Godfather II - Aircraft in Cuba undercarriage question

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Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 73

Hi All,

I have just rewatched the Godfather II and noticed something strange with the undercarriage of a piston aircraft when it begins to taxi.  You can see this in the below youtube link, around the 2:20 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYXiuUKXpD0

When the aircraft just starts to move, the undercarriage can be seen to move backwards before returning to its original position.  I am not sure of the exact aircraft type - maybe Beechcraft 18?, but does anyone know if this type of movement is normal for this type of aircraft, and its purpose? From my limited knowledge, I wouldn't think it was desirable to have such a large amount of freeplay, but then I'm no aircraft designer.

Many thanks in advance,

James

 

 

 

Original post

Member for

19 years 1 month

Posts: 6,043

I have seen that once before James.

I was a young rigger working on the Canberra OCU (231 OCU) in the early 1970's - I was up on the wing of an a/c supervising some even younger lads when the a/c next door taxied out and I subconsciously noted there was something odd about it.I made sure I was standing on the other side of the a/c as it taxied back into the bay - every time the pilot touched the brakes - the port u/c leg was doing exactly what you saw in the film.

I proved it to our 'Chiefy' by pulling it slowly with a tractor and getting the brakeman to apply the brakes (chiefy had said ''I don't believe you'' [or - ahem words to that effect]),as you surmised - the cause was excess play at the 'Pintle Pins' - subsequent investigations showed that the cause was gross misalignment of the Pintle Pin Bushes between the main spar and the Epstein Forgings.This had been caused by poor  workmanship during major servicing and led to All the Legs having to be removed from all the affected a/c to check for misalignment (some of the pictures of the damage was unbelievable) - needless to say- I was as popular as pigpoo around the station LOL :)

Member for

4 years 5 months

Posts: 155

Yep thats a Beech 18/C-45 well spotted on the U/C movement! :)