CN CV600 Mystery aircraft Notes, e-mails, postings Item #116953450 on the e-bay auction shows a photo of a non-existant aircraft. It's of a Central Convair in the red tail paint scheme but with a fake RR Dart engine on the right side. When the 240's were converted to Darts, they got the new grey paint scheme. The first three (858, 859 & 860 never had any Central Airlines paint job except the grey scheme. If my memory holds, the airframes were supplied by Convair and sold to Central. 858 was the prototype for all the CV-600/640 aircraft and they were re-certificated as such. Too bad that the Convair 580 didn't have to be re-certified as a different design instead of an a modification to the CV-340/440. The flight control loads would have to have been lightened considerably so it wouldn't have required the old "Armstrong" method of flight control operation. If ever an airplane needed an autopilot, the 580 was the one. Those 16 landing summer turnarounds, 3 days in a row, across the great plains might have been halfway bearable. (Decent cockpit cooling would have helped too.) When FAL bought the 160 series 340/440's from KLM or SAS, the aircraft stopped at FT.Worth to remove the nearly-new autopilots before proceeding on to the west coast for the 580 conversion. The 580 was a real "truck" and it flew like one too! "Ah, for the good old days!" (Capt. Frost, 6/14/99) Re CN mystery plane: I checked it out and you're absolutely right. Something's fishy about the whole thing. No aircraft number that I can see & the side facing the photographer was the passenger/cargo door side as I recall (and they aren't visible) - just the opposite of the 580. I e-mailed the guy selling it & asked for info. All you ol' CN folks take a look & see what you think. Do I remember correctly that CN was the "launch" customer for the Dart 600 conversion? (Jake Lamkins, 6/14/99) I'm curious about the photo you have. I don't believe it's an actual aircraft. Does the photo looked "touched up" to you. I worked for Central Airlines from 1964 til 1967 when Frontier Airlines bought them. The aircraft depicted is a Convair600 which was a Convair 240 converted to Rolls Royce turbo powered engines. Central did the conversions in 1966. None of the converted aircraft ever flew with the paint job shown. Central got a new paint job then. Check out my Central Airlines webpage (URL below). Another curiosity is that the aircraft number isn't shown on the rear of the fuselage (federal requirement) and you can't see the passenger and cargo doors which were on the side facing the photographer. It's a very interesting photo. Do you have any history of where it came from, etc.? Hi Jake, That's interesting. I hadn't really noticed anything strange. I was hoping an employee might see it. I had never heard of this airline before I saw the picture. All I know is that it came from Ed Craig, an active photographer here in Miami, OK. I know he liked planes and he flew as well as trains and rodeos. I don't know, perhaps he did a trick shot with a model? However, the prop is spinning. Afraid it has no other marks on it to tell us anything and he is dead now. I am sure he did his own darkroom work too. Hope that helps, but I don't know much else. I obtained it with other normal plane photos. No other Central ones though. Thanks, David Eason (6/14/99) Re: Re CN mystery plane: captnfrosty (66/M/Laurie MO) 06/14/1999 Yeah Jake, you're right. Central was the launch customer for the 600 although Trans Texas wasn't far behind. Bill Huffman and Gene Postlwaite were the CEN reps at SAN for pilot input and maintenence input, respectively. Both came out of it with some hearing loss from the 3000 hp "Dog Whistles"! All the CEN conversions were done by Convair but TTA saved some money by doing their own. The conversion wasn't as well done as the Convair project. The first couple aircraft were said to have been "butchered" before they got it right and had to go back for the soundproofing package. And for what it's worth, Hawaiian airlines was the first with the CV-640 which was the Dart 340/440 conversion. The longer wing made the 640 a much better load carrier than the 600, especially at the higher elevation airports. Jake Lamkins 06/15/1999 Got an answer back from the fellow selling the photo. He's David Eason in Miami, OK. He got the photo from Ed Craig - a photographer, now deceased, along with other plane photos. The photo has no identifying marks on it to help out. Craig did his own darkroom work - Eason had no reason to think it wasn't authentic. Do you suppose they ran one out on a testhop before painting the new colors? Of course, that still doesn't explain the no visible doors or ac # on the photo. Research on e-bay photo No. 116953450 Reference Books: The Convair Twins, 240-640, by Gary L. Killian The Convairliner Story, an Air Britian Production Ref: Central Airlines 240 Postcard of N 74850 in flight It appears that the photo is a good representation produced by General Dynamics Corp., engineering, and customer relations department to provide Central of what the new conversion would look like in Central's color scheme. The photo appears to be a composite of at least three different aircraft, using a basic in flight photo of CV-240, Reg. XT-606 SN. 129, which was sold to CATC (China). SN. 129 was never converted to a 600/640, so the basic wing was used, and a RR Dart Engine applied, along with the then Central paint scheme. Similar photos were produced by Douglas showing a DC-9-80 in flight with a Frontier paint scheme, and Boeing produced a similar Customer Relations photo of a B-737 in flight with the then Crescent paint scheme of Frontier. The photo would make a very good item for a den, and would be a sure conversation starter. Ken Schultz (6/16/99)