Starting in February 1960, Air-India (back then it was called Air-India International) had acquired six Boeing 707-437s, named after Himalayan peaks.
These had Rolls-Royce Conway turbofan engines (they called them by-pass turbojets back then) with the distinctive scalloped silencers.
Later Air-India added five Boeing 707-337s with the more conventional Pratt & Whitney JT-3D turbofans.
Sometime in the 1960s, Air-India donated a concrete replica of their Boeing 707-437 registration: VT-DMN named: Kanchenjunga (coincidentally the original VT-DMN crashed on 24th Jan 1966 at 08:10 in the morning on the rocks of the Tournette, near the summit of Mont Blanc in the French Alps killing Dr. Homi Bhabha, 105 other passengers and 11 crew).
The original Rolls-Royce Conway engine weighed 2000 kg.
I'm sure the concrete model of the Rolls-Royce Conway engine on the concrete toy must have been fairly heavy too.
On March 22, 2009, Abhishek Jamjade: an 8-year old child was playing on the toy concrete Boeing 707-437. He swung from the intake of the #1 engine when the entire concrete engine collapsed on him crushing him to death. |
Thank you for the information! I did not realize this replica was based on an actual aircraft. I have very fond memories of playing on this aircraft replica back in the late 1960s, when I lived in Mumbai. I am glad to see it has been preserved though sad to hear about the tragedy of the boy who died. I found a post card, which I scanned and posted here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23269353@N00/3920950564/ |
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