Is it time to jump yet? (Read 616 times)

:us_flag

It was July 1953. The Midwest was hot, as usual, and lots of thunderboomies. I wasn't worried about the heat at Sioux City Air Base, Iowa (SCAB), I was flying to LAX in our Gooney Bird , 004, for an auto-pilot replacement mod. We, two pilots, SSgt Tony Gonzalez and I flew to LAX, via Kirtland for fuel and then a fly over of the Grand Canyon. We landed at LAX and taxied to the North American Aviation ramp, on the south side of LAX and turned the bird over to a NA mechanic. In the time we were there I visited my aunt in Hollywood. Then it was back to LAX. Whoops! Needed one more day. Oh, Well! Guess we would just have to suffer for another day. Finally, North American said the auto-pilot was done and the bird was ours. We all got there on time and did a preflight and climbed in and got ready to roll. Base ops asked us if we could take some passengers. Told them we were planning on landing at Wichita for gas and could take them that far. It was a bunch of Marines, right out to Boot Camp, and a Lt.Col. doctor and his son, an A1c who needed to go to Kirtland. As we were going down the runway, aiming toward the Pacific Ocean, the pilot pulled back the throttles and told us we had no airspeed. Whoops! Pulled off and Tony and I opened the cargo door and I ran under the plane and took the pitot tube cover off. Seems the paddle on it didn't pull it off and one of us didn't pull it on preflight.
Off we got and headed out over the desert. The pilot engaged the auto-pilot and, yep, didn't work. So, we kept going and made our first stop at Kirtland to drop off two passengers. Refueled and back in the air and headed for Wichita. Landed there and dropped off the somewhat air-sick Marines, after a pretty rough flight across the prairies and all the turbulence. Two of the Marines, both corporals, were going on to SCAB with us to head home.
As we got going one of the Marines noticed some oil going over the starboard wing. Tony and I looked at it and decided to just keep watch on it. The oil flow kept getting a bit worse, but the oil pressure, oil temperature, and cylinder head temp. were in range. As we were flying north along the Missouri River, the flow kept getting worse and we kept a close look at the gages. The pilots were talking about going in to Offutt, but decided we were closer to SCAB and let's head home and watch the leak. We handed the Marines their chutes and told them to put them on, just in case. Tony and I kept going back and forth from the cockpit to take a look at the oil flow. We were about 50 miles south of SCAB, when we got in to a storm. We were only flying at about 5000 feet and couldn't steer around it, so just bored on ahead. Let me tell you, a Gooney Bird really flaps it's wings in a thunderstorm. The rain was really drumming on the aluminum skin and it was hard to move around for the turbulence. The four of us on the crew had headsets on and Tony and I were listening to the SUX tower talking to our pilot. He had declared an emergency as the oil pressure was dropping on Number Two and the cylinder head temp was going up. We were getting closer and finally, up ahead we saw sunlight. Whew, what a relief. Just as we broke through the storm the oil pressure went to zero and the cylinder head temp soared. Tony reached up and hit the feather button at the same time as the co-pilot pulled back the throttle on Number Two. Just at that point, there was a loud bang from Number Two and the prop feathered and stopped. The pilots held the yokes, Tony hit the gear handle and I pushed the flap handle down. Next sound was a big sigh as the tires squealed on hitting the runway. Taxied to our ramp and shut down Number One and got off. The Marines were some shaken, but at least they didn't get sick. We were all happy to be on the ground and thankful we were flying in a C47.
The inspection of Number Two showed that the oil starvation had blown the number one cylinder off of the engine casing, shearing the bolts and putting a dent in the cowling. That was the only damage and after a cylinder change, borrowed from Braniff Airlines, 004 was back in the air.
That is the closest I ever came to having to ride the silk elevator.
Jim

:god_bless_usa







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