Bringing an old plane back to life.

[Farmer]

 I wanted to add a little information to the Skymaster post    On the single engine performance side of things originally Cessna did many single engine take offs at lighter weights to demonstrate the safety at this aircraft.  I was told that at least one of those demonstrations didn't go well, or management had a change of heart, and Cessna stop doing that, as a sales technique .    Did I mention that I love this aircraft model, my favorite pic of all time .

This past trip to Canada we learned that contractors doing fire spotting work for the Canadian government still hire many Cessna 377's , we saw several park at airports. I talked to one of the pilots this year but I didn't ask him about the techniques that were used In the past, which was to shut one down and stay on the station up to 10 hours at a time, when they were fighting fire far from their home field.   Because of the overhead fuel tanks, and on some models long range tanks, which can crossfeed to either engine you can burn all the fuel anywhere you want to.

 If this seems risky to you I'm sure most know that during search and rescue missions with a C130  you shut down the outboard two engines and do your  work on the inboard two engines.   There are some weight limitations, fuel on board, survival gear etc. etc. the limit when you can do this .   I have even heard of pne story that while running on two engines a C130 required a shut down of one engine  and could not successfully restart any of the three offline engines .   In that case the pilot just came home on one .  Life is good.

 

Farmer