crash site, as they were rapidly running out of rations. Since the return was entirely downhill, it only took him one hour to get back to the fuselage on a sled made from broken parts of the plane.

Finding help

Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. First, they were able to actually reach the narrow valley that Parrado had seen on the top of the mountain, where they found the bed of Rio Azufre; then they followed the river and finally they reached the end of the snowline and, gradually, more and more signs of human presence, first some signs of camping and finally, on the ninth day, some cows. When they rested that evening, they were very tired and Canessa seemed unable to proceed further. As Parrado was gathering wood to build a fire, Canessa noticed what looked like a man on a horse at the other side of the river, and yelled at the near-sighted Parrado to run down to the banks. At first it seemed that Canessa had been imagining the man on the horse, but eventually they saw three men on horseback. Divided by a river, Nando and Canessa tried to convey their situation to which one of them, a Chilean Huaso named Sergio Catalan, shouted "tomorrow." They knew at this point they would be saved and settled to sleep by the river.

During the evening dinner, Sergio Catalan discussed what he had seen with the other huasos who were staying at the time in a little summer ranch called Los Maitenes. Someone mentioned that several weeks before the father of Carlos Paez, who was desperately searching for any possible news about the plane, had asked them about the Andes crash; however, the huasos could not imagine that someone could still be alive. The next day Catalan took some loaves of bread and went back to the river bank, where he found the two men who were still on the other side of the river, on their knees and asking for help. Catalan threw them the bread loaves, which they immediately ate and following Parrado's gestures, a pen and paper to write a note, addressed in red lipstick, telling the huasos about the plane crash and asking for help; then he tied the paper to a rock and threw it back to Catalan, who read it and gave the boys the sign to have understood.

Catalan rode on horseback for many hours westwards to bring help. During the trip he saw another huaso on the south side of Rio Azufre and asked him to reach the boys and to bring them to Los Maitenes. Instead, he followed the river till the cross with Rio Tinguiririca, where, after passing a bridge he was able to reach the narrow route that linked the village of Puente Negro to the holiday resort of Termas del Flaco. Here he was able to stop a truck and reach the police station at Puente Negro, where the news was finally dispatched to the Army command in San Fernando and then to Santiago. Meanwhile, Parrado and Canessa were rescued and they reached Los Maitenes, where they were fed and allowed to rest.

The following day in the morning the rescue expedition left Santiago and, after a stop in San Fernando, moved eastwards. The two helicopters had to fly in the fog and reached a place near Los Maitenes just when Parrado and Canessa were passing there on horseback while going to Puente Negro. Nando Parrado was recruited to fly back to the mountain in order to guide the helicopters to the remaining survivors. The news that people had survived the October 13 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 had also leaked to the international press and a flood of reporters also began to appear along the narrow route from Puente Negro to Termas del Flaco. The reporters hoped to be able to see and interview Parrado and Canessa about the crash and the following days.


Parrado and Canessa with Chilean Huaso Sergio Catalan[edit] The mountain rescue
In the morning of the day when the rescue started, those remaining at the crash site heard on their radio that Parrado and Canessa had been successful in finding help and that afternoon, 22 December, 1972, two helicopters carrying search and rescue climbers arrived. However, the expedition (with Parrado onboard) was not able to reach the crash site until the afternoon, when it is very difficult to fly in the Andes. In fact the weather was very bad and the two helicopters were able to take only half of the survivors. They departed, leaving the rescue team and remaining survivors at the crash site to once again sleep in the fuselage, until a second expedition with helicopters could arrive the following morning. The second expedition arrived at daybreak on 23 December and all sixteen survivors were rescued. All of the survivors were taken to hospitals in Santiago and treated for altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, scurvy and malnutrition.

Timeline

October 1972
October 12 (Thu)
Crew 5, Passengers 40. (alive: 45)
October 13 (Fri)
5 people missing, 12 people dead. (dead: 12, missing: 5, alive: 28)
October 21 (Sat)
Susana "Susy" Parrado found dead. (dead: 13, missing: 5, alive: 27)
October 24 (Tue)
missing 5 people found dead. (dead: 18, alive: 27)
October 29 (Sun)
8 people killed in an avalanche. (dead: 26, alive: 19)
November 1972
November 15 (Wed)
Arturo Nogueira, found dead. (dead: 27, alive: 18)
November 18 (Sat)
Rafael Echavarren, found dead. (dead: 28, alive: 17)
December 1972
December 11 (Mon)
Numa Turcatti, found dead. (dead: 29, alive: 16)
December 20 (Wed)
Parrado and Canessa encounter Sergio Catalan.
December 21 (Thu)
Parrado and Canessa rescued.
December 22 (Fri)
6 people rescued.
December 23 (Sat)
8 people rescued. 16 people alive.
December 26 (Tue)
Front page of the Santiago newspaper, "El Mercurio", reports that all survivors resorted to cannibalism.

Passenger list

Crew
Colonel Julio Ferradas, Pilot,
Lieutenant Colonel Dante Lagurara, Co-Pilot,
Lieutenant Ramon Martínez,
Corporal Carlos Roque,
Corporal Ovidio Joaquin Ramírez.

Passengers

Francisco Abal
Jose Pedro Algorta
Roberto Canessa
Gaston Costemalle
Alfredo Delgado
Rafael Echavarren
Daniel Fernández
Roberto Francois
Roy Harley
Alexis Hounié
Jose Luis Inciarte
Guido Magri
Alvaro Mangino
Felipe Maquirriain
Graciela Augusto Gumila de Mariani
Julio Martínez-Lamas
Daniel Maspons
Juan Carlos Menéndez
Javier Methol
Liliana Navarro Petraglia de Methol
Dr. Francisco Nicola
Esther Horta Pérez de Nicola
Gustavo Nicolich
Arturo Nogueira
Carlos Páez Rodriguez
Eugenia Dolgay Diedug de Parrado
Fernando Parrado
Susana Parrado
Marcelo Perez
Enrique Platero
Ramón Sabella
Daniel Shaw
Adolfo Strauch
Eduardo Strauch
Diego Storm
Numa Turcatti
Carlos Valeta
Fernando Vázquez
Antonio Vizintín
Gustavo Zerbino


Aftermath
When first rescued, the survivors initially explained that they had eaten some cheese they had carried with them, planning to discuss the details in private with their families. However, they were pushed into the public eye when photos were leaked to the press and sensational, unauthorized articles were published.

The survivors held a press conference on December 28 at Stella Maris College, where they recounted the events of the past 72 days (over the years, they would also participate in the publication of two books, two films, and an official website about the event).

The rescuers later returned to the crash site and buried the bodies of the deceased under a pile of stones a half mile from the site. The grave was commemorated by an iron cross erected from the center of the stone pile. What remained of the fuselage was incinerated to thwart curiosity seekers.


View of the Crash Site Memorial - February 2006. Official website (2002)
In 2002, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the event, an official website was created for the survivors. The website, entitled Viven! El Accidente de Los Andes is available in both Spanish and English.

Books

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974)
The first book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, (published two years after their rescue) was written by Piers Paul Read who interviewed the survivors and their families. It was a critical success and remains a highly popular work of non-fiction. In the opening of the book, the survivors explain why they wanted it to be written:

“ We decided that this book should be written and the truth known because of the many rumors about what happened in the cordillera. We dedicate this story of our suffering and solidarity to those friends who died and to their parents who, at the time when we most needed it, received us with love and understanding. ”

A reprint was published in 2005 by Harper. It was re-titled: Alive: Sixteen Men, Seventy-two Days, and Insurmountable Odds—The Classic Adventure of Survival in the Andes and includes a revised introduction as well as interviews with Piers Paul Read, Coche Inciarte, and Álvaro Mangino.

Miracle in the Andes (2006)
Thirty-four years after the rescue, Nando Parrado published the book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home (with Vince Rause), which has received positive reviews. In this text, Parrado also touches upon public reaction to this event:

“ In fact, our survival had become a matter of national pride. Our ordeal was being celebrated as a glorious adventure… I didn't know how to explain to them that there was no glory in those mountains. It was all ugliness and fear and desperation, and the obscenity of watching so many innocent people die. I was also shaken by the sensationalism with which many in the press covered the matter of what we had eaten to survive. Shortly after our rescue, officials of the Catholic Church announced that according to church doctrine we had committed no sin by eating the flesh of the dead. As Roberto had argued on the mountain, they told the world that the sin would have been to allow ourselves to die. More satisfying for me was the fact that many of the parents of the boys who died had publicly expressed their support for us, telling the world they understood and accepted what we had done to survive … despite these gestures, many news reports focused on the matter of our diet, in reckless and exploitive ways. Some newspapers ran lurid headlines above grisly front-page photos. (247–8) ”

Film and television

Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2007)
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains, written and directed by Gonzalo Arijón, is a documentary film interlaced with dramatised scenes. In the film, all of the survivors are interviewed, as are some of their family members and the people involved with the rescue operation. Additionally, an expedition in which the survivors return to the crash site is documented. The film was first shown at the 2007 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, The Netherlands and received the Joris Ivens Award.
This film appeared on PBS Independent Lens as STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors in May 2009.

Trapped: Alive in the Andes (2007)
Trapped: Alive in the Andes is an episode from season one of the National Geographic Channel documentary television series Trapped. The series was dedicated to examining the stories of various accidents which left survivors trapped in their situation for a period of time. The episode Trapped: Alive in the Andes was aired November 7, 2007.

Alive: The Miracle of the Andes (1993)
The film Alive received mixed reviews. It was directed by Frank Marshall and is based upon the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read. It stars Ethan Hawke and is narrated by John Malkovich. Nando Parrado served as a technical adviser to the film. Carlitos Páez (see: Casapueblo) and Ramon "Moncho" Sabella also visited the recreated fuselage during the shooting of the movie to aid with the historical accuracy of the set and to instruct the actors on how the events actually unfolded.

Alive: 20 Years Later (1993)
Alive: 20 Years Later is a documentary film which was produced, directed and written by Jill Fullerton-Smith and narrated by Martin Sheen. It explores the lives of the survivors twenty years after the crash. It also discusses their participation in the production of Alive: The Miracle of the Andes.

Supervivientes de los Andes (1976)
This was a Mexican production directed by René Cardona, Jr.,[10] based on the unauthorized 1973 book, Survive by Clay Blair.

[Toeloop]

Mi pare che nessuno abbia parlato di lui: aereo splendido ma forse un tantino eccessivo anche per le più grosse compagnie di trasporto merci. Questo per ribadire che il flop magari non è dovuto alle qualità dell'aereo, ma proprio perché non ci sono le possibilità nel mercato di poterlo utilizzare.



P.S. Se ne avete già parlato ma mi è sfuggito, chiedo umilmente scusa...

[cabronte]

Mi pare che nessuno abbia parlato di lui: aereo splendido ma forse un tantino eccessivo anche per le più grosse compagnie di trasporto merci. Questo per ribadire che il flop magari non è dovuto alle qualità dell'aereo, ma proprio perché non ci sono le possibilità nel mercato di poterlo utilizzare.



P.S. Se ne avete già parlato ma mi è sfuggito, chiedo umilmente scusa...

Vero, anche lui è stato un flop, anche se mi sembra che è in costruzione il secondo esemplare che dovrebbe entrare in servizio il prossimo anno!

[Peretola]

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

Date October 13, 1972 - December 23, 1972
Type Controlled flight into terrain
Site Remote mountainous border between Argentina and Chile

34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639Coordinates: 34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639
Passengers 40
Crew 5
Fatalities 29
Survivors 16
Aircraft type Fairchild FH-227D
Operator Uruguayan Air Force
Flight origin Carrasco International Airport
Stopover Mendoza International Airport
Destination Pudahuel Airport

Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, also known as the Andes flight disaster, and in South America as Miracle in the Andes (El Milagro de los Andes) was a chartered flight carrying 45 rugby team members and associates that crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. The last of the 16 survivors were rescued on December 23, 1972. More than a quarter of the passengers died in the crash and several more quickly succumbed to cold and injury. Of the twenty-nine who were alive a few days after the accident, another eight were killed by an avalanche that swept over their shelter in the wreckage.

The crash survivors, thinking they would be found and rescued within days, had little food and no source of heat in the harsh climate, at over 3,600 metres (12,000 ft) altitude. Faced with starvation and radio news reports that the search for them had been abandoned, the survivors fed on the dead passengers who had been preserved in the snow. Rescuers did not learn of the survivors until 72 days after the crash when passengers Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, after a 12-day trek across the Andes, found a Chilean huaso, who gave them food and then alerted authorities about the existence of the other survivors.

The crash

On Friday the 13th of October, 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force twin turboprop Fairchild FH-227D was flying over the Andes carrying Stella Maris College's "Old Christians" rugby union team from Montevideo, Uruguay, to play a match in Santiago, Chile.

The trip had begun the day before, October 12, when the Fairchild departed from Carrasco International Airport, but inclement mountain weather forced an overnight stop in Mendoza. At the Fairchild's ceiling of 29,500 feet (9,000 m), the plane could not fly directly from Mendoza, over the Andes, to Santiago, in large part because of the weather. Instead, the pilots had to fly south from Mendoza parallel to the Andes, then turn west towards the mountains, fly through a low pass (Planchon), cross the mountains and emerge on the Chilean side of the Andes south of Curico before finally turning north and initiating descent to Santiago after passing Curico. After resuming the flight on the afternoon of October 13, the plane was soon flying through the pass in the mountains. The pilot then notified air controllers in Santiago that he was over Curicó, Chile, and was cleared to descend. This would prove to be a fatal error. Since the pass was covered by the clouds, the pilots had to rely on the usual time required to cross the pass (dead reckoning). However, they failed to take into account strong headwinds that ultimately slowed the plane and increased the time required to complete the crossing: they were not as far west as they thought they were. As a result, the turn and descent were initiated too soon, before the plane had passed through the mountains, leading to a controlled flight into terrain.

Dipping into the cloud cover while still over the mountains, the Fairchild soon crashed on an unnamed peak (later called Cerro Seler, also known as Glaciar de las Lágrimas or Glacier of Tears), located between Cerro Sosneado and Volcán Tinguiririca, straddling the remote mountainous border between Chile and Argentina. The plane clipped the peak at 4,200 metres (14,000 ft), neatly severing the right wing, which was thrown back with such a force that it cut off the vertical stabilizer, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the fuselage. The plane then clipped a second peak which severed the left wing and left the plane as just a fuselage flying through the air. One of the propellers sliced through the fuselage as the wing it was attached to was severed. The fuselage hit the ground and slid down a steep mountain slope before finally coming to rest in a snow bank. The location of the crash site is 34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639Coordinates: 34°45′54″S 70°17′11″W / 34.765°S 70.28639°W / -34.765; -70.28639, in the Argentine municipality of Malargüe (Malargüe Department, Mendoza Province).

Early days

Survivors amongst the wreckage.Of the 45 people on the plane, 12 died in the crash or shortly thereafter; another 5 had died by the next morning, and one more succumbed to injuries on the eighth day. The remaining 27 faced hard survival issues high in the freezing mountains. Many had suffered injuries from the crash including broken legs from the aircraft's seats piling together. The survivors lacked equipment such as cold-weather clothing and footwear suitable for the area, mountaineering goggles to prevent snow blindness (although one of the eventual survivors, 24-year-old Adolfo "Fito" Strauch, devised a couple of sunglasses by using the sun visors in the pilot's cabin which did help protect their eyes from the sun). Most gravely, they lacked any kind of medical supplies, leaving the two first year medical students on board who had survived the crash to improvise splints and braces with salvaged parts of what remained of the aircraft.

The search

Search parties from three countries looked for the missing plane. However, since the plane was white, it blended in with the snow making it virtually impossible to see from the sky. The search was cancelled after 8 days. The survivors of the crash had found a small transistor radio on the plane and Roy Harley first heard the news that the search was cancelled on their eleventh day on the mountain. Piers Paul Read in Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (a text based upon interviews with the survivors) described the moments after this discovery:

“ The others who had clustered around Roy, upon hearing the news, began to sob and pray, all except Parrado, who looked calmly up the mountains which rose to the west. Gustavo [Coco] Nicolich came out of the plane and, seeing their faces, knew what they had heard… [Nicolich] climbed through the hole in the wall of suitcases and rugby shirts, crouched at the mouth of the dim tunnel, and looked at the mournful faces which were turned towards him. 'Hey boys,' he shouted, 'there's some good news! We just heard on the radio. They've called off the search.' Inside the crowded plane there was silence. As the hopelessness of their predicament enveloped them, they wept. 'Why the hell is that good news?' Paez shouted angrily at Nicolich. 'Because it means,' [Nicolich] said, 'that we're going to get out of here on our own.' The courage of this one boy prevented a flood of total despair. ”

Cannibalism

The survivors had a small amount of food: a few chocolate bars, other assorted snacks, and several bottles of wine. During the days following the crash they divided out this food in very small amounts so as not to exhaust their meager supply. Fito also devised a way to melt snow into water by using metal from the seats and placing snow on it. The snow then melted in the sun and dripped into empty wine bottles.

Even with this strict rationing, their food stock dwindled quickly. Furthermore, there was no natural vegetation or animals on the snow-covered mountain. The group thus survived by collectively making a decision to eat flesh from the bodies of their dead comrades. This decision was not taken lightly, as most were classmates or close friends. In his 2006 book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, Nando Parrado comments on this decision:

“ At high altitude, the body's caloric needs are astronomical … we were starving in earnest, with no hope of finding food, but our hunger soon grew so voracious that we searched anyway … again and again we scoured the fuselage in search of crumbs and morsels. We tried to eat strips of leather torn from pieces of luggage, though we knew that the chemicals they'd been treated with would do us more harm than good. We ripped open seat cushions hoping to find straw, but found only inedible upholstery foam… Again and again I came to the same conclusion: unless we wanted to eat the clothes we were wearing, there was nothing here but aluminium, plastic, ice, and rock.”

All of the passengers were Roman Catholic, a point which was emphasized by Piers Paul Read in Alive. According to Read, some equated the act of cannibalism to the ritual of Holy Communion. Others initially had reservations, though after realizing that it was their only means of staying alive, changed their minds a few days later.

Avalanche

Eight of the initial survivors subsequently died on the morning of October 29 when an avalanche cascaded down on them as they slept in the fuselage. For three days they survived in an appallingly confined space since the plane was buried under several feet of snow. Nando Parrado was able to poke a hole in the roof of the fuselage with a metal pole, providing ventilation and possibly saving them all from suffocation.

Hard decisions

Before the avalanche, a few of the survivors became insistent that their only means of survival would be to climb over the mountains themselves and search for help. Because of the co-pilot's assertion that the plane had passed Curico, the group assumed that the Chilean countryside was just a few miles away to the west. In actuality, the plane had crashed inside Argentina and just a few miles west of an abandoned hotel named the Hotel Termas Sosneado. Several brief expeditions were made in the immediate vicinity of the plane in the first few weeks after the crash, but the expeditionaries found that a combination of altitude sickness, dehydration, snow blindness, undernourishment and the extreme cold of the nights made climbing any significant distance an impossible task. Therefore it was decided that a group of expeditionaries would be chosen, and then allocated the most rations of food and the warmest of clothes, and spared the daily manual labor around the crash site that was essential for the group's survival, so that they might build their strength. Although several survivors were determined to be on the expedition team no matter what, including Parrado and one of the two medical students, Roberto Canessa, others were less willing or unsure of their ability to withstand such a physically exhausting ordeal. Three of the survivors ultimately undertook a one-day trial climb to test their willingness and ability to withstand the challenges of climbing, after which only Antonio "Tintin" Vizintín was declared fit enough to join the other two.

At Canessa's urging, the expeditionaries waited nearly seven weeks, to allow for the arrival of spring, and with it warmer temperatures. Although the expeditionaries were hoping to get to Chile, a large mountain lay due west of the crash site, blocking any effort made to walk in that direction. Therefore the expeditionaries initially headed east, hoping that at some point the valley that they were in would do a U-turn and allow them to start walking west. After several hours of walking east, the trio unexpectedly found the tail section of the plane, which was still largely intact. Within and surrounding the tail were numerous suitcases that had belonged to the passengers, containing cigarettes, candy, clean clothing and even some comic books. The group decided to camp there that night inside the tail section, and continue east the next morning. However, on the second night of the expedition, which was their first night sleeping outside exposed to the elements, the group nearly froze to death. After some debate the next morning, they decided that it would be wiser to return to the tail, remove the plane's batteries and bring them back to the fuselage so that they might power up the radio and make an SOS call to Santiago for help.

Radio

Upon returning to the tail, the trio found that the batteries were too heavy to take back to the fuselage, which lay uphill from the tail section, and they decided instead that the most appropriate course of action would be to return to the fuselage and disconnect the radio system from the plane's electrical mainframe, take it back to the tail, connect it to the batteries, and call for help from there. One of the other team members, Roy Harley, was an amateur electronics enthusiast, and they recruited his help in this endeavor. Unbeknownst to any of the team members, though, was the fact that the plane's electrical system used AC, while the batteries in the tail naturally produced DC, making the plan futile from the beginning. After several days of trying to make the radio work back at the tail, the expeditionaries finally gave up, returning to the fuselage with the knowledge that they would in fact have to climb out of the mountains if they were to stand any hope of being rescued.

The sleeping bag

It was now apparent that the only way out was to climb over the mountains to the west. However, they also realized that unless they found a way to survive the freezing temperature of the nights, a trek was impossible. It was at this point that the idea for a sleeping bag was raised.

In his book, Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home, Nando Parrado would comment thirty-four years later upon the making of the sleeping bag:

“ The second challenge would be to protect ourselves from exposure, especially after sundown. At this time of year we could expect daytime temperatures well above freezing, but the nights were still cold enough to kill us, and we knew now that we couldn't expect to find shelter on the open slopes. We needed a way to survive the long nights without freezing, and the quilted batts of insulation we'd taken from the tail section gave us our solution … as we brainstormed about the trip, we realized we could sew the patches together to create a large warm quilt. Then we realized that by folding the quilt in half and stitching the seams together, we could create an insulated sleeping bag large enough for all three expeditionaries to sleep in. With the warmth of three bodies trapped by the insulating cloth, we might be able to weather the coldest nights.
Carlitos took on the challenge. His mother had taught him to sew when he was a boy, and with the needles and thread from the sewing kit found in his mother's cosmetic case, he began to work … to speed the progress, Carlitos taught others to sew, and we all took our turns… C, Coche, Gustavo [Zerbino], and Fito turned out to be our best and fastest tailors".


After the sleeping bag was completed and another survivor, Numa Turcatti, died from his injuries, the hesitant Canessa was finally persuaded to set out, and the three expeditionaries took to the mountain on December 12.

December 12
On 12 December, 1972, some two months after the crash, Parrado, Canessa and Vizintín began their trek up the mountain. Parrado took the lead, and often had to be called to slow down, although the trek up the hill against gravity and in low-oxygen was difficult for all of them. Although it was still bitterly cold, the sleeping bag allowed them to live through the nights.

On the third day of the trek, Parrado reached the top of the mountain before the other two expeditionaries. What he saw literally took his breath away. Stretched before him as far as the eye could see were more mountains. In fact he had just climbed one of the mountains (as high as 4,800 metres (16,000 ft)) which forms the border between Argentina and Chile, meaning that they were still tens of kilometers from the red valley of Chile. However, after spying a small "Y" in the distance, he gauged that a way out of the mountains must lie beyond, and refused to give up hope. Knowing that the hike would take more energy than they'd originally planned for, Parrado and Canessa sent Vizintín back to the crash site, as they were rapidly running out of rations. Since the return was entirely downhill, it only took him one hour to get back to the fuselage on a sled made from broken parts of the plane.

Finding help

Parrado and Canessa hiked for several more days. First, they were able to actually reach the narrow valley that Parrado had seen on the top of the mountain, where they found the bed of Rio Azufre; then they followed the river and finally they reached the end of the snowline and, gradually, more and more signs of human presence, first some signs of camping and finally, on the ninth day, some cows. When they rested that evening, they were very tired and Canessa seemed unable to proceed further. As Parrado was gathering wood to build a fire, Canessa noticed what looked like a man on a horse at the other side of the river, and yelled at the near-sighted Parrado to run down to the banks. At first it seemed that Canessa had been imagining the man on the horse, but eventually they saw three men on horseback. Divided by a river, Nando and Canessa tried to convey their situation to which one of them, a Chilean Huaso named Sergio Catalan, shouted "tomorrow." They knew at this point they would be saved and settled to sleep by the river.

During the evening dinner, Sergio Catalan discussed what he had seen with the other huasos who were staying at the time in a little summer ranch called Los Maitenes. Someone mentioned that several weeks before the father of Carlos Paez, who was desperately searching for any possible news about the plane, had asked them about the Andes crash; however, the huasos could not imagine that someone could still be alive. The next day Catalan took some loaves of bread and went back to the river bank, where he found the two men who were still on the other side of the river, on their knees and asking for help. Catalan threw them the bread loaves, which they immediately ate and following Parrado's gestures, a pen and paper to write a note, addressed in red lipstick, telling the huasos about the plane crash and asking for help; then he tied the paper to a rock and threw it back to Catalan, who read it and gave the boys the sign to have understood.

Catalan rode on horseback for many hours westwards to bring help. During the trip he saw another huaso on the south side of Rio Azufre and asked him to reach the boys and to bring them to Los Maitenes. Instead, he followed the river till the cross with Rio Tinguiririca, where, after passing a bridge he was able to reach the narrow route that linked the village of Puente Negro to the holiday resort of Termas del Flaco. Here he was able to stop a truck and reach the police station at Puente Negro, where the news was finally dispatched to the Army command in San Fernando and then to Santiago. Meanwhile, Parrado and Canessa were rescued and they reached Los Maitenes, where they were fed and allowed to rest.

The following day in the morning the rescue expedition left Santiago and, after a stop in San Fernando, moved eastwards. The two helicopters had to fly in the fog and reached a place near Los Maitenes just when Parrado and Canessa were passing there on horseback while going to Puente Negro. Nando Parrado was recruited to fly back to the mountain in order to guide the helicopters to the remaining survivors. The news that people had survived the October 13 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 had also leaked to the international press and a flood of reporters also began to appear along the narrow route from Puente Negro to Termas del Flaco. The reporters hoped to be able to see and interview Parrado and Canessa about the crash and the following days.


Parrado and Canessa with Chilean Huaso Sergio Catalan[edit] The mountain rescue
In the morning of the day when the rescue started, those remaining at the crash site heard on their radio that Parrado and Canessa had been successful in finding help and that afternoon, 22 December, 1972, two helicopters carrying search and rescue climbers arrived. However, the expedition (with Parrado onboard) was not able to reach the crash site until the afternoon, when it is very difficult to fly in the Andes. In fact the weather was very bad and the two helicopters were able to take only half of the survivors. They departed, leaving the rescue team and remaining survivors at the crash site to once again sleep in the fuselage, until a second expedition with helicopters could arrive the following morning. The second expedition arrived at daybreak on 23 December and all sixteen survivors were rescued. All of the survivors were taken to hospitals in Santiago and treated for altitude sickness, dehydration, frostbite, broken bones, scurvy and malnutrition.

Timeline

October 1972
October 12 (Thu)
Crew 5, Passengers 40. (alive: 45)
October 13 (Fri)
5 people missing, 12 people dead. (dead: 12, missing: 5, alive: 28)
October 21 (Sat)
Susana "Susy" Parrado found dead. (dead: 13, missing: 5, alive: 27)
October 24 (Tue)
missing 5 people found dead. (dead: 18, alive: 27)
October 29 (Sun)
8 people killed in an avalanche. (dead: 26, alive: 19)
November 1972
November 15 (Wed)
Arturo Nogueira, found dead. (dead: 27, alive: 18)
November 18 (Sat)
Rafael Echavarren, found dead. (dead: 28, alive: 17)
December 1972
December 11 (Mon)
Numa Turcatti, found dead. (dead: 29, alive: 16)
December 20 (Wed)
Parrado and Canessa encounter Sergio Catalan.
December 21 (Thu)
Parrado and Canessa rescued.
December 22 (Fri)
6 people rescued.
December 23 (Sat)
8 people rescued. 16 people alive.
December 26 (Tue)
Front page of the Santiago newspaper, "El Mercurio", reports that all survivors resorted to cannibalism.

Passenger list

Crew
Colonel Julio Ferradas, Pilot,
Lieutenant Colonel Dante Lagurara, Co-Pilot,
Lieutenant Ramon Martínez,
Corporal Carlos Roque,
Corporal Ovidio Joaquin Ramírez.

Passengers

Francisco Abal
Jose Pedro Algorta
Roberto Canessa
Gaston Costemalle
Alfredo Delgado
Rafael Echavarren
Daniel Fernández
Roberto Francois
Roy Harley
Alexis Hounié
Jose Luis Inciarte
Guido Magri
Alvaro Mangino
Felipe Maquirriain
Graciela Augusto Gumila de Mariani
Julio Martínez-Lamas
Daniel Maspons
Juan Carlos Menéndez
Javier Methol
Liliana Navarro Petraglia de Methol
Dr. Francisco Nicola
Esther Horta Pérez de Nicola
Gustavo Nicolich
Arturo Nogueira
Carlos Páez Rodriguez
Eugenia Dolgay Diedug de Parrado
Fernando Parrado
Susana Parrado
Marcelo Perez
Enrique Platero
Ramón Sabella
Daniel Shaw
Adolfo Strauch
Eduardo Strauch
Diego Storm
Numa Turcatti
Carlos Valeta
Fernando Vázquez
Antonio Vizintín
Gustavo Zerbino


Aftermath
When first rescued, the survivors initially explained that they had eaten some cheese they had carried with them, planning to discuss the details in private with their families. However, they were pushed into the public eye when photos were leaked to the press and sensational, unauthorized articles were published.

The survivors held a press conference on December 28 at Stella Maris College, where they recounted the events of the past 72 days (over the years, they would also participate in the publication of two books, two films, and an official website about the event).

The rescuers later returned to the crash site and buried the bodies of the deceased under a pile of stones a half mile from the site. The grave was commemorated by an iron cross erected from the center of the stone pile. What remained of the fuselage was incinerated to thwart curiosity seekers.


View of the Crash Site Memorial - February 2006. Official website (2002)
In 2002, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the event, an official website was created for the survivors. The website, entitled Viven! El Accidente de Los Andes is available in both Spanish and English.

Books

Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974)
The first book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors, (published two years after their rescue) was written by Piers Paul Read who interviewed the survivors and their families. It was a critical success and remains a highly popular work of non-fiction. In the opening of the book, the survivors explain why they wanted it to be written:

“ We decided that this book should be written and the truth known because of the many rumors about what happened in the cordillera. We dedicate this story of our suffering and solidarity to those friends who died and to their parents who, at the time when we most needed it, received us with love and understanding. ”

A reprint was published in 2005 by Harper. It was re-titled: Alive: Sixteen Men, Seventy-two Days, and Insurmountable Odds—The Classic Adventure of Survival in the Andes and includes a revised introduction as well as interviews with Piers Paul Read, Coche Inciarte, and Álvaro Mangino.

Miracle in the Andes (2006)
Thirty-four years after the rescue, Nando Parrado published the book Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home (with Vince Rause), which has received positive reviews. In this text, Parrado also touches upon public reaction to this event:

“ In fact, our survival had become a matter of national pride. Our ordeal was being celebrated as a glorious adventure… I didn't know how to explain to them that there was no glory in those mountains. It was all ugliness and fear and desperation, and the obscenity of watching so many innocent people die. I was also shaken by the sensationalism with which many in the press covered the matter of what we had eaten to survive. Shortly after our rescue, officials of the Catholic Church announced that according to church doctrine we had committed no sin by eating the flesh of the dead. As Roberto had argued on the mountain, they told the world that the sin would have been to allow ourselves to die. More satisfying for me was the fact that many of the parents of the boys who died had publicly expressed their support for us, telling the world they understood and accepted what we had done to survive … despite these gestures, many news reports focused on the matter of our diet, in reckless and exploitive ways. Some newspapers ran lurid headlines above grisly front-page photos. (247–8) ”

Film and television

Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains (2007)
Stranded: I Have Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains, written and directed by Gonzalo Arijón, is a documentary film interlaced with dramatised scenes. In the film, all of the survivors are interviewed, as are some of their family members and the people involved with the rescue operation. Additionally, an expedition in which the survivors return to the crash site is documented. The film was first shown at the 2007 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, The Netherlands and received the Joris Ivens Award.
This film appeared on PBS Independent Lens as STRANDED: The Andes Plane Crash Survivors in May 2009.

Trapped: Alive in the Andes (2007)
Trapped: Alive in the Andes is an episode from season one of the National Geographic Channel documentary television series Trapped. The series was dedicated to examining the stories of various accidents which left survivors trapped in their situation for a period of time. The episode Trapped: Alive in the Andes was aired November 7, 2007.

Alive: The Miracle of the Andes (1993)
The film Alive received mixed reviews. It was directed by Frank Marshall and is based upon the book Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors by Piers Paul Read. It stars Ethan Hawke and is narrated by John Malkovich. Nando Parrado served as a technical adviser to the film. Carlitos Páez (see: Casapueblo) and Ramon "Moncho" Sabella also visited the recreated fuselage during the shooting of the movie to aid with the historical accuracy of the set and to instruct the actors on how the events actually unfolded.

Alive: 20 Years Later (1993)
Alive: 20 Years Later is a documentary film which was produced, directed and written by Jill Fullerton-Smith and narrated by Martin Sheen. It explores the lives of the survivors twenty years after the crash. It also discusses their participation in the production of Alive: The Miracle of the Andes.

Supervivientes de los Andes (1976)
This was a Mexican production directed by René Cardona, Jr.,[10] based on the unauthorized 1973 book, Survive by Clay Blair.

Se volete saperne di più del "miracolo delle ande" ( o se non capite bene l'inglese dell'articolo), chiedete pure a me: mi ha sempre affascinato questa storia e ho avuto modo di leggere biografie (anche in spagnolo) dei sopravvissuti e lo splendido libro di Piers Paul Read che raccoglie le testimonianze dei protagonisti di questa incredibile vicenda...
Intanto vi linko un video-fotografico con alcune immagini inedite:

P.s.: ricordo anche che il viaggio di Canessa e Parrado resta una delle più audaci e incredibili imprese dell'alpinismo moderno

[cabronte]

Grazie mille a I-DAXI e Peretola per il contributo di questo incidente!

[AirGek]

Definire l'AN225 un flop mi pare fuori luogo. Se non sbaglio quell'aereo è stato progettato per tasportare il Buran, 1 Buran c'era e 1 aereo per trasportarlo serviva. Anzi, il fatto fatto che dopo la dismissione del programma Buran quest'aereo non sia stato messo a terra ma utilizzato nel campo del trasporto ne rivela le eccezionali qualità.
Se poi è vero che ne stanno costruendo un altro esemplare a distanza di anni, suppongo che per flop si intenda il fallimento di un progetto, in questo caso non dovrebbe essere associato al numero di esemplari prodotti. Lo shuttle non mi pare un flop nonostante ve ne siano pochi esemplari.

[Almost Blue]

E' che questo aereo (An-225) fu costruito con un compito preciso, che non esiste più, in un paese che manco lui esiste più. Quindi credo che l'An-225 sia sopravvissuto al paese e al regime che l'avevano creato. In un certo senso è una specie di "orfano".
Chi se lo deve essere trovato per le mani al momento del crollo del comunismo, non poteva certo non vedere che questo aereo può trasportare 150-200 tonnellate di roba. Questo evidentemente aveva una certa convenienza economica evidentemente.
Molti altri aerei e navi ex-sovietici hanno avuto un destino simile, venduti o affittati a paesi di tutti i tipi. Come per esempio le portaerei dell' ex-URSS, passate a India e Cina.
Ovviamente, anche il personale meglio addestrato ed i migliori quadri ex-sovietici, crollato il comunismo, si saranno venduti al miglior offerente, come le SS e gli uomini del fior fiore delle forze armate tedesche sconfitte dopo il crollo del nazismo: tutti nella Legione Straniera per esempio.
Lelle loro condizioni, pure io è probabile che avrei fatto lo stesso.

[cabronte]

Definire l'AN225 un flop mi pare fuori luogo. Se non sbaglio quell'aereo è stato progettato per tasportare il Buran, 1 Buran c'era e 1 aereo per trasportarlo serviva. Anzi, il fatto fatto che dopo la dismissione del programma Buran quest'aereo non sia stato messo a terra ma utilizzato nel campo del trasporto ne rivela le eccezionali qualità.
Se poi è vero che ne stanno costruendo un altro esemplare a distanza di anni, non uniamo il concetto di flop come fallimento col concetto di flop come pochi esemplari costruiti.

Si è vero AirGek, anche perchè di questo aereo non ci si poteva aspettare chissa quanti esemplari. Come dici giustamente è stato inizialmente realizzato per trasportare il Buran, però doveva essere utilizzato per muovere altri trasporti che comunque non sono mai stati caricati, per problemi di varia natura, sull' AN225. Secondo me potrebbe comunque essere integrato negli aerei flop, comunque ho capito benissimo ciò che intendevi dire!

[Almost Blue]

Quando i tedeschi si "accorsero" che la loro tanto decantata Luftwaffe era un'eccellenta arma tattica, ma mancava del tutto di capacità strategiche, era già tardi (e per fortuna), ma cercarono di correre ai ripari.
La Heinkel Flugzeugwerke fu la più "pronta" nella risposta, avendo già in parte sviluppato il buon He-177 Greif, il quale però, a causa di certi mali di gioventù e a causa della fretta con cui venne sbattuto al fronte, era un aereo complesso e gravato da problemi vari, tra cui il surriscaldamento dei quattro motori a pistoni che azionavano a coppie le due grandi eliche quadripale. A causa della tendenza a prendere fuoco nelle gondole motrici, i primi He-177 vennero fatti oggetto di tutta una serie di nomignoli degradanti da parte degli stessi piloti tedeschi, come quello di "torcia" della Luftwaffe, ecc... Alcuni di questi grandi aerei sono tuttora sparsi come relitti in mezza Europa.
Notare nell'He-177 della foto, la gondola ventrale. Questo aereo era un assaltatore pesante, su cui furono sperimentate varie armi. Quello che spunta sotto il muso mi pare un cannone MG-151.
Al contrario, la Ditta Messerschmitt sviluppò il promettente Me-264: un quadrimotore concepito inizialmente per attaccare gli USA sul loro territorio e le grandi fabbriche di armi e carriarmati che Stalin aveva fatto traslocare al di là degli Urali. Le doti di progetto del Me-264, qualora realmente sviluppate, avrebbero creato un casino di grattacapi agli Alleati.

[richelieu]

Un altro che avrebbe potuto dire la sua in fatto di flop fu, con buona pace del nostro "Atr72", Myasistchev Vladimir Mikhailovich (Мясищев Владимир Михайлович) .....

http://www.aviation.ru/Mya/



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Myasishchev

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-4







Avrebbe dovuto essere, secondo le intenzioni dei Sovietici, la controparte del B-52 ..... ma gli mancava l'autonomia ..... e venne relegato al ruolo di aerocisterna .....



..... ed un esemplere venne persino modificato per trasportare parti del sistema "Energyia-Buran" .....



http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myasishchev_M-50






Questo gigantesco bombardiere supersonico, quando venne presentato il 9 Luglio 1961 nel cielo dell'aeroporto moscovita di Tushino, destò una considerevole impressione ..... in realtà era già un cadavere ambulante ..... in quanto il programma era stato cancellato l'anno prima a causa delle prestazioni inferiori al previsto .....
Si notino le dimensioni dei MiG-21 di scorta .....



.....

[cabronte]

Bellissimo!

[L_P]

ricordo però che c'era già una versione maggiorata dell'F-27 era l'F-227 fabbricato dalla Fairchild Hiller negli Stati Uniti su licenza Fokker, benchè la produzione non superò i 78 esemplari, qualcuno arrivò anche in Europa soprattutto in Francia dove venne operato dalla Transport Aerienne Touraine TAT.

Grazie! Cercavo da anni una versione su licenza dell' F-27 prodotta negli USA di cui avevo visto una foto su A.net e di cui non mi ero appuntato il nome...

E questo è un altro dei miei flop preferiti...

Let L-610

Nei tardi anni '70 l' Aeroflot, incoraggiata dai positivissimi risultati ottenuti dal piccolo L-410, ordinò dll' azienda cecoslovacca Let un turboelica di maggiori dimensioni, da utilizzare come sostituto degli An-24/26. Doveva avere una capacità di 40 passeggeri, eliche silenziose a 5 pale ed utilizzare i nuovi motori cechi Motorlet M 602, nonostante la loro progettazione avrebbe richiesto più temop di quella del velivolo stesso. Il primo prototipo volò per la prima volta il 28 dicembre 1988. Nonostante un esemplare al salone di Le Bourget nel 1989 sfoggiasse la livrea Aeroflot, e questa nella stessa occasione ne avesse ordinati 600, più altri la CSA, il velivolo non riscosse ordini definitivi e la produzione non partì. Dopo il "disastro" nel blocco est, la Let propose una versione "occidentalizzata" del progetto, denominata L-610G, con turboelica General Electric CT7, avionica EFIS, radar metereologico e pilota automatico. Il prototipo volò il 18 dicembre 1992, ma gli toccò la stessa sorte del predecessore. Il nuovo possessore della Let, la Ayres Corp, provò ancora a vendere qualche esemplare del velivolo, ed un ordine arrivò dalla City Connexion Airlines, una compagnia del Burundi che però fallì inspiegabilmente poco dopo. La Ayres Corp. fall' nel 2003, portandosi nella tomba il L-610
La maggior parte dei prototipi si trova accantonata a Kunovice, in Repubblica Ceca.


A confronto con il più piccolo L-410

Interni


L-610M

L-610G

[i-daxi]

Bell'aereo

[IVWP]

Ragazzi mettete i link: sto thread è lungo un km tra daxy che copia-incolla libri e gli altri che lo quotano pure