A TR at last

Okay, I gotta pull some rank here and I'm about as rank as I can get. The four engined hulk in this picture is a Douglas Dc-6 or 7. It has the Douglas windshield with the little window in the outside corner, the center windshields are almost vertical ( a la Douglas DC series), the nose is sharp and pointed and the radome is small, one can see the fairings on top of the nacelle that connected to the carburetor air scoops. The Lockheed nacelles would have big openeings in the firewall bulkhead for the tailpipes of the gas turbines. They went over the top of the wing. The nacelles were oval and not round.The Lckheed nose radome was big and bulbous and almost round in cross section and separated almost back at the cockpit, and the P-3 windsheilds slanted back and splayed out to fair with the round cross section of the fuselage.
I finally got my pooter up and running again and read through the " Sparky" threads and noticed a comment that my P-51 pilot ( Worry Bird ) had a brain bucket on. I assure you that having spent two years in the US Army Airforces during WW2 that I would never draw a hard hat on a WW2 fighter pilot. DJ was correct that the highlite must have given the appearance of a hard hat.
Good show for SparkyJellybelly SS
Bob

 

Well I'm showing not only my advanced number of hours on this earth but my computer skills or the lack thereof. The blurb about the Mystery Machine was not meant as an answer to Sparky's Tr photo. It was meant as an answer to the photo on page 26, the Dc-6 or 7

 

Greenameyr left a 55 gallon barrel of gasoline whithout a lid bouncing around next to a RUNNING APU while he was thrashing that B-29 around on the rutted Ice. DUH !!!

 

Wasn't that whole B-29 Kee Bird thing just an attempt to gain some glory in the warbird community? "Fly the bird back and I'm a hero among my peers. I brought it back alive!" Unfortunately, molten aluminum equals zero glory, only distain for destroying a rare aircraft. And the even sadder loss of the crewman who worked himself to death in the process.

 

Your absolutely correct on that. Greenameyer was sort of a loose cannon as far as doing things within the confines of care and planning. he is a great pilot but has gotten away with many many things while taking it to the very edge. Leaving an open barrel of 135 octane sloshing around near a running APU is one that I cannot understand. Letting a guy die of pneumonia while they were scrambling around on the ice cap trying to prepare the airplane........

 

A Grumman F4U Dauntless Jug !!!! That one cracked me up ! Like it was "one of them airplanes that the military flies around ", an " accurate" eye witness report. I wish that I could have heard that F7F....again. When I was stationed at Langley Field the NACA people had a Mosquito that ruled the skies. It out-ran the P-38 and gave a real run against the P-51 and it was the King Twin ....until the F7F showed up. This was early 1945 and the Grumman wasn't in service yet and the NACA labs were running comparatative tests on it. THAT was the King Twin after that. In April another mystery machine showed up one Sunday morning in front of our barracks and we couldn't figure out what it was or who built it. It was blue but without markings of any kind. A couple of weeks later and after it made a fool out of the "most advanced fighter", we found out that it was the F8F. It humbled the advanced P-51H in competative tests and thereafter ruled the skies there. What a great time was had by all.

 

Dang! Can't argue with an expert. Good eye Taylor.

What in the world was the US Navy using it for? An early version of a sub hunter?

 

Nothing yet on the 308. I will be going back to work Monday and the weather is starting to crap out around here so it will be a good time to put on a pot of coffee and head down stairs to the laboratory for some quality time with the Oldyellowtramp.

I started it up a week ago and it ran great as long as it was sitting still. It would really be funny if it was something really simple and a 5 minute fix, especially after letting it sit all summer.

DJ

 

Back about 1969 or 70, I saw an F8F fly at a local air show. The guy flying the F8F was wearing one of those straw Vietnamese san pan hats that farmers would wear in a rice paddy. I guess that he figured that a helmet wasn't going to help you much if you plowed in a big fighter at high speed so he decided to beat the heat under that big canopy. I still remember him coming in real fast right on the deck, then hauling back on the stick and pointing the plane almost straight up. It kept climbing like it had a rocket in its tail and never let up. It seemed to have a lot more power than the P-51. There were quite a few WWII planes around our airport at that time. A few P-51s came and went, including the one that crashed. A B-17 borate bomber was there for a few days en-route to some fire bombing.
I just remembered that I saw a TBF Avenger at a small airport just a few years ago. But weren't all small airports required to have a few of those rotting away near the more remote hangers?!

 

The guy with the straw hat in the F8F was sensible and practical. I have never seen a hard hat save anybody in a crash yet.
When the original Bearcat was at Langley the NACA pilot made a maximum climb test one day and did the same thing that you saw, climbed straight up until you couldn't see him but we could still hear it. It had considerably more HP than a P-51 and weighed less. PW-R2800 can produce an easy 2100 HP and with water and boost goodies they are an awsome powerplant. And very reliable.
We were treated to some great shows when the labs had their machinery out and showing off. The sound of the Mosquito at full power and top speed was a hair raising experience when it came by at low altitude but then so was the F7F and F8F and the F2G and the Spitfire and......

 

Horsefly, I re-read your comments about going to airshows in '69 and '70 and seeing F8f's doing thier thing. I was doing airshows at the time on the west coast and almost every show had an F8F act. and I'm wondering where your shows were.
Bob

 

My hometown is Hot Springs, Arkansas and the local (only) airport was where the show was. I remember going to 2 or 3 shows around that time period. They were always in the summer months. Only 1 each year. I distinctly remember watching Bob Hoover in his yellow P-51 (N2251D) doing his act. Probably between 1967 and 1970. I don't think the F8F was at the same show with Hoover. Probably a year or so later. And who was that guy in the yellow Piper Cub or Taylorcraft that wore the black top hat and did his routine about the guy learning to fly? Funny stuff. And as always, there was usually a Pitts special or two trying to tear their wings off.
The same airport was where an F4 Phantom had to make an emergency landing in 1967 after he flamed out over town. One of our family friends worked at the airport when the F4 dead stick his landing. "He came in like a herd of turtles" was our friend's often quoted comment for years to come. The F4 pilot made it to the ground in one piece. I think the nose gear collapsed, but the pilot did a good job of bringing in a gliding brick.

 

I performed in some shows with Bob Hoover, Art Scholl, and many others, most of whom are dead now including the man in the top hat. That was Dick Schramm, A Navy commander. I was part of a clown act that considered a blast by all who witnessed it.....except Schramm. We crossed paths with him several times and non of our meetings were fun. Corky Fornoff was a Bearcat pilot who performed out here. He was killed in a mid-air with his son. My wife and I counted 34 pilot/friends who met their end in less than 10 years while I was flying. I think that Hoover is about the only survivor from the old crowd that we flew with 40 years ago.

 

SPARKY! HEAD-ON!
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ALL EYES LEFT! That is a cool shot. I know what is going on there, you guys are lined up on the T-33, ready to go down the chute at the start line?

I would love to see the whole line up.

 

Oh man! Killer shot. I bet the sound of all you guys diving for the first pylon is outrageous.

Good place for the Fchat logo too. Can't miss it. Maybe next year Rob will pony up for a big banner across the bottom of both wings.

I went back to work on the 10th. Leave the house at 11:00 am and get home at 11:00 pm plus weekends. Gotta pay for my "bad habits"........................................

 

Looks like it's setting in a cow pasture. Couldn't they afford a patch of asphalt for it? Looks like a gate guardian without a gate to guard. Very sad. Somebody ought to put that thing under a cover of some sort. What's the story on it?

 

Yeah, my spare time..............Yooo a funnnnyy guuyyyyy!

Intersting you should bring this one up. I was looking at it Saturday night and thinking that with all of the preservation efforts in England over the years they would let this one go. Must have been a real rat after the movie to warrant abandonment.

Arlie. It is parked at North Weald Airfield in the UK. Here is the thread. http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=79581

They have a TBF Avenger and a couple of Yaks there as well.

A real shame. Lets go over and at least get the engines off of it.

 

good luck with that seet ride

 

Reminds me of a guy that bought the front half of a derelict DC-3 and plopped it on a motorhome chassis. It looked very cool going down the road.

They had him staged at the end of a runway for a TV interview and asked how high it would go. He says, "As high as this bottle of Jack Danials will get me!".

Quite a character.