"A Convair 440 spanned 81 feet and six inches with a wingspan of 105 feet, four inches. It held 52 passengers and only required a flight crew of two to three people. The 440 Metropolitan was powered by two 2,804.4-cubic-inch-displacement (45.956 liter), air-cooled, supercharged, Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp CB16 two-row, 18-cylinder radial engines with a compression ration of 6.75:1, a report on the aircraft from This Day in Aviation reads."
"Burning 100/130 aviation gasoline, the CB16 had a Normal Power rating of 1,800 horsepower at 2,600 r.p.m. to 8,500 feet (2,591 meters) and 1,600 horsepower at 2,500 r.p.m. to 16,000 feet (4,877 meters). It was rated at 2,500 horsepower at 2,800 r.p.m. for Takeoff. The engines drove three-bladed Hamilton Standard constant-speed propellers through a 0.450:1 gear reduction. The CB16 was 6 feet, 9.40 inches (2.068 meters) long, 4 feet, 4.80 inches (1.341 meters) in diameter, and weighed 2,390 pounds (1,084 kilograms)."
On Jan. 4, 1957 the Brooklyn Dodgers purchased a Convair 440 Metropolitan airliner for $775,000, becoming the first professional sports team to own an airplane. The team operated the Convair until 1961, when they sold it for $700,000 and exported it to Spain, then acquired a Lockheed L-188A Electra from Western Airlines. Harry R. "Bump" Holman piloted team aircraft and had flown a 20-seat DC-3 for the Dodgers since 1950; Holman had gifted the DC-3 to owner Walter O'Malley after winning it in a game of craps. The Convair 440 carried 52 passengers with a crew of two to three and used Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp CB16 engines. The Dodgers' aircraft later continued flying until 1978, when an engine problem forced a return to San Ramon Airport in Bolivia and the airplane ran off the runway into a ditch, sustaining irreparable damage.
Read at Dodgers Nation
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