The canadian Noorduyn Norseman was built from 1935 until 1959. The have been used all over the world in both civil and military roles. The famous US Band Leader and composer Glen Miller disapeared in a Noresman over the English Channel durring WWII.
Designed by Robert B.C. Noorduyn, the Noorduyn Norseman was produced from 1935 to 1959, originally by Noorduyn Aircraft Ltd. and later by the Canada Car and Foundry company.
Noorduyn Norseman "CFBSB" still operating in 2006, Edmund Lakes Lodge, Manitoba.With the experience of working on many ground-breaking designs at Fokker, Bellanca and Pitcairn-Cierva, Noorduyn decided to create his own design in 1934, the Noorduyn Norseman. Along with colleague, Walter Clayton, Noorduyn created his original company, Noorduyn Aircraft Limited in early 1933 at Montreal while a successor company bearing the name, Noorduyn Aviation, was established in 1935.
Noorduyn's vision of a bush plane revolved around a few basic criteria: it should be an aircraft with which a Canadian operator utilizing existing talents, equipment and facilities could make money, it should be a high wing monoplane to facilitate loading and unloading of passengers and cargo at seaplane docks and airports and, finally, it should be an all-around superior aircraft to those in use in Canada. From the outset, Noorduyn designed the transport to have interchangeable wheel, ski or twin-float landing gear. Unlike most aircraft designs, the Norseman was first fitted with floats, then skis and, finally, fixed landing gear.
The final design layout looked much like Noorduyn's earlier Fokker designs, it was a high-wing braced monoplane with an all-welded steel tubing fuselage structure and wood stringers applied to it for the attachment of a fabric skin. The Norseman's wing had an all wood construction and was fabric covered, except for the flaps and ailerons, which were made of welded steel tubing. It had a divided type landing gear fitted to fuselage stubs, the legs were secured with two bolts each to allow the alternate arrangement of floats or skis. The tail wheel strut could be fitted with a wheel or tail skid.
The first Norseman, powered by a Wright R-975-E3 Whirlwind, was flight tested on floats on November 14, 1935 and was sold and delivered to Dominion Skyways Ltd. on January 18, 1936, registered as "CF-AYO" and named Arcturus." In summer 1941, Warner Brothers leased CF-AYO for the filming of "Captains of the Clouds" starring James Cagney. Principal aerial photography took place near North Bay, Ontario with CF-AYO carrying temporary registration "CF-HGO."
Almost immediately, the Norseman proved itself to be a rugged, reliable workhorse with steady sales. The first aircraft, CF-AYO, was designated the Norseman Mk I. The next aircraft, "CF-BAU," having some minor changes required after the certification tests, and a new Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp SC-1 engine up-rated from 420 to 450 hp, was designated Norseman Mk II while the next three aircraft were Norseman Mk IIIs: "CF-AZA" going to MacKenzie Air Service, Edmonton, Alberta, "CF-AZE" to Prospector Airways, Clarkson, Ontario and "CF-AZS" to Starrat Airways, Hudson, Ontario. "CF-BAU" would be modified on June 26, 1937 to became the prototype Norseman Mk IV, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp S3H-1. The Mk IV become the "definitive" model but the production run may have ended at a few hundred examples if not for the advent of the Second World War.
Until 1940, the Noorduyn company had only sold 17 aircraft in total, primarily to commercial operators in Canada's north and to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. With the outbreak of war in Europe, demand for a utility transport led to major military orders. The Royal Canadian Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces became the two largest operators; the RCAF ordered 38 Norseman Mk IVWs for radio and navigational training for the Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
USAAF Colonel Bernt Balchen had been involved in establishing a staging route across Greenland to facilitate the ferrying of aircraft from North America to Europe. He required a bush plane rugged enough to survive in the harsh conditions of the Arctic. After evaluating six Norsemans diverted from a previous RCAF order, late in 1941, he recommended the purchase of the Norseman Mk IV specially modified to USAAF requirements as the YC-64A. After the US entry into the Second World War, the USAAF placed the first of several orders for a production version C-64A Norseman. The principal differences involved fitting two fuselage belly tanks bringing the standard fuel capacity to 201 Imp. gal (914 l); an additional cabin fuel tank of 32 Imp. gal (145 l) could also be installed. These changes resulted in an increase of 950 lb (431 kg) in the loaded weight of the standard Mk IV. Deliveries began in mid-1942, with the American military eventually placing orders for 749 Norseman Mk IVs as the C-64A (later UC-64A).
Throughout the Second World War, the USAAF Norseman aircraft were used in North America (primarily Alaska) as well as other in theaters of war, including Europe. Three UC-64As were used by the US Navy under the designation JA-1. Six C-64B floatplanes were used by the US Army Corps of Engineers, as well as by other Allied air forces, who placed orders for 43 Norseman Mk IVs. The RCAF ordered an additional 34 aircraft as Norseman Mk VI. Noorduyn was the sole manufacturer, but when the USAAF considered ordering a larger number of C-64As, license production of 600 by Aeronca Aircraft Corp. (Middletown, Ohio) was contemplated before the contract was cancelled in 1943.
It was a Norseman that Glenn Miller was flying over the English Channel in as a passenger when he disappeared on December 15, 1944.
The Glenn Miller Norseman, specifically number 44-70285, according to records, was accepted by USAAF at the Noorduyn plant on June 28, 1944. It was delivered to New York on July 5th departing the U.S.A. on July 17th and would not have arrived in England until after the invasion of Europe (June 6th) and therefore would not likely have had any "Invasion Stripes" put on it. Also, the olive drab or camouflage colour scheme was replaced in production earlier in March 1944 with overall aluminum.
There is no photo of the Glenn Miller Norseman, but pictures of others of the same period, would confirm that it probably was just overall aluminum with blue and white USAAF markings, black tail numbers, and black anti-glare paint over the nose.
Today, around 18 Norseman still remain in service.
(Source: Wikipedia on line)
General characteristics
Crew: 2
Length: 32.33 ft
Wingspan: 51.5 ft
Height: 10.08 ft
Empty weight: 4240 lb
Loaded weight: 7400 lb
Powerplant: 1× Pratt & Whitney R-1340-AN1: 600 hp @ 2250 rpm
Performance
Maximum speed: 130 Knots (241 km/h)
Combat radius: 810 NM
Service ceiling: 17000 ft
Rate of climb: 594 ft/min
Original FS5 model creator: Jerry Arzdorf 1998.
Reworked to CFS with moving parts, dp, and metalized colors: Edmundo Abad 2010.
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I have included new textures, moving parts and damage profile for use with CFS1, with ficcional armament of 2 × 7.7 mm (.303 in) machine gun in the side windows and bombs.
Special thanks to Christian Maas for his excellent tool Hex-editor XVI32 and Chuck Dome by his MDL file viewer. Without their tools, I might not have been able to assign new textures to the original model.
Also special thanks to my son Fernando for to find a better way of capturing screenshoots.
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Installation CFS
1. Unzip to Temporaly directory "Norseman.zip".
2. Copy "Norseman" folder to X:\CFS\aircraft directory.
