2012 11 Tarpa Topics
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Transcript of 2012 11 Tarpa Topics
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one-time-fly the aircraft to Taiwan for a new wing, and the tech rep told him, "Colonel, I wouldn't taxi that frigging thing to the end of the runway!"
One of the maintenance sergeants motioned to me to join him under the wing. He showed me where they'd pulled off a panel to expose the front spar. It was cracked all of the way through, and the rem-nants of a dud 23mm shell was laying next to the wing panel on the ground. At that point, the tech rep came over to me and asked if I was the pilot who had last flown the aircraft. When I said yes, he said, "Captain, you have to be the luckiest SOB I've ever seen. I just got done talking to our engineers at the factory, and none of them could understand why the wing had not broken off."
He asked me, "How far did you fly the aircraft after it was hit?" When I said a couple of hundred miles, he just laughed. It seems like all of the things that happened during and after the time I was hit had been in my favor. First, I wasn't pulling any "G's." Second, we flew straight home with no hard control movements. Third, I hadn't jettisoned the tanks, and last of all, and probably most important, the weather prevented us from doing a 360 overhead landing pattern. The two “G” break would probably have pulled the wing off.
The aircraft never got fixed. It was cannibalized for parts, and left at Phu Cat. One of our crew chiefs, Dick Westbrook, removed the stick grip for me, and I still have it. It continually reminds me that Fate is, indeed, the hunter! [Not having seen the previous two Intake articles to which Ed refers, I emailed him and he responded with a little background—Ed.]:
“...perhaps a few facts about the F-100. Worst peacetime accident record of any military aircraft, center wing box failures causing wings to fall off during high "G" maneuvering, etc. Adverse yaw problems, both in the traffic pattern (sabre dance), high "G" lower airspeed maneuvering also killed a lot of guys. That said, it was a great aircraft to fly. Needed a lot of attention to the rudder, many times hard applications, both at high "G" loads and in the landing pattern. Very high takeoff and approach speeds, the "C" model, built without trailing edge flaps, was 185K basic over the fence, and was at about 200K at liftoff with a com-bat load. Very nose high on T/O and landing. The nose blanked out the runway on rotation, and on a night landing, you had to judge your landing looking left and right at the lights. I remember my IP tell-ing me before the first flight to just rotate until it scares you, and then another couple of degrees and it'll fly. ...it was a great aircraft to fly once checked out. The wing problems developed years after they were put into service, and if I recall correctly, were the result of drilling holes into the center wing box to carry stores, especially nukes for the alert mission. These holes got spider cracks due to the flexing of years of "G" loading, and finally started to fail.”
The Air Force Thunderbirds flew F-100s from 1956—1968
Google Images
Photo by the author
N823TW and a sister ship on the butcher’s block in the early ‘70s Photo by Harry Sievers; Jon Proctor collection.
REMEMBERING THE 880 The grapevine section of the March 2009 TOPICS (P. 91, available on line at www.tarpa.com, click on ‘Topics Archives’) contained the story behind the famous picture of a Convair 880 departing Houston, taken by retired DAL Captain Larry Pullen, sometime in the ‘60s or early ‘70s. This was brought to mind while working with com-mentary and images submitted by both Buck Pratt and Wally Moran regarding their flying the last TWA CV-880 flight, 449, ORD—MCI, June 15, 1974; all of which appears on the next two pages.
Following that is a reprint of an article of the TOPICS editor’s memories of flying the 880 which appeared in the August 2012 is-sue of Galt Traffic, newsletter of EAA Chapter 932 at Galt Airport (10C) Green-wood, IL (where he ‘hangs’) and which just won the EAA National ‘best newsletter for 2012’, award at EAA AirVenture 2012. Talented editor Beth Rehm is also our Chapter web master, see: www.eaa932.org. In the article there is a link to a video clip which is taken from 8 mm film shot in 1973 at EWR and PIT. If you are reading the print edition and do not have a smart phone, go to www.youtube.com and search for, ‘flying the cv-880’. You will also find several other good 880 video clips there. The March 2007 TOPICS, also available on line, contains the original equipment panel drawings that you received in 880 ground school.—JJH
Images and commentary submitted by both Buck Pratt and Wally Moran. Photo was taken from the roof of our MCI overhaul base.
Ben Boyd & Rollie Hoffman
Wally Moran and Buck Pratt
Buck wrote, “...I am especially pleased that a pix of Ben Boyd and the F/E is included. There is not an 880 driver yet alive who does not know Ben Boyd ...” [Note the bug speeds on the T.O. data card at right—and they were not very heavy with nearly 40,000# of open wt. Warnings about operating Jets at MKC were often punctuated with, ‘or you’ll have the fastest tricycle in the Missouri River.’ - Ed.]
H. B. ‘Buck’ Pratt, TW 1955-1989 W. J. ‘Wally’ Moran, TW 1964-2003 Roland ‘Rollie’ Hoffman, TW 1967-1997 Ben Boyd, 1919-2005, TW 1945-1982
CORNERVIDEO
Galt Traffic Page 4
Memories Of Flying the CV-880By Captain Jeff Hill Sr. (Retired)
I flew the Convair 880 from thesummer of 1965 to the summer of1967 as an F/O and as captain from1969 through 1973.
Just about everyonewho flew the880 fell in love with it because it wassuch a dream to hand fly. It did havea good auto pilot and dual flightdirectors and I think it was our firstaircraft to receive approval forCAT IIapproaches.
The 880 was not without someshort comings. It used very high airspeeds on takeoff and landing as ithad no wing leading edge high liftdevices. It was a handful after losingan outboard engine at V1 and therewasmore thanone training flight thatended 'in the mud'.
Most flight training and checkingback then was done in the airplanesuntil the advent of the wide body jetsand the later generation of supersophisticated simulators withrealistic visual displays.
We did most of this training atKansas City's MCI where ouroverhaulbasewas located.Air carrieroperations were still at MKC whichtoday is Kansas City WheelerDowntown Airport; a biz jet bee hivealmost within walking distance ofdowntown KC.
The 880 did not havewind shieldwipers. It had what Convair called'rain clear' which was hot enginecompressor bleedair blasting them. Itworked pretty well but was terriblynoisy and when you closed thethrottles on landing it kind of poopedoutwhen theengines spundown. Inaheavy rain youhad to get into reversequickly to spin themup and getmoreair.
The 880was the only plane I everflew that had nose wheel brakes.Several conditions had to be met forthem to operate: Thenose strut had to
be compressed and the wheelscentered and both brake pedals hadto be depressed. There were weightreduction penalties if theywere inop.You could also drop the main gearonly to use as speed brakes in anemergency descent. This could bedone up to 375 kt or M .88.
The wing anti-icing was a 'hotleading edge' heated withcompressor bleed air and workedwonderfully. If I remember correctly,the tail was heated electrically? Wehad plenty of electricity with four biggenerators producing 115 v, 400 cpsthree phase AC.
Likemost sweptwingairplanes ithad a tendency to get into 'dutch roll'so the yaw damper (the rudderchannel of the auto pilot) was alwaysengaged just after takeoff anddisengaged on touchdown.
It was smoky and noisy but sowere the707andDC-8with theirnon-fan 'straight pipe' engines. The laterhigh bypass ratio engines weremuchquieter and didn't smoke somuch ontakeoff. Some of us called her, 'oldsmoky' and to fly it was to be 'On Topof Old Smoky' which was a popularsong around that time.
The 880was the fastest of the firstgeneration jet airliners. We cruised itat M .85 and the Mmo was .88. Somethought that that is where Convaircameupwith the number 880.Othersthought it was because the passengercabin had 88 windows. We jokinglycalled it an'808' in a silly attempt tomake it sound better than a '707'.
I think the largest operators of the880 were TWA and Delta. We bothhad around twenty. The CV-990 wastoo little, too late. The only twoairlines I can remember that operatedthe 990 in large numbers wereAmerican and SwissAir. My typerating says "CV-880; CV-990" so Iassume they were quite similar.
Jeff Hill, Sr. is a retired TWACaptain, long time EAA member and aformer editor ofGaltTraffic.He currentlyenjoys flying his Aeronca L-3.
Scan this QR code with yoursmartphone to see Jeff's videoof "Ole Smokey" on the GaltTraffic You Tube Channel.
Click here if you don'thave a smartphone.
TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC OR, IN THE WAKE OF HMS BOUNTY
By Bud Kuball, collated by Ms. Carol Ann Hawley When you mention the words “South Pacific,” it usually brings forth different connotations for most people. Some may think of Captain Cook's many voyages in the 18th Cen-tury, others of an idyllic island-studded paradise. From a male standpoint one could imagine sitting under a palm tree with a coconut daiquiri in one hand, a beautiful Polynesian woman in the other and living very comfortably (?) on your Social Secu-rity check. (It's okay to dream once in a while.) And then there was World War II, which, for many, the memories were not very pleasant.
With the foregoing in mind, in mid-December 1993 I just hap-pened to read the weekly travel section of The Wall Street Journal and came upon this ad. It read as follows:
“Bora Bora to Great Barrier Reef. Jan-Sept 1994 on gor- geous 65' sailboat with professional skipper. $2500/month for all or part of Adventure of Lifetime, up to 4 guests.— Call J. J. 408-667-2720”
This intrigued me and I mulled it over during the Holiday Sea-son. By the time the New Year rolled around, I was hooked – I had to call J. J. This I did on 2 January 1994.
J. J. Answered the phone and said that she had chartered a MacGregor 65 foot sail boat for two years to sail around the South Pacific. She was paying Six Grand ($6,000.00) a month for this privilege and that included a full time 24/7 Captain – Bruce Graham. To help alleviate this cost she would like to have up to four “guests.” At $2500/month three guests would put her in the black and with four she would be drinking “Black Label” every day.
This sounded like a fun trip to me so I told J.J. To sign me up for a month. This she did. She also said she was leaving in five days—7 January 1994—for Monterrey, California, to begin the voyage on ‘Scott Free’ the 65 foot sailing vessel. They would be sailing south along the California coastline, Baja California, Mexico, Coastline, and then to Coco Island (Costa Rica) followed by a turn to the south-southwest heading for the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador).
After that it was all “Blue Water”—open ocean—all the way to Tahiti in the Society Islands.
Tentatively, J. J. Set me up to join the cruise at Papeete, Tahiti, probably around the end of February or first part of March (1994).
She had a business friend in Sausalito, California, a Ms. Pat Ripley, who handled all her paperwork and communications. J. J. would communicate with Pat via satellite telephone every other Thursday, so if I needed any information to call on the Friday after.
The die was cast—I was going to sample a bit of the South Pacific “Paradise”!! To seal the deal I mailed a deposit of $500.00 ....
Cap’n Bud aboard SCOTT FREE, Kingdom of Tonga, April 1994. “Home is where your
cocktail hour is.”
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