Old Time Stuff #6

Tommy Livermore's death signalled the end of an era, not only for a flying lifestyle but for me personally. The airplanes and the people were gone now and the serious task of a war took everyone's thought and energy. It was sad that a good friend was gone but the the fast pace and the excitement of so much going on kept one's mind occupied.
Our little town on the coast filled with flyers and military activity as the war ground on. Now there was a weekly report of the town's boys who were KIA and more left for the service until there were very few left. My turn came when I turned 17 and I joined the U.S.Army Air Corps---USAC reserve. When I turned 18 + 2 weeks, I was gone too. It was now the U.S.Army Air Forces----USAAF. I was accepted into the aviation cadet program but all I did was chase after one shut-down after another and never made the train. I did however mange to get assigned to some flight crews and flew around in all kinds of big tin birds. I learned at the time that the danger and death was not relugated to over seas.
I did nothing worhty of comment.
When I returned from the service I went to college like millions of other " veterans". Summer vacations were spent working at Sarasota-Bradenton Airport-----ex-Sarasota Airbase. I got back to Lowe's Field where I got my license and then had access to all kinds of airplanes where I worked. Surplus from the military in form of every trainer there was, all the PT's. I flew everything they had ( that I could afford) and everything that I could fly with rich friends. Soon all the old stuff began to appear as it was pulled out of the barns and hangars. There were too many to list here but one that sticks in my memory was the Kinner powered Bruner-Winkle Bird that was pulled out , assembled, and flown. No CAA inspection, just flown. We all tried it and it was the WORST airplane I have ever flown except maybe the 85 HP Swift. The Bird was a top heavy ground looping sluggish sideways flying almost out of control bag of sticks. In fact a guy finally ground looped it and the pieces of wood that poured out of the wing tip looked like soda crackers. It was pulled in for repairs and I never saw it fly again.
We did have a lot of others, though, that great fun. At the same time there were new airplanes showing up like the Johnson Rocket, Globe Swift, Navion, and the Beechcraft Bonanza that cost 7500 dollars new. I either got stick time or a flight in all of them. They were fast and very modern but I got my kicks out of the stick and tube stuff. There were many PT-19's used in the GI Bill training programs and we rented them all the time to try our hand at everything we could think of until somebody noticed some cracks in the wing skins. I stuck to my old stand by, the Stearman.
One interesting tidbit that I remember was my job to mow the grass between the runways with a tractor and sickle bar. I kept hitting unseen items in the tall grass that turned out to be pieces of wreckage from the many crashes on the field. We had to dig them up and soon had a pile in back of the hangar that was a good ten feet tall.We also found a parachute bundled up and tied. Inside were the remains of a pilot ( nothing but bones) that had been too mangled to warrant a coffin.
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My memory kicked in while I was thinking about the wreckage sites on the field and many have asked why so many right on the airport. I used to ride out to the airbase to watch the action on Saturdays when I was in school and many times during the week in the summer. There were many engine failures on take off, many pilot failures, and mishaps that caused many crashes on the field. A P-40 can cartwheel after a ground loop and a wheels-up landing can leave a lot sheet metal in the ground. The P-51 wreckage with the bones in it I believe was the crash I saw when a group of five came over the field in echelon. The leader started the fighter pitchout and pulled up into a tight climbing turn, dropped the gear, and made a tight circular appraoch to land. The No.2 man decided to pull a few wing tip streamers on his pull up and did so very brightly until the airplane executed a high speed stall and tumbled into the ground with a sharp whap. It was reaIly sad to see a beautiful airplane and its pilot turned into a heap of jagged metal in 10 seconds.I'm certain that that was the wreckage we dug up. It was in the right spot.
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I'm not familiar with Mc Coy. I flew into Pinecastle Airbase in 1944 in a crippled B-24 once. Number three dead and smoking like hell. Several years ago I drove by the ex- Pinecastle and it was a huge international airport now. But I could still look to the south into that open flat space. There was nothing but grass and rattlesnakes around Pincastle then.
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Charlie, thanks for the nice comments. I have been working on " my story" for about three years and I have it in book form. I don't know how or if any outfit will want to publish it but I must try. I have been told that I didn't live an average life. I didn't. Flying was just a part of it. I worked in the Everglades running a radar station, been a life guard during the war when I was 16, went out with the commercial fishermen in Florida at 15 , and have done a whole bunch of weird things. I want my survivors to know about it.
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Charlie, thanks for the nice comments. I have been working on " my story" for about three years and I have it in book form. I don't know how or if any outfit will want to publish it but I must try. I have been told that I didn't live an average life. I didn't. Flying was just a part of it. I worked in the Everglades running a radar station, been a life guard during the war when I was 16, went out with the commercial fishermen in Florida at 15 , and have done a whole bunch of weird things. I want my survivors to know about it.
Switches