Jim Scanlon (deceased)
Senior Staff 
FORUM CHAPLAIN
Commander South Texas outpost of the County Sligo Squadron
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,075 
Location:
Joined: July 2007
Retired: USAF
NBA: Spurs
NFL: Niners
MLB: Giants
NHL: Penguins
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Post by Jim Scanlon (deceased) on Nov 6, 2009 11:15:20 GMT 9
:salute :us_flag :salute
While doing some Christmas looking at the Randolph BX this afternoon, I decided to let De do the toy looking and I went in to the garden shop to look at some of the men toys.
I began to hear a very distinctive sound from the sky. I headed for the back door and looked West to where the sound was coming from. It was one of the most distinct sounds there is. I looked to the sky above the West Runway and there they were: A T6 Texan, the original one made by North American, and a P51 Mustang, also from NAA. What a beautiful sight.
The T6 was lead and the Mustang was on the port side and a bit aft. The T6 makes a lot of noise when it is in the pattern, the counter balanced prop sees to that. It is such a distinct sound, it is never forgotten by those of us who worked on them.
The T6 got it's prop balanced and then I could hear the mellow sound of the exhaust and prop of the Mustang's big Packard V12.
Gave me some goose bumps to hear them.
I am blessed in having worked on both birds in 1952-53 at The SCAB.
This weekend is the Randolph Air Show and they have lots of War Birds and some more recent ones, scheduled to be on display and in the air.
As we were driving to the base, we saw the passover of the F22 that is there for the show. Very distinctive look in the air. Too bad there will be so few of them in the air.
Jim Too
:god_bless_usa
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Post by jimpadgett on Nov 6, 2009 22:07:33 GMT 9
The super charger on the P-51 makes a very distinctive sound too. Last time I saw heard one was an Armed Forces day at Duluth in 1966, I think.
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Post by Jim on Nov 7, 2009 2:49:11 GMT 9
The P51 I worked on at George was a P51H, which still looked like the D..
Although the engine in the C, D, and the H models were made by Packard, they were still Rolls-Roce Merlin engines............The earlier A,B and some C models were equipped with Allison angines as used in the P38..... The Merlins were water cooled non blown engines of 1695 hp with another shurt burst of 200hp called war emergency, or as the old pilot told me, "lets get our ass outa here". This was because the throtle stop bar could be broken by a hard push fwd. The use of this "burst" required an engine teardown inspection............. The P38 used 2 Allison V1710 blown 1000hp engines............. Still the 2 most beautiful prop driven aircraft.
The Old "I was there" Sarge
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