Convair CV-440

Convair CV-440
Type:	Piston engine-powered short-haul airliner
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	Convair
First flight:	October 6, 1955
Number of pieces:	178

The Convair CV-440 Metropolitan , also known as Convair 440 , is an aircraft produced by the US aircraft manufacturer Convair . It is a low- wing aircraft powered by two piston engines with a retractable nose wheel landing gear for short-haul passenger transport. The type was developed from the Convair CV-340 . The first flight of the CV-440 took place on October 6, 1955.

history

Compared to the original type, the fuselage was lengthened by 0.71 m to accommodate a weather radar. A more profound change, however, was the change to the exhaust system, which reduced the cabin noise level and was designed as a thrust nozzle. The engine cowling has been aerodynamically optimized. The propellers had straight blade tips compared to the previous types. Attempts have also been made inside the cabin to reduce noise and vibrations by means of changed pane material and sound insulation mats.

Some CV-340s such as Lufthansa’s were retrofitted to the CV-440 standard with the help of a conversion kit supplied by Convair.

A total of 178 machines of this type were sold, 153 of them to airlines. This made the guy economically successful. The machines remained in use with the major airlines until around the mid-1960s, when they gave way to the emerging modern short-haul jets such as the Boeing 737 . Some of them were sold to airlines in the developing world .

In May 2004 there were still 42 of the type available, 31 of which were airworthy. Many of the turboprop versions were still in service in several countries in 2008, namely in Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA.

C-131 : The US Air Force also ordered this type in a correspondingly modified version as Convair C-131D / E , the latter partly in a cargo version with a large loading door.

construction

The engines acted on three-bladed controllable pitch propellers with a fixed speed ("constant speed"). The wings were swept by 4 ° and had a V-position of 6.3 °, the tail unit was conventional. The rudder and the wing trailing edge were made of fiberglass-reinforced plastic on this type . The circular metal fuselage was pressurized .

Two doors with built-in staircases reduced the dependency on ground facilities and accelerated passenger handling. A new feature was the option to order the number of seats to increase from 44 to 52 by replacing the luggage compartment within the cabin with two more rows of seats. This variant can be recognized from the outside by an additional window (e.g. at SAS and Lufthansa).

Modifications

From the 1960s onwards, numerous Convair CV-440s were converted to propeller turbine air jet engines (PTL, turboprop ) and were then given the type designations Convair CV-580 and CV-640 . The Convair CV-540 model was created by converting the CV-340 to PTL Eland engines from the British manufacturer Napier & Son . After the acquisition of the production rights for the CV-440 by the Canadian manufacturer Canadair , ten new aircraft with Eland engines were delivered to the Royal Canadian Air Force under license in 1960 . These aircraft were also known as the Canadair CL-66 and were listed by the Canadian Air Force as the CC-109 Cosmopolitan .

Users

Operator in Germany and Switzerland

• The Lufthansa procured since 1954 a total of eleven copies of this type and used it until 1968. In January 1966, crashed one of the machines in Bremen (see Lufthansa Flight 005 ).
• Two Lufthansa planes were taken over from General Air in 1969. Another CV-440 from Tellair followed in 1971 .
• In addition to the CV-240, Condor Flugdienst also operated the CV-440, the predecessor of the Condor air shipping company CV-440.
• The Air Force used six CV-440s.
• The Swissair operated 12 CV 440th
• SATA took over a CV-440 from Swissair and used a CV-640.
• Tellair took over a CV-440 from Lufthansa in 1969.

Military users

 Australia

 Bolivia

 Germany

 Italy

 Canada

 Colombia

 Paraguay

 Sri Lanka

 United States - US Air Force , US Navy , US Coast Guard

Incidents

(For incidents involving the converted CV-580 + CV-640 turboprop variants: see article Convair CV-340 )
From the first flight in 1955 to May 2020, there were 58 total losses with the Convair CV-440. In 22 of them, 337 people were killed. Examples:

• On July 15, 1956, a brand new Convair CV-440 from the Swiss airline Swissair ( aircraft registration HB-IMD ) was on its transfer flight to Switzerland. Coming from Gander , it crashed on the approach to Shannon Airport when the final approach curve was flown very deep and too steep and it came to a stall . The four crew members, three Americans and one Swiss, died. Fatigue was identified as a contributing accident factor.

• On June 16, 1958, a Convair CV-440-59 of the Brazilian Cruzeiro do Sul (PP-CEP) had an accident while approaching Curitiba Airport ( Parana , Brazil). The aircraft was pushed to the ground by very strong falling gusts . Of the 26 occupants, all 5 crew members and 16 of the 21 passengers were killed.

• On October 12, 1962, a Convair CV-440 of the Spanish Iberia (EC-ATB) collided on the flight from Valencia to Seville with a mountain near Carmona (Andalusia) , 25 kilometers east-southeast of the take-off airport. All 18 occupants (14 passengers and 4 crew members) were killed.

• On March 31, 1965, came at a Convair CV-440 Iberia (EC-ATH) on a flight from Malaga to Tangier Airport 18 kilometers west of the destination airport for unknown reasons to stall and crash into the sea. Of the 53 occupants, only three surviving passengers could be rescued from the sea.

• On January 28, 1966, a Convair CV-440 of Lufthansa (D-ACAT) coming from Frankfurt crashed shortly after Bremen Airport during an unsuccessful go - around maneuver . All 46 occupants were killed (see also Lufthansa flight 005 ) .

• On November 1, 1969, a Convair CV-440 (SE-BSU) of Linjeflyg had an accident during a training flight at Stockholm / Arlanda Airport . With a simulated engine failure, the machine got out of control; there was a crash landing. All four pilots on board were uninjured, but the aircraft was a total economic loss.

• On March 15, 2012, a Convair CV-440-38 operated by Jet One Express (N153JR) crashed after taking off from San Juan Airport ( Puerto Rico ) after an engine failed . Both pilots (the only occupants) were killed. The machine was overloaded by around 3,500 kilograms, the captain overtired and the first officer quite inexperienced.

• On September 11, 2019, a Convair CV-440 (N24DR) registered for a private operator had an accident while approaching Toledo Express Airport in Ohio ( USA ). The cargo plane crashed one kilometer from the runway on approach. The two people on board were killed.

Technical specifications

Cockpit of a Convair CV-440

A Nor Fly Convair CV-440

Parameter	Data
crew	2 pilots, 2 flight attendants
Passengers	Max. 52
length	24.84 m
span	32.12 m
height	8.58 m
Wing area	85.5 m²
Wing extension	12.1
Max. Takeoff mass	22,544 kg
Empty mass	14,200 kg
Cruising speed	465 km / h
Top speed	550 km / h
Service ceiling	7,770 m
initial rate of climb	366 m / min
Range	2,800 km with a 2,100 kg payload 1,700 km with a maximum payload (5,250 kg, corresponds to 53 passengers)
drive	two 18-cylinder double radial engines Pratt & Whitney R-2800 CB16 or CB17, each with 2,536 HP (1,865 kW) on three-blade propellers with a diameter of 4.1 meters ( variable pitch propeller with fixed speed - "constant speed")

literature

• Jennifer M. Gradidge: The Convairliners Story. Air-Britain (Historians), Tunbridge Wells 1997, ISBN 0-85130-243-2 .

Web links

Commons : Convair 440  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Production list ( Memento from November 28, 2005 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Gradidge 1997, p. 13.
2. ↑ jp airline fleets 2008/2009
3. ↑ Flight International, November 18, 1960, p. 793 [1]
4. ↑ Accident statistics Convair CV 440 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on June 16, 2020.
5. ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty Compendium (English) Part 67, December 1997 pp. 97/112.
6. ^ Accident report CV-440 HB-IMD , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 20, 2017.
7. ^ Accident report CV-440 PP-CEP , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 3, 2020.
8. ^ Accident report CV-440 EC-ATB , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 12, 2018.
9. ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty compendium part 88 (English), March 2003, p. 45.
10. ^ Accident report CV-440 EC-ATH , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on December 12, 2018.
11. ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty compendium part 96 (English), March 2005, p. 45.
12. ^ Accident report CV-440 D-ACAT , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 20, 2017.
13. ^ Accident report CV-440 SE-BSU , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on April 3, 2017.
14. ↑ Accident Report CV-440 N153JR , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 3, 2020th
15. ↑ Accident report CV-440 N24DR , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on September 11, 2019.