Jimmy Stewart

What Jimmy Stewart did in WWII is, I think, unparalleled in American history. No one with his sort of fame and celebrity rose to the level of combat leadership that he did. While Clark Gable flew 5 combat missions as a gunner/combat photographer (which is pretty remarkable on it's own), Jimmy Stewart was officially credited with 20 and probably flew more like 40... and was generally the air commander of the missions he flew.

Even if Stewart hadn't been famous when he went in, his wartime record would have been remarkable. Very few people went from Private to full Colonel during the course of the war-- and Stewart's final European assignment was as Wing Commander, a role slotted for a Brigadier General.

And Stewart's men truly loved serving with him. He was the kind of commanding officer you wanted, or if you were the parent of someone serving, that your kid had.

 

I so love Jimmy Stewart and what he stood for. Check this out, one of my favorite movies. Watch the opening scenes, just awesome....really cool seeing the rockets fire off and on landing the chutes coming out. Bob, anyone else, give us some feed back about the B-47.

 

I'm not an expert on the B-47 so be wary of my statements. I mentioned it before that in conversations with some of the engineers and pilots about the airplane one of the main problems was low power and light footprint pressure after landing and that it was an not an easy airplane to fly but Dick Taylor developed some A-Bomb delivery maneuvers that took some very deep knowledge of the airplane. Lob bombing where the airplane came in fairly low and was put into a half loop with a roll out on top, an Immelmann . The bomb was released somewhere before the nose vertical point. The airplane then could make a departure before the bomb detonated. Another variation on that was an over the shoulder release where the bomb was released near the top of the loop after the plane had passed the target and the trajectory took the bomb in the reverse direction of the approach. Dick Taylor was a top of the heap engineer and pilot. I believe that he became Chief of Flight Test. It was assumed at the time the B-47 was designed that the inboard wing could not be thickened because of drag increases but the B-52 dispelled that and it migrated into the 707 design and eventually all of Boeing's competitors. The nose up stance of the airplane caused no end of braking problems because the wing was still trying to lift, hence the drag chute. Early models used a drogue chute on approach so that they could keep the engines spooled up in case of a go-around. Spool up time was very slow then.I saw the B-47 on it's return to Seattle in 1951, I think, and I couldn't believe that that big airplane could be so maneuverable. It came down the runway at Boeing field at maybe 100 ft and went into chandelle that ended at perhaps 10,000-12,000 feet. A lot of tests were performed at BFI then and one windy rough day we saw a B-47 coming in with a long chunk of a KC-97's boom sticking out of it's nose. The landing was next to a controlled crash and the airplane veered off the runway and headed for the flight line . They managed to get it stopped ,luckily. That's about all that I know about the B-47....not much.

 

I thought, WTH is that?... then I remembered the Boeing 717, nee DC-9, MD-95.

Built in the acquired McDonell-Douglas (Douglas) plant in CA.

717 had also been used before, for for the 720 and the C-135?

 

I was in a meeting with a guy who was a former MD salesman. He described the genesis of the 717... quite fascinating. Basically, Delta wanted MD to build them new DC-9s... MD said "No, you really don't want that." Delta replied "Yes, actually, we do." MD found the old wing tooling, and the resulting airplane is basically the 717 (with new avionics and engines).

 

Model 717 was the Boeing KC-135 before it was designated by the Air Force as the KC-135 Tanker. In the mid 50's the tanker drawings on which I worked had "Model 717" in the title block. Marketing may have tried to call the 720 a "717" but I never saw it applied anywhere graphically. The 720, in spite of looking like a 707, was an entirely different airplane structurally. I haven't got the exact figures at hand but I think that it was 25000 pounds lighter, maybe less. Funny that an airline pilot friend made some comments this morning about being "corrected" by another airline's pilot when he made reference to an MD83 as a DC-9. My friend said the type certificate mounted in the airplane says, " DC-9-83 . I also had several unsolicited comments from airline pilot "friends" that the latest 777 was a non event in flying the airplane and the engine containing the damage. Yes, scary to the passengers but nothing near to a major catastrophe.

 

I know that all the MD-80s are officially still DC-9s. What about the MD-90s?

 

All on the same TC, including the 717-200
http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgMakeModel.nsf/0/81bb7f7f3caf760686257ca80068d081/$FILE/A6WE_Rev_30.pdf

 

thanks for sharing, I had no idea about Stewart's involvement in WWII.

 

He's famous for that... common knowledge...

I didn't know about 'Nam, though; flying B-52's. Breaking the sound barrier in a B-58. Wow.

 

I would say it's common knowledge (at least among older people or those interested in history) that he flew combat missions in WWII. For me, the breadth of his experience and his leadership roles were a revelation. Think about this-- before going to Europe, he was a B-17 instructor for 6 months, in the winter, in Boise. That was a dangerous job! His squadron lost three aircraft in one week! And he was well known as a great instructor.

When he was promoted to Brigadier General in the reserves, there was a kerfuffle because his active duty slot would have been assistant director of operations for SAC! To get his star, they had to change that to a PR role.

 

Another celebrity in the military was James Doohan.
He played Scotty on the TV show Star Trek.

Doohan was a Canadian artillery captain and led a group of men to battle during the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
He survived, but got shot 6 times in his hands and legs by a German machine gunner.
He ended up having his middle finger amputated on his right hand from those injuries.

On the Star Trek TV show, they never show Scotty's right hand up close to notice the missing finger.

He was born in March 1920 so he would have been 24 years old on D-day in June 1944.

Here's a picture of Scotty in the "pilot-in-command seat" of the Enterprise.
I guess he's type-rated to fly a Federation Starship.

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Doohan was heroic, no question, as were many others, including most famously Audie Murphy.

What makes Stewart unique is that he was famous BEFORE he was in combat, and before he was in a leadership role. He was an academy-award winner before the war!

 

not that common

also, Stewart's career was basically over by the time I was old enough to remember celebrity trivia like this.

 

No type rating required, just Commercial, Multi-Engine, Space (MES)