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Description
| Manufacturer: | Fairchild | |
| Base model: | C-123 | |
| Designation: | XC-123 | |
| Nickname: | Provider | |
| Designation System: | U.S. Air Force | |
| Designation Period: | 1925-1962 | |
| Basic role: | Transport | |
| Status: | Experimental | |
Specifications
| Not Yet Available |
Recent comments by our visitors
| Shirley Phillips Portsmouth, NH | My father, Charles (Charlie) Phillips worked for Stroukoff Aircraft in the late 1940's and 1950's, and told an interesting story about one of the first demonstration flights of what he refeffed to as the C123. According to my Dad he flew as part of the test crew to demonstrate what I am thinking was the Pentabase Landing Gear design. According to my Dad during the flight the pontoons or sleds refused to retract as they were designed to do once the aircraft had taken off and was gaining altitude. In a flash of insight my father realized that the gears hydraulic lines had frozen. He had no way tho access the gear from inside the airplane so he grabbed a cutting torch , cut a hole in the planes floor large enough to reach the problem area where the freeze was, reached out wand using the cutting torch, quickly unfroze the ice that had formed and freed the gear to retract. When they landed after the demonstration my father said that Mr. Stroukoff said "Charlie you saved my plane, I give you a raise!" until he saw the hole cut in the floor , turned around and said "Charles! I taking back your raise you cut a hole in my plane! My father loved to tell thjat story, complete with his impersonation of the accents and inflection of his boss, and never failed to get a laugh especially when talking with other experimental aircraft pilots and crews. We moved in 1957 to New Hampshire and my Dad went to work for Avco in Wilmington Massachusetts, subsequently working on the development of the first Apollo moon landing. 05/09/2015 @ 22:26 [ref: 69081] |
| Major Richard A. Strong (AF,Ret) Dayton, OH | I heard or read, long ago, that the -20/-123's flat belly resulted in an air-cushion effect on landing. I have cited it as an example of the principle for my aircar design project (http://www.strongware.com/dragon). I only discussed this with one former 123 pilot, but he said he never noticed the effect. Please inform me if you know anything about this. TIA. 08/09/2008 @ 15:44 [ref: 22405] |
| Michael Stroukoff Langhorne, PA | The YC-123 and its sister ship, the YCG-20 were designed and developed by my father, Michael Stroukoff. The YC-123 airframe became the progenitor for almost all succeeding military assault troop/cargo aircraft up to and including the present.
The YC-123A was the first American-made full jet-propelled cargo aircraft and was flown in April of 1951. Curiously enough, the recognition of this appeared only in the May 1951 issue of Model Aircraft Magazine in a cover story by Alex Dayedieff. In 1951, the C-122 and the C-123 won a USAF performance competition with the Northrup C-124 and the Fairchild C-82 at Eglin AFB, FL. The C-123B USAF production contract for 398 aircraft was awarded to Chase Aircraft in late 1951 and named the Kaiser-Frazier plant in Ypsilanti, MI as prime production source while the Chase home facility in West Trenton, NJ, had engineering and development. In late 1953, The USAF cancelled the contract and awarded the remaninder of the contact for 250 aircraft to Fairchild Aircraft of Hagerstown, MD. The Chase Aircraft company was bought by the Kaiser interests in late 1953 and Stroukoff Aircraft was then organized with most of the original work force (engineering, production and support), facilities and tooling at West Trenton, NJ. Stroukoff Aircraft developed larger versions of the C-123 into the YC134 and YC-134A with boundary layer control and Pantobase variants. Despite sound financing, Stroukoff Aircraft never recovered from the 1953 contract loss and finally closed its doors completely in 1958. All of its future developmental data was destroyed and is lost. In 1996, the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of the History of Aviation and Science reported that it ranked my father, Michael Stroukoff with Alexander de Seversky and Igor Sikorsky as Russian emigree aviation designers that helped pioneer and further American aviation developement. 03/26/2005 @ 20:55 [ref: 9806] |
