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 (4.3 m) 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.

File:Trans World Airlines Fairchild Packet Quackenbush.jpg|Trans World Airlines Jet-Packet 1600, with Westinghouse J30-W turbojet booster engine in pod above upper fuselage (1959)

File:C-82 342-C-K-004082.jpg|M22 Locust light tank being loaded into C-82

File:Fairchild C-82A PP-CEK Cruzeiro SDU 08.05.72 edited-2.jpg|C-82A Packet freighter of Cruzeiro (Brasil) at Santos Dumont Airport, Rio de Janeiro, in May 1972

File:Fairchild C-82A CC-CAE Taxpa Los Cer 22.04.72 edited-2.jpg|Packet of Taxpa Airlines (Chile) in 1972

File:Paratroopers jump from a C-82.jpg|C-82 Packet dropping U.S. Air Force paratroops in training exercise

File:C-82.jpg|alt=C-82s and cargo|Three C-82s and various troops and cargo in 1948

File:Fairchild C-82 Packet USAF.jpg|U.S. Air Force C-82 Packet

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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

: Prototype, one built.

; C-82A Packet

: Initial production version, 220 built.

; XC-82B

: 1947, fitted with 2650hp Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major radial engines as a precursor to the C-119 series. One converted from a C-82A.

; Steward-Davis Jet-Packet 3200

: Conversion of Jet-Packet 1600 with two J30-W engines in above-fuselage pod. One converted in 1957.

Serviços Aéreos Cruzeiro do Sul

;

Linea Aerea Taxpa Ltda

;

Honduran Air Force

;

Compania Mexicana de Aviacion (CMA)

;

Interior Airways
Trans World Airlines—Used for transporting replacement engines
United States Army Air Forces

Surviving aircraft

; Brazil

45-57783 – C-82A stored at Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus. The aircraft is in poor condition.
48-0585 – C-82A stored at the Museu Aeroespacial at Campo dos Afonsos in Rio de Janeiro. It is an ex-Brazilian Air Force aircraft.

; United States

44-22991 – C-82A fuselage only in storage in the Walter Soplata Collection in Newbury Center, Ohio.
44-23006 – C-82A on static display at the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.
45-57814 – Steward-Davis Jet-Packet 3400 on static display at the Hagerstown Aviation Museum in Hagerstown, Maryland. This aircraft under the registration N9701F was used by TWA. The aircraft was flown to the airport on 15 October 2006, marking the world's last flight of a C-82.
48-0574 – C-82A on static display at the McChord Air Museum at McChord Field in Tacoma, Washington.
48-0581 – C-82A on static display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. This airframe was also previously owned & operated by Northern Air Cargo under the Registration Number: N4752C

File:Fairchild C-82 Packet June 2016.jpg|On display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force

File:FAIRCHILD C-82A PACKET.jpg|48-0574 at McChord AFB

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Specifications (C-82A)

frameless|right|3-view line drawing of the Fairchild C-82A Packet