IF YOU PARKED America's newest military transport on a football field with its nose at the goal line, its tail would be two feet beyond the 50-yard line. Its wings would spread 10 feet past each sideline.
Including its radome nose, the aerial monster is 152 feet 7 inches long. Wingspan is 179 feet 8 inches. Even though the fuselage squats close to the ground for easy handling of cargo the top of the tail is more than 48 feet tall, about the height of a four-story building. The fuselage is 16 feet in diameter.
The Douglas-built C-133A can carry twice the payload of the Douglas C-124 Globemaster, and nearly any military vehicle can be driven up a low ramp under the tail and into the cargo hold. A load might include two big prime movers weighing 20 tons each, 16 loaded Jeeps and 20 jet engines. The plane can be modified to carry more than 200 troops, or can serve as a hos- pital plane. Its cargo hold is heated and pressurized for high flights.
Now undergoing flight tests, the C-133A is powered with four Pratt & Whitney T34-P-3 turboprop engines each rated at 6000 horse-power. Each engine drives a three-bladed turboelectric propeller 18 feet in diameter. A battery starts auxiliary gas-turbine engines which supply compressed air for starting the main power plants. A crew of four flies the plane.
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