Alaska Aviation Museum
June 13, 2017 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C
Historic restored Alaska planes.
Had one of the early 737s with the kit to operate on gravel runways.
June 13, 2017 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C
Historic restored Alaska planes.
Had one of the early 737s with the kit to operate on gravel runways.
susan macvicarVery cool...we were wondering what that was.
TravelerThe gravel suppression ski ended up being a huge panic program at Boeing. They sold the gravel kit to allow operation on gravel runways in Alaska to the customer without really having a solution in mind, and it turned out that the simple solution (brushes around the nose wheels) did not work -- it actually sent more gravel into the engine than without it. They ended up building a gravel runway for testing, and fitted a 737 with screens on the engines and with high speed cameras to test various solutions -- finally found that the ski did a good job suppressing gravel disturbed by the tires.
susan macvicarGreat back story!