January Mystery Airplane Contest

The Army Air Force needed dedicated transports, rather than adaptations of civilian airliners, to support airborne operations. These aircraft would have to carry large, sometimes bulky loads and be easy to load and unload. The wooden Curtiss C-76 Caravan and the stainless-steel Budd RB-1 Conestoga were designed with those needs in mind, but Fairchild got it right with its twin-boom C-82 Packet. Powered by a pair of 2100 hp

Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radials, the Packet had a 2870 cubic foot cargo compartment and could hold 44 paratroopers or most of the Army's vehicles.

First flown on 10 September 1944 by air racing legend (and Douglas test pilot on loan) Benny Howard, the C-82 went into production by Fairchild at Hagerstown in 1945. Second source manufacture was to take place with North American at Kansas City and Fort Worth. Altogether, 220 were built, only three by North American, as contracts were canceled after VJ Day. Army Air Force service began with the 316th Troop Carrier Group in 1946. The Packet, flying with the Military Air Transport Service and Tactical Air Command, helped develop the logistics techniques that shaped the Air Force's cargo operations.

Perhaps the high point of the C-82's use came during the Berlin Airlift, when five were assigned to Wiesbaden and Rhein-Main to carry vehicles, road graders, snow plows, jeeps, and electric power station parts into Berlin. The USAF phased the Packet out in 1955. Twelve surplus Packets were operated by Brazil from 1955 to 1967. Civilian operators, including TWA and the Post Office, found their cargo carrying ability useful, sometimes adding a jet engine above the fuselage.

The C-82A, AF 48-581, in this Air Force Museum photo was assigned to the 5039th Air Transport Group in Alaska. After retirement in 1955, it flew with cargo operators as N4752C until Darryl Greenamyer ferried it to the Air Force Museum in June 1988.

Six readers knew the Fairchild Packet, although a couple others thought it was the later, larger C-119 Flying Boxcar. This month's winner is Michael Dressen of Stillwater, who remembered the C-82 from the 1965 Jimmy Stewart movie The Flight of the Phoenix. The crash of the Phoenix took the

life of noted air racing pilot Paul Mantz. Thanks to all. Blue skies.