cool, this is where the 747 double deck idea must have came from

another big aircraft that didnt work.
four R-4360’s and double deck’s.

@zeekwolfe whoa!!!!!!! wish i said that

I remember that one of the planes was near Opa Locka Airport near Miami,FL. I think it was going to be converted to a restaurant… or something… but it wound up getting broken up. I remember seeing it parked when we went visiting my Mom’s friends who lived down the street from it.

@carmium The rockets were fired immediately after rotation, and were used not so much to “get it off the ground” but to keep it in the air in case of an engine failure. Gave it a much needed margin of safety during a potentially hazardous phase of flight!

@vwsambabus I’d say the Bristol Brabazon would have been the A380 of the 50’s. The U.K. was so financially weak after WW2 that they didn’t have the finances to continue the Brabazon’s development. Rather than admit such weakness, the Brabazon was accused of being unprofitable before it had a chance to work any problems out and be useful. It would have made a magnificent military transport.
The same shameful fate was handed to the Saunders Roe Princess flying boat. Great aircraft, wrong time.

@MrMKH2010 How about Balad, Iraq to Dover AFB? or McGuire to Ramstein?

It’s even got a spiral staircase between dicks.

@Ordie76 Try being packed into the passenger compartment of a C-5B for 9 1/2 hours from Rhein Main AFB to Dover AFB. Noisy and no fun.

I had the pleasure of riding in the Constitution as a Navy passenger in 1952 from Alameda Naval Air Station to NAAS Fallon, Neveda. It required JATO to get off the runway at Alameda. It took off from Fallon Empty without JATO. The plane carried all non-flying personal of our squadron VF-93 and all necessary equipment to mainteain 16 F9F-3 fighters for two weeks. I remember it was a very bumpy ride! We sat on the lower deck, the equipment and cargo was loaded on the top deck.

I assume this aircraft did not make it back then because of the cost to operate it. The samething airbus or the airlines will find out about the A380.

ha.. (3:05) 180 passengers or 400 troops.. They really pack them in their like sardines for overseas trips. I couldn’t imagine the room you wouldn’t have being packed in there like that for a 12-14 hour trip overseas.