Chrysler Slant-Six Powered Air Tug Hauls Old Warplanes Around, Not Cessnas

The only time most of us care about an aircraft tug is when we're launching one-off a cargo ramp in Grand Theft Auto.

But in real life,this NMC-Wollard Model 100's job is to lug around something more special than some Cesnass at the local airport. It gets to be the workhorse of one of America's few living aircraft museums. The Air Heritage Museum in Beaver Falls, Western Pennsylvania. In this one hangar, three flightworthy warbirds share a home in a hangar on the grounds of Beaver County Municipal Airport. These would be a North-American T-6 Texan Trainer, a spectacularly preserved Douglas C-47 Skytrain, and the last airworthy Fairchild C-123K Provider left in the world. Not bad for a line of work, huh? A Douglas C-47 Skytrain can weigh more than 18,000 pounds (8,165 kg), and the Provider can weigh in excess of an astounding 35,000 lbs (15,876 kg) depending on engine configuration. Not just any old tractor will handle such a heavy and fragile load. So you can be assured this tug is a quality product that's served the staff at Air Heritage very well in its time as a service vehicle for the museum's aircraft restoration and maintenance team. It could be easy for a nonenthusiast to pass off this little tug as another nameless piece of equipment. But the more trained eye notices a great many quirks about its makeup. The faded yellow paint job gives a patina look that can only come from years of hard work. Hand-painted black and white etchings can be seen around the exterior, including the custom mounting points for the C-47 and C-123K. This compensates for the vastly different landing gear configurations between the two planes and informs personnel where to mount tow hooks safely.
Any of the three aircraft calling the hangar home can be tugged to the outside tarmac or the airport runway in around 15 minutes. That's with a skilled driver behind the wheel and given enough time for staff to manually open the hangar doors, of course. The vehicle consists of a unibody 3/4-inch (20 mm) plate steel frame with yellow-painted sheet metal making up the rest of its construction. It also features an automatic transmission, four-wheel-drive, and four-wheel disk brakes as standard features. Not much compared to most cars, but well needed during a long day moving valuable old warbirds. In 2021, Model 100s comes standard with either a Cummins turbodiesel or a Kubota gasoline engine. Industry-standard powerplants, no doubt, but older models came equipped very differently. Older NMC tugs sported an industrialized version of the 225 cubic-inch (3.7 liters), slant-six engine from Chrysler's industrial division. Produced between 1959 and 2000, the iron-block Chrysler 225 started life as an entry-level engine for Chrysler products like the Dodge Challenger, Charger, Aspen, and Plymouth Baracuda, to name a few. Horsepower was not the name of the game with these simple little six-pots. It's all about low-end torque, of which these engines had quite a bit. Such low-end grunt makes these engines perfectly suited to tugging and towing priceless relics of American aviation. One of which is the final airworthy example of its type anywhere on the planet. Upon entering the cab of this boxy little tug, you're immediately assaulted with a wide array of senses. Firstly, the cab smells like a peculiar combination of worn vinyl, metal patina, and a hint of old dust. It's a scent unique to a motor vehicle of this vintage and lets you know you're not just sitting in something made to look old and worn out. Every scuff, every scrape, and every missing electrical wire cover has a fantastic story to tell.
Before hearing this six-mill fire to life, you may wonder how it would sound with a turbocharger and an exhaust. But one turn of the key will have those thoughts evacuating out of your ears rapidly. This 225 Chrysler engine is noisy, smelly, and unrefined in a way that was only acceptable 40 years ago. Still, it made light work as museum staff hooked the Skytrain to its main towing hook and taxiing the old warbird out for a test run of its radial engines. Thank goodness the museum's hangar has more than enough air under its roof to be safe. The fumes coming out of the tug's exhaust tips can't be all that great for your long-term health. Still, we don't think the staff has much bad to say about the thing. After all this time, it's less like a work vehicle and more like a friend of the family.

Keyword: Chrysler Slant-Six Powered Air Tug Hauls Old Warplanes Around, Not Cessnas