FWIW, I usually flew without doors. 
All that means is that it’s not certified. You can get just as dead in a certified aircraft as you can in an Experimental-category aircraft. It still has to be airworthy.
Duh! Of course, I meant the C-141.
A certified aircraft might have fewer parts falling off (DC-10s excepted), especially if the XET was bought in kit form and assembled by amateur mechanical tinkerers! What a daunting job the assembly must be. For some guy and a hypothetical brother-in-law, I bet it could take years! If I won the lottery and bought a giant mansion with a helipad, I’d definitely get the factory-assembled version of the XET!
1931 Northrop Alpha Early commercial aircraft.
This was used by TWA for transcontinental flights. It was designed by John K. Northrop who came over from Lockheed. It was state-of-the-art with an early navigation system and deice boots. Looking at the picture there seems to be something missing from the design considering what Lockheed offered with the Vega.
Lockheed Vega
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If you mean the open cockpit, those designs did linger a little while in aviation history. I don’t know if pilots didn’t want to give up the sound and feel of the wind, or if they were worried about the windshield icing or fogging over without lots of ventilation.
The image of the leather helmet, goggles, and lipstick stained scarf jauntily flapping in the wind would be missing.
The passengers in the Vega must be missing most of the engine noise you will get in the front seats in the Alpha, just behind the engine.
@LSLGuy The reason I temporarily forgot about the C-141 is that I had been reading the Wikipedia article on the C-133 Cargomaster (a prop plane), which includes this:
The Cargomaster soldiered on until the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy entered service in the early 1970s.
This seemingly skips right past the C-141. I think it’s because they distinguish “tactical” from “strategic” airlifters, but it seems odd to me — superficially, the C-133 and C-141 appear similar and presumably filled similar roles, yet the latter is almost absent from the Wiki piece.
That may be reading too much into it. Both C-133 & C-141 were strictly “strategic” airlifters.
The C-133 was not a huge success. But it had more weight & volume capacity than the original C-141A. As such USAF was reluctant to park the C-133 until they had something bigger than the C-141 to replace it. The C-5 had a long and difficult gestation and the C-133s were kept alive long past the time they should have been scrapped. All that time just waiting for the C-5 to become operational.
Only after the C-5 came out and the C-133s were scrapped did USAF begin the process of stretching the C-141As into C-141Bs. Which was the first time the C-141 really came into its own as a successful part of the airlift fleet.
USAF airlift has always been the poor sister to the glamour of fighters and the muscle of bombers. As such, MATS / MAC / AMC have always been scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get and keep a fleet even remotely close to the size and capacity needed for their official wartime mission. They’re still in that same under-resourced state today. And probably always will be.
I see - thanks.
Yes, the open cockpit was already out the door with the Lockheed Vega. It serves no purpose in a commercial plane and it makes a rain event extremely dangerous. The windshield is going to fog up versus an enclosed cabin which would have heat ported in from the engine.
It just doesn’t make sense to leave Lockheed to start a company and then build something so backward from a safety standpoint.
Deleted, won’t post.
Five dead last night in Texas:
There is a Reddit thread:
A key point from the pilot’s conversation with the controller is:
We have, uh, pitot heat has iced up, we are on backup gauges. Uh, trying to get lower to get one back up, uh, pitot heat is not working for 1 Alpha November.
Spirit ia now (officially) a ghost.
I never flew them but one didn’t need FlightAware to know it was one of their bright yellow planes. A shame for the 17,000 now unemployed.
My friends taught me to fly. And they taught me stuff like flying and landing at night without gauges. Fly it by the sound of the engines and set the flaps accordingly. Land a little fast and use more runway as a safety margin.
What a difference it makes in an emergency when you’ve trained for it ahead of time. I used a number of their lessons in real situations that kept things from spooling out of control.
why would one think gliders in the military (post WWII) were a good idea? … There is radar and once you land the airframe is basically “lost” and needs to be destroyed or might be used by the other party.
what am I missing here?
They’re cheap and silent and can carry a couple dozen soldiers.
not sure CHEAP rings true if it needs to be left behind, and SILENCE post-radar - was probably not a really important variable (given the fact that a glider needs to start out high - so it cant - by definition - stay under the radar).
Do gliders have big radar signatures? Especially wood and fabric ones.
Brian