XC-Medium - Alternatives to the Lockheed C-130 Hercules?

And we can say,the main tenders were;

- Airlifts Inc. proposal
- Boeing Model-495
- Chase/Stroukoff proposal
- Douglas Model-1252,Model-1309 & Model-1316
- Lockheed L-206 (the winner)
 
Skybolt said:
The "real" YC-130 competition ?

Well, the accepted wisdom on the competiton that back in 1951 produced the Hercules run as: USAF asked four companies to tender proposals; they were Lockeed, Boeing, Douglas, Fairchild. All tendered four engine aircrafts; Lockeed won. The Boeing project has been published in another topic; nothing is known on the Douglas one; the Fairchild is rumoured of being inspired by the C-119; Lockeed design was Preliminary L-206, later Model 82. Right?
Well, today, doing research on old issues of Aviation Week (1951) and looking for something else (early american civilian jet transport concepts) , I stumbled in a news (Issue for July 9, 1951, page 16) saying that Lockeed has just won the competiton. What initially caught my eye was the summary describing the competiton as a "five-company contest". More surprises were to come: i summarize them here. If someone wants the entire article, I can scan it and send but this is the essential.
All that follows are form AW (in brackets my comments)

USAF invited nine companies to the competiton: Lockeed, Boeing, Douglas, Chase, Airlifts Inc (more on this later), Fairchild, Martin, North American, Northop.
The LAST FOUR declined (Fairchild out!!!) :eek:

The five remaining submitted nine desgns in all: five powered by Allison T-38 turboprops; three by Allison T-40 (paired T-38s); one by piston Wright R-3350 Compound (until now it was supposed that requirement was for turboprop aircraft; moreover, from some hints in the articles, i.e. explicitly citing one or another proposal as four-engine, it may be inferred that some proposals, probably the T-40-powered ones, were two-engine).
Douglas proposed three different projects, one was the R-3550 one; Chase Aircraft submitted three; Airlifts Inc submitted a scaled up Burnellil derived design described as flyign wing (Airlft in 1945 acquired the prototype of a Burnelli aircraft plus plans plus rights on them); Boeing submitted one design (we know it); Lockeed two (completely ignored in the official rendition of the early C-130 history by Lockeed sources).
Gross weight at TO run from 100.000 lbs of the smallest of the Chase designs to 140.000 lbs of the larger Lockeed, not chosen, design.
Lockeed win was a very close affair with a Douglas four-engine design (the other Douglas two was the piston one a and a two-turboprop powered by T-40).
Porbaaly the heavier Lockeed proposal was a two turboprop T-40 powered one too.
That's it. Pretty muffling, in my opinion. ??? Could AW be so wrong on Fairchild and nueber of competitors writing just a couple of days (offical Lockeed win was announche July 2 1951), since AV cites USAF spokesman. And how everyone repeats the same old version when a very different (and intriguig, think abouth the numerous fan of Burnelli) one is available in a multi-thousand copies a week magazine preserved in hundreds of libraries? A good subject for a FOIA, that's it... ;)
Click to expand...

very interesting infos. it answers nearly all my questions. do you know of any Burnelli planes actually built and used? HG
 
It's odd we don't seem to know the offical designation of the GOR which produced the Hercules. Even American Secret Projects: Airlifters 1941-1961 only calls it "XC-Medium".
 
OK... that is from 12 years before the RFP for what became the C-130... the actual submission would have been enlarged and updated for the competition... although it may well have been closely based on the CB-7.
 

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