Boeing 247 memories

Air Classics, Sep 2001 by Millers, John M

Sorry that I am so late in reading the excellent articles about the Boeing 247 in the February issue, but it is hard to keep up with reading everything in Air Classics between flying and other activities.

I flew the 247-D for United Air Lines in the 1930s and it was a fine airplane, by far the only modem airliner until the Douglas DC-2 joined TWA. I later flew them too, but with Eastern Air Lines. I am 95 and a half and still actively fly, being instrument rated, and am in excellent health.

There are a few items that seem to have been neglected in the specifications but these are not your fault. First: The landing gear was electrically operated, which was quite a feat at the time. Also, emergency operation of the landing gear was accomplished by a big lever located on the right side of the cockpit. It would be pumped by the copilot to extend or retract the gear - if the copilot had a good strong right arm! I did not experience a landing gear failure but on one check ride with Captain Walt Addems, I did operate it. It was on a ratchet system.

Second: Another item in the article was about the generator. I did not fly the original 247, which may have had only a 35-ampere generator on the left engine only. But I do know that such a single low-capacity generator would have been entirely insufficient and unsatisfactory. The 247-Ds that I flew had two generators and they were of much higher ampere capacity, though I do not remember what. I do remember one generator failing and that we did not have any trouble with insufficient power for lights, radio, and landing gear extension.

Third: The 247-D had a wonderful safety feature that is not included in any airplane today, by government edict, which I consider entirely unwarranted. It was equipped with all instruments having glowing numbers and pointer hands. I have flown thousands of hours in several types of aircraft with such instruments and am still in such excellent health that I am practically "un-legal." So much for the terrible danger from radiation from those instruments. They were an excellent safety device and we used to fly many hours with the electric lights turned off so that we could watch for the faint glow of the airway beacons in the fog when we were flying at the company minimum altitude of 400 feet (and sometimes cheating) above terrain and when the static washed our reception of the old four-leg low frequency airway beacons.

I have had failures of the electric instrument light systems in more modem airplanes but did not have the glowing instruments when I sorely needed them once on a night instrument approach. I had to grab a flashlight and hold it in my mouth. After that I always kept a smaller light handy.

Fourth: The propeller spinners used by UAL were large hemispherical domes (not pointed) with a black porous coating of rubber. The ground crews would rub the rubber with glycerin to impregnate it so that the ice would not form. This seemed to be quite satisfactory.

Fifth: The early 247s had a forward-- sloping windshield which can be seen in some of the photos of NC13347 in the article. They were supposed to cause the rain to flown downward but were not very satisfactory so they were changed. Incidentally, windshield wipers were not installed. They had not even been developed for automobiles at that time.

Sixth: The 247-D was equipped with rubber de-icing boots on wings and tail and alcohol anti-icing of the propeller blades, windshields, and carburetor air intakes. All of that equipment was excellent and fully satisfactory as far as I could tell and I saw plenty of icing. The 247-D was the first so equipped for icing, an extremely important feature.

The one still-flying example featured in the magazine, NC13347, is one of those that I flew while with UAL and so is NC13369 which is on display at NASM (so is EAL DC-3 #344). They are all in my log books by their numbers. I flew all three on many long nights. Three years ago I was invited to go to Paine Field and fly NC13347 was a copilot. It was an interesting experience for me not having flown or seen one since 1937.

John M. Millers

201 Kingwood Park

Poughkeepsie, NY

12601

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