DCML Digest Issue 48

[Don Rosa]

> From: "Carey Furlong" <stratocruiser at cox.net>
> Subject: Stratocruisers in Don's Stories
> I'm a fan of the Boeing Stratocruiser (just look at my email
> address), and I pointed out to the mailing list a few years ago
> when Don included one in another story of his, The Sign of the
> Triple Distelfink.  I loved his drawing of that aircraft in that
> story, and I'll be looking forward to seeing another one in his
> new upcoming story.

Well, I guess that's always the same Strat-O-Cruiser (I like to write it
that way because it's fun) as I always use. I used it first in 1972 for that
"Pertwillaby Papers" story that I later turned into "The Son of the Sun".
Since I was at the engineering college at the time, I went and got a 1949
aviation yearbook out of the school library and copied one of those planes
probably just because I liked the corny name. But I am not going back to
consult that aviation annual each time I re-use the plane, I'm just looking
at the previous time I drew it... so I am probably drifting a bit off course
(to use an aviation term) as to what it really looked like.

> The Stratocruiser wasn't a turboprop, though.  A turboprop is a
> hybrid aircraft engine, a jet engine really,

No, I really didn't know what "turboprop" meant when I just used that
term -- but in that original story, when I had the Strat-O-Cruiser crash in
the Amazon Jungle, I had my know-it-all hero casually identify one of the
bits of debris as a Scintilla-ignition Pratt & Whitney R-2180 series E-12
turbine. I assume that the yearbook described the design of the
Strat-O-Cruiser for me... am I correct that time?
How would Lance Pertwillaby know a 1940's turbine by manufacturer,
brand-name and series? When I sent my heroes on hunts for ancient treasures
I didn't have a Junior Woodchuck Guidebook to send with them -- so I had a
character who just plain knew everything there was to know. On the other
hand, I made him out as a sorta twit who couldn't put all his knowledge into
any sort of practical use... maybe a touch of the Gearloose in that regard.