WHAT AIRPLANE IS THIS?

Fairchild C-123 Provider

Before the start of World War II, the Army Air Force had little interest in buying transport aircraft. Then commander of all Army Air Forces, General Henry “Hap” Arnold, didn’t think much of using airplanes for anything but bombing the enemy. He considered fighters as good only to defend airfields and even prevented the installation of wing racks to carry extra fuel tanks, increasing a fighter’s range, because he thought they might be used to carry bombs for close ground support operations. Many thousands of American airmen died learning the lesson that bombers needed long range escort before wing tank racks were restored.

But those were the days of “the bomber will always get through” and ground forces were only good to “occupy enemy territory already destroyed by the bombers.” So why detract from air power to support “useless” ground soldiers? Fortunately, those leading the air war quickly learned the lessons that this major war was teaching and adjusted their thinking. But since only bombers and fighters were any good, who needed transport airplanes?

Well, one of the big military lessons of the war was that a modern army requires enormous amounts of munitions, food and other supplies in order to conduct operations. In fact, the amounts of replacement equipment, troop replacements, and re-supply needed proved staggering. Throughout the war, US armed forces paid dearly for the lack of sufficient quality transport aircraft. Instead of using large, armored transport airplanes, most supply operations were performed by converted airliners like the DC-3, which became the C-47, and the C-54 originally built as the Douglas DC-4.

While these were quality airplanes in civil use, they were completely without armor plating and so were easy targets for ground fire. Their load carrying ability was less then ideal and they were just not “heavy duty” enough for prolonged military use in remote corners of the world. Still, flown by very brave crews, these and other transport aircraft like the C-46 Commando served with distinction throughout the war.

At war’s end, the military did not want to repeat their wartime transport problems. As a result, the next ten years saw more transport airplanes designed, purchased and entering service than any other type. The contest aircraft was one of these designs.

Boeing B-29’s were redesigned into transports and called C-97 Stratocruisers. Douglas built the first “drive through” airplane, the Globemaster II, with a nose loading ramp. Fairchild took a 50 ft. long railroad box car, put wings on it plus a giant rear loading door and, in a burst of rare honesty, called it the C-119 Flying Boxcar. This latter aircraft served in Vietnam as the AC-119G using four Minigun Pods for ground support. What would ole` Hap Arnold have thought of a transport airplane flying armed ground support missions?

The Air Force was concentrating on all these giant transport airplanes. But what about getting supplies into smaller fields and more remote locations that these giants could not service? Another company, Chase Aircraft, a division of the Kaizer-Frazer Corporation, had designed a smaller transport airplane just for such missions. It was called the Chase C-123 Provider.

The Air Force had ordered 300 C-123B Providers but Chase just couldn’t deliver that many. So Fairchild went ahead and took over the contract. The first production C-123B first flew on September 1, 1954. The aircraft was used by many countries including Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Vietnam. The C-123 worked out of small and very unimproved airstrips in the most remote areas of the world.

When Vietnam started, most Providers in the US inventory went there to supply and transport US troops using “airports” not worthy of that term. It served well but did have a problem getting out of high-altitude mountain strips in the area’s very hot weather. So Fairchild designed the only engine the company ever produced, the J44 Booster. These 1,000 lb. thrust jet engines were located on the wingtips, like extra fuel tanks, on the C-123 H and J models.

A later Provider model, the C-123K, used GE J85 engines producing 2,850 lb. of thrust. This model is the Provider in the contest photo. In all, 302 Fairchild Providers were built. A few were even used in the CIA’s Air America operations, but those numbers are not known since that operation, of course, never existed.

Contest Clues:
The Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar had a center fuselage with twin booms. It could be thought of as a freighter version of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter: The Provider’s appearance is about as far away from that of the “Forked Tail Devil” P-38 Lightning as any aircraft can be.

All versions of the PBY Catalina were seaplanes, or amphibians, with retractable wing tip floats: The C-123, with its flat bottom and jet pods, does look a little like a seaplane with wing floats. Of course, the jet pods are nowhere near the wingtips, aren’t retracted into the wings and do not reach far enough downwards to keep a wingtip out of the water. Plus, few wing floats have big holes in the front.

The Lockheed C-130 was a four-engine, turboprop powered aircraft: While the engines in the contest photo are not easily identifiable as 2,500 hp R-2800 Double Wasps piston engines they are, there certainly is not four of them.

The Fairchild C-123K had a pod on each wing, just outboard of the propeller tips, that housed a J-85 jet engine: This is a fairly accurate description of the airplane in the contest photo.

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