Convair CV-580

The Convair 580 is an American twin-engined commercial transport aircraft created by re-engining the Convair 440 with turboprops. The first converted aircraft flew on 19 January 1960 on the initiative of the engine maker Allison, a department of General Motors, and was fitted with two Allison 501-D13D turboprops of 3,750 horsepower each, with a larger fin and a modified tailplane. The conversion proved a lasting success: more than 170 Convair 340 and 440 airframes were re-engined this way, and after May 1965 the work was subcontracted to Pacific Airmotive. Airlines only began to take an interest in 1964, when one was delivered to Frontier Airlines on 1 June of that year, followed by Allegheny, Avensa and North Central Airlines. Converted to freighters, the type served widely in the DHL network. The French article lists military users in Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico and a long roster of civil operators in Europe and elsewhere, and notes that 36 examples were still flying in 2022, sixty-five years after the first flight of the CV-240. One aircraft was modified by Aero Spacelines to take the nose of a Boeing 707. The type is also recorded for two accidents, a Partnair crash into the North Sea on 8 September 1989 and the loss of an Air Tahoma flight on a golf course.