Fairchild C-82 Packet


The C-82 Packet is a twin-engine, twin-boom cargo aircraft designed and built by Fairchild Aircraft. It was used briefly by the United States Army Air Forces and the successor United States Air Force following World War II.

Design and development

Developed by Fairchild, the C-82 was intended as a heavy-lift cargo aircraft to succeed prewar civilian designs like the Curtiss C-46 Commando and Douglas C-47 Dakota using non-critical materials in its construction, primarily plywood and steel, so as not to compete with the production of combat aircraft. However, by early 1943 changes in specifications resulted in plans for an all-metal aircraft. The aircraft was designed for a number of roles, including cargo carrier, troop transport, parachute drop, medical evacuation, and glider towing. It featured a rear-loading ramp with wide doors and an empennage set 14 feet off the ground that permitted trucks and trailers to back up to the doors without obstruction. The single prototype first flew on 10 September 1944. The aircraft were built at the Fairchild factory in Hagerstown, Maryland, with deliveries beginning in 1945 and ending in September 1948.
Problems surfaced almost immediately. The aircraft was found to be underpowered and its airframe inadequate for the heavy lifting it was intended to perform. As a result, the Air Force turned to Fairchild for a solution to the C-82's shortcomings. A redesign was quickly performed under the designation XC-82B, which would overcome all of the C-82A's initial problems.

Operational history

The C-82A was first flown in 1944, with its initial delivery not until June 1945; as a result, only a few entered service before the end of the war. In the end, only 223 C-82As would be built, a small number relative to other wartime production cargo aircraft. Most were used for cargo and troop transport, although a few were deployed for paratroop operations or towing military gliders.
Once in service, pilots found the C-82A to be severely underpowered, with poor visibility from the cockpit. With one engine out and while carrying a load, the aircraft could not maintain level flight, and this resulted in several crashes. A redesign rectifying the aircraft's main deficiencies, known as the C-82B, would eventually result in the Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar introduced in 1949.
In 1946, the United States Postal Service explored the concept of flying post offices using highly modified C-82s, which would operate similarly to those on trains where mail would be sorted by clerks and put in bags and then transferred to trucks on landing.
In 1948, a C-82 was fitted with track-gear landing gear, similar to the tracks on a crawler tractor, that allowed landings on unpaved, primitive runways. The track gear proved unserviceable in operational use and was abandoned.
In January 1948, C-82As with the 62d Troop Carrier Group deployed from McChord AFB to the arctic during Project Yukon, gaining valuable experience operating in an extreme cold weather environment.
During the Berlin Blockade, five C-82 aircraft carried large disassembled earthmoving equipment into the city to enable the construction of Berlin Tegel Airport in the fall of 1948.
While relatively unsuccessful and produced in small numbers, the C-82A served as a developmental precursor to the C-119 and Fairchild C-123 Provider.
The C-82 was retired from the United States Air Force inventory in 1954.

Civil airline operations

After the C-82A became surplus to United States Air Force requirements, small numbers were sold to civilian operators in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and the United States and these were utilized for many years as rugged freight aircraft, capable of carrying bulky items of cargo. The last example was retired in the late 1980s.

Variants

; XC-82
; C-82A Packet
; EC-82A
; XC-82B
;C-82N
; Steward-Davis Jet-Packet 1600
; Steward-Davis Jet-Packet 3200
; Jet-Packet 3400
;Steward-Davis Jet-Packet II
; Steward-Davis Skytruck I
; Steward-Davis Skypallet

Operators

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  • Linea Aerea Taxpa Ltda
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Surviving aircraft

; Brazil
; United States

Popular culture

The C-82 is perhaps best known for its role in the 1964 novel The Flight of the Phoenix, and Robert Aldrich's original 1965 film version. Based on the novel by Elleston Trevor, the story features a C-82A Packet operated by the fictional Arabco Oil Company. It crashes in the Libyan desert, and is rebuilt by the passengers and crew, using one tail boom, and is then flown to safety. Such an aircraft was made for the movie, the Tallmantz Phoenix P-1. It was certified airworthy by the Federal Aviation Administration. Paul Mantz, possibly the greatest Hollywood stunt pilot in history with 25,000 flight hours, was killed with the cameras rolling when he bounced the skids of the craft down too hard in a touch-and-go, buckling and breaking the fuselage behind the wing, sending the craft nose-down hard into the desert, tumbling it completely over at 90 mph. Mantz was killed instantly.

Minor league baseball namesake

In 1953, the local minor league baseball team in Hagerstown, Maryland, was the Hagerstown Braves, so called because they were a minor league affiliate of the major league Milwaukee Braves. The Hagerstown team switched affiliation to the Washington Senators for the 1954 season. Instead of using the major league nickname, they chose the name Hagerstown Packets in tribute to the C-82. The Hagerstown Packets played in the Piedmont League during the 1954 and 1955 seasons.