FighterControl

I was only fortunate enough to see a few of these fantastic machines.

What a plane, so evocative of a bygone era of aviation - and the sound of those Wright Cyclones - God knows what it was like to fly long missions in one - although I would have loved to have done so!

EC-121T 55-0118 79 AEW&CS Mildenhall 31 June 1978


EC-121T 53-0548 &9 AEW&CS Mildenhall 22nd July 1978. Wiki states that this airframe is displayed at the Yanks Air Museum, Chino, California


and again taxying the following day


EC-121T54-2307 EC-121T 79AEW&CS Mildenhall 25th August 1978. The only example I saw with a radome. Sadly a quick google shows it went to the boneyard less than a month later - to MASDC 19th September 1978

Lovely pictures of a beautiful aircraft. I still remember those squealing brakes, and the shaking tailplane when they were lined up for departure! Thanks for posting.

Lovely shots of a beautiful aircraft, the Constellation had such an elegantly curved fuselage.

53-0548 was indeed still flying in private hands some years after retirement. In 1997 it was based at Camarillo, saw it there and when it flew into Nellis for the Golden Air tattoo. A couple of small pics as not to detract from your fabulous in service pics.
EC-121T Warning Star 53-0548/N548GF by Paul Downes, on Flickr

EC-121T Warning Star 53-0548/N548GF by Paul Downes, on Flickr

capercaillie wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 19, 2022 11:08 am

Lovely shots of a beautiful aircraft, the Constellation had such an elegantly curved fuselage.

53-0548 was indeed still flying in private hands some years after retirement. In 1997 it was based at Camarillo, saw it there and when it flew into Nellis for the Golden Air tattoo. A couple of small pics as not to detract from your fabulous in service pics.
EC-121T Warning Star 53-0548/N548GF by Paul Downes, on Flickr

EC-121T Warning Star 53-0548/N548GF by Paul Downes, on Flickr

Thanks for posting those - great to see it was still flying all those years later

Dennis

I was luck enough to see and photograph a few Connies before they were withdrawn from service and to be honest I reckon they were one of the most photogenic aircraft of their era.

What beautiful pictures of such a lovely and elegant aircraft type. Thank you very much Dennis for posting these gems.
Arnold

Then there was this beauty (only one I ever saw) which toured the UK in '98.

Lockheed Constellation - RIAT '98 by Michael Britton, on Flickr

One of my favourite aircraft, unfortunately, most of the interesting live ones I saw were early on when I either didn't have a camera, or it was a 12 exp 120 film Brownie.
After that it was dead ones in museums or MASDC

145939 Lockheed EC-121K Super Constellation msn 5520 GD10 VAQ33 by eLaReF, on Flickr

Superb shots of a fabulous-looking aircraft

Can only echo what others have said - great pictures of a distinctive and sadly missed type. Pictures 1 and 3 look like they could have been taken yesterday with the KC135s in the background.

Brilliant pictures of a pretty aircraft, thank you.

Thanks for sharing these shots of an iconic type, I recall seeing a few civvie ones flying out of Gatwick, but the only military one I can remember was the C-121 that attended the 1974 IAT at Greenham Common.

Mustang531 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:43 pm

the only military one I can remember was the C-121 that attended the 1974 IAT at Greenham Common.

That was 54-0157 of the Pennsylvania ANG, here's a rather poor scan of a poor slide that I took of it on the Saturday afternoon from Jet Ranger G-AWGU!

What a classic airframe, never managed to see one, only heard it as it droned over Aberdeen at FL040, i was inside the CO-OP, and dashed outside but it had passed bye!.
Cheers.

Ah Connies
Just the best.
Great shots all of them

Mike wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:03 pm

Mustang531 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 19, 2022 5:43 pm

the only military one I can remember was the C-121 that attended the 1974 IAT at Greenham Common.

That was 54-0157 of the Pennsylvania ANG, here's a rather poor scan of a poor slide that I took of it on the Saturday afternoon from Jet Ranger G-AWGU!

Mike this is one of the most interesting photo's in this section never mind the quality, it's the first aerial view of the Greenham 74 show I've seen. My first IAT I was 16 and was using a clapped out second hand camera that over exposed every photo despite changing the settings !

Heres my very poor photo of the same Connie on the Sunday:

54-157 EC-121S Penn. ANG 193 TEWS USAF by Keith Heywood, on Flickr

And the same aircraft restored by HARS in Australia, photographed in 2003:

VH-EAG Constellation ex 54-157 EC-121S by Keith Heywood, on Flickr

There is a Connie airframe in the UK. This is a 1947 built 749 serial number 2553 N7777G.
This is currently in a storage hangar (17/01/21) at the National Collections Centre of the Science Museum at Wroughton. Unfortunately there is no public access. There was pre covid a couple of occasions over the years when these hangars were open to the public.
The website also has a number of other interesting airframes stored here. Here's hoping that they could open these to all again at some point

Stunning shot Keith.

Cracking set of pics of a beautiful old girl ! Mintage ..

Ghost from above wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 19, 2022 8:40 pm

There is a Connie airframe in the UK. This is a 1947 built 749 serial number 2553 N7777G.
This is currently in a storage hangar (17/01/21) at the National Collections Centre of the Science Museum at Wroughton. Unfortunately there is no public access. There was pre covid a couple of occasions over the years when these hangars were open to the public.
The website also has a number of other interesting airframes stored here. Here's hoping that they could open these to all again at some point

From the National Collections Centre website:

In 2018, we embarked on an ambitious project to create a new, publicly accessible home for over 300,000 items from the collection at the National Collections Centre. The first of these objects began arriving at their new home in June 2021. This purpose-built facility will transform public access to the collection when it opens regularly for public tours, school and research visits from 2024.

Not sure if this will include the aircraft ? I believe the existing storage hangar has issues with asbestos and structural problems .....