My friend was telling the story to me yesterday so … I likely didn’t probe deep enough or didn’t understand it fully. Still … my point was that the airplane required real pilots to fly it like … real pilots, not computer jocks. I’m certain he said that they could move fuel around … I’ll have to ask that Q again.
So what happens when the Fairchild ran out of compressed air ??
I have another old dear aviation friend who passed on at age 104 last year who made 221 crossings of the Pacific in the Boeing 314 Clipper. HIS expertise was celestial navigation … hence why they flew at night.