Talk:Canadair CL-44

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.	Aviation Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Additional information and associated projects or task forces: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- B-Class-1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points have appropriate inline citations. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- B-Class-2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- B-Class-3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- B-Class-4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- B-Class-5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no Aircraft WikiProject

[edit] Rather sizeable error of fact...

...in the section titled "Survivors", where there's a notable misconception created. The final sentence reads: All Yukons were sold to South American and African operators since it could not be registered in Northern America or Europe since the Britannia windshields did not meet new security standards.

The problem is that the CL-44 in both civillian and commercial guise used the windscreen assembly of Convair's 880 and 990 (a comparison between the CL-44, a Britannia and one of the Convairs will make this pretty appparent), not the Britannia's windscreen. Canadair was, at the time, a subsidiary of General Dynamics, Convair's owner, which is how the glazing made it north of the border. The 880's windscreen is still in compliance with applicable FAA and Transport Canada guidelines, so the argument that the CL-44's windscreen was a factor in the inability to register CL-44s in North America doesn't hold water.

The real factor in the 44s not remaining on the civil register was certainly the difficulty in obtaining spares. My father was friends of the one of the heads of maintenance for Flying Tigers in the 1960s through late 1980s and he was continually bemoaning the trouble they had keeping the downtime of the CL-44s at a minimum because of the parts issue. The Canadairs had generally good reliability, but when something broke or - worse - something esoteric was giving minor problems getting replacement components was apparently a hit-or-miss excercise. The second-level carriers that would have been the likely market for CL-44s lived or died on the backs of the company's wrenches, and if you look at what was poplular with the companies from the used airplane market, they were always birds that were in the mainstream and had a reasonably large production base, not intriguing machines like the Classy Canadair.

I haven't made any changes yet, but will after I get some other input or come up with three good, copyright-free images of the Britannia, CL-44 and 880/990 windscreens. Well, one each.

Bwob 23:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I assume the statement is from one of the sources listed under references, but I've added a {{citation needed}} tag to the line anyway. If after a week or two no verifiable source has been found, we can just delete it.

THe main thing you'll need will be at least one verifiable source stating your point of view on this in order to add more information. Hoever, simply removing the existing item for lack of a source based on what you know is fine. - BillCJ 00:00, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

First of all, there is a difference between the CC-106 Yukon and the CL-44-6. The intital 12 production aircraft built for the RCAF had Bristol Britannia 300 antecedents whose type certification had occured before changes in windshield requirements had been made and when the CC-106 Yukon was retired in April 1971 (11 airframes survived), an engineering study concluded that the cost of modification of the windshields would amount to $250,000.00 Cdn per unit, at a time when surplus transports could be obtained at approximately the same price. In 1974, a special dispensation, based on the Yukon's safety record, was granted, allowing the Yukon (Cargo) variant to be sold in Canada. However, none of the prospective operators who had asked for the exclusion ended up flying the CC-106 (Cargo) and all available aircraft were sold to other foreign buyers, primarily in Africa and South America. However, the "Forty-Four" did not have the same problems in certification due to the use of a compatible Convair 880/990 design that was incorporated to pacify FAA requirements. I will provide the appropriate citations to clear this up. FWIW Bzuk 00:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC).