The lighter side of flying

Readers may already be familiar with Weekend Wings #24, which gathered together interesting and amusing stories from the world of aviation.  I've since discovered another source - three separate Web pages, all on the Aerofiles Web site.  I'll pick out one story from each of them.


From On The Lighter Side:

High-Priced Furniture Van

The B-36 was one big airplane. The wings spanned 230 feet, and the interior of the wing was high enough for a man to walk through the root. Then, if he liked, he could crawl through to the outboard engines. This enormous empty space was frequently used to store all the exotic things that the crews brought home with them on long overseas flights.

The flooring of the interior of the wings was made of a waffled magnesium, bonded to the outer skin of the wing. These waffles were often found to be cracked and the bonds separated, which posed a potentially serious structural problem. This led to an investigation. After one overseas flight an engineer was shocked to see the unloading of cases of booze, motorcycles, and furniture from the aircraft. Further investigation showed that this was more or less common practice. One official report read: "32 cases of Scotch bounced on the flooring for 31 hours, leading to material failure." The nasty habit was stopped immediately.

My source is Grover Ted Tate, who served on the B-36 for several years. I can't resist citing him directly: "It was a good thing that they didn't see the MG automobile that I unloaded from my particular aircraft or they might have really been upset!" (— Grover Ted Tate: Bombs Awry)

From More Lighter Side:

Smoke Time

During his early air mail days, J. D. Hill used a cigar as a navigation instrument. Before he left Cleveland one day for Hadley Field, New Brunswick, with a load of mail and a pocket full of cigars, he was informed that he would have clear weather until he reached the Alleghenies, but would have to fly over clouds in crossing the mountains to the coast. So, before he started down the runway he lit a cigar, which lasted until he reached Mercer PA. There he realized his clock had quit working.

It was vital to know the time to know when to go down through the clouds. Recalling that his cigar had lasted from Cleveland to Mercer, he thought it over. "That's 75 miles. I have about 255 miles to go. Let's see ... 75 into 255 is 3 and 30 left over. That's 30-75s ... two-fifths. If I smoke three and two-fifths cigars, I should be about over Hadley, if I'm on my course."

Hill took four cigars from his pocket. placed three beside him and lit the fourth, then took off. When it was finished he lit another and on he went, chain-smoking over the clouds. When two-fifths of the last cigar was gone, he throttled back and went down through the clouds and there—a welcome sight not far away—was Hadley Field. (— From a Pittsburgh newspaper 3/19/38 via Lloyd Santmeyer)

From Son of On The Lighter Side:

Lost In a Mental Fog

During his time as a check-pilot for production Constellations at Lockheed's factory in Burbank, [George] McEntire had more experiences than you can shake a control-stick at. Once he overheard where an Air Force Connie was having panel problems while trying to get into Burbank on a foggy night—its ILS and other instruments for a blind landing were not working. They circled above the fog, awaiting instructions.

Ol' George suggested to the Operations chief that he take a Connie up and lead them down on his instruments, which seemed like a sensible idea, since the local fog was light enough to permit that. He got a co-pilot and galloped off to the rescue, pulling up alongside the circling C-69.

"Tuck in as close to my starboard side as you can without chewin' off my tail," he radioed the other Connie, "Turn on your headlights and stay right with me. Keep me in sight, and I'll get you down, OK?"

The C-69 driver agreed that was a good plan, and closed the gap between them. With Ol' George's co-pilot acting as a lookout, they formed up for an approach and slipped into the fog layer.

"How they doin'?" Ol' George asked his co-pilot.

Looking over his shoulder at the lights of the shadowy C-69, he answered, "Right with us."

Although Burbank's runway was wide, Ol' George stayed off to the left to land on the dirt shoulder, letting the C-69 have the full runway. They came in low over the fence and touched down.

"How about now?" he asked.

The co-pilot said, "They're down."

Ol' George, uncertain of what might lie ahead in the fog, hit the throttles for a go-around back to the runway. As they climbed, the co-pilot said, "Guess what?"

"What?"

"They're still with us..."

After some patient radioed instructions, Ol' George got them on the runway the second time and convinced them to stay down.

There are many more stories at each of the three links.  Great fun, and recommended reading.



Peter