Lucky13
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With all the pros and cons, which would be the greatest ever transport?
Transports....
- Thread starter Lucky13
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
C-5A/B 
Last edited:
C-5A/B
Did anybody ever consider the humble AN2? The plane that opened Siberia and central Asia, and for a period of time the most numerous transport in the world?
Cheers,
Wes
canaanchamp
Airman
C-130. Consider everything that the basic aircraft has been modified to accomplish, along with how long the type has been in production. Nothing else comes close. It has some of the best abilities: Dependability, Availability, Reliability, and Flexibility. My personal favorite version: KC-130 F model. I was a navigator on them for 4 years so I might have a somewhat biased opinion.
Glider
Captain
There are only two real contenders the C130 and the C47/DC3. Together they have served for 80 years plus and I cannot pick one over the other
Agree.
It deserves an honorary mention, at least. 18,000 built (Wiki), still in active service and in on and off production.
I was a passenger of An-2s in the early 1980s - domestic routes in USSR, people, mail bags, goats...
and then boarded the one 30 years later for a parachute drop. I hated this aircraft in the 1980s but was happy to meet again in 2010s. An-2 certainly has a character...
yulzari
Tech Sergeant
Like all 'best'. For what? Historically the boat.
In the early 70's, an AN2 configured as a crop duster "water skiied" on his tundra tires at night from the south shore of Cuba's Oriente province all the way around the eastern tip of the island and through the Straits of Florida, arriving at NAS Key West just before 0800 with 27 refugees stacked in his hopper. He apparently taxied the length of the active slowly with his tail up, balancing on the mains, as I arrived in time to see him at a standstill in front of Ops slowly easing the tail down, that PZL 1820 clattering away just like it's Wright granddaddy.
My buddies in Approach Control and at the HAWK sites said they kept their MTI speed gates set at 80 knots to minimize the speedboat and tractor-trailer clutter, so nobody saw him coming til he hopped over the mangroves and eased onto the runway. A couple of guys from OMD who got a peek before the special ops folks came to take the plane away said that except for the data plate and the prop, that engine looked like it could have come right off an S2 or C1.
Cheers,
Wes