Analytic readers will by have now surmised that your correspondent’s Great Western Motorcycle Adventure will probably have to await another retirement cycle. There were just sufficient had-to-do’s sprinkled about my terminal leave to deny me the leisure of a 8-10 day trip, and anything shorter – while feasible – would have been more enforced rigor than pleasurable journey. I do appreciate the many public and private offers of roadside companionship, however. Maybe if I get fired…
Anyway, Tailspin Tom has graciously offered the right seat of his Beechcraft C-45 from here to French Valley for the proverbial $100 cheeseburger. Which, what with gas rates as they are, has mushroomed to maybe $250. But it’s not everyday you get a hack at the controls of a WWII era (1952 re-manufacture) twin recip, 450hp (each) taildragger. Even from the right seat.
Tom sent along this annotated view to help me out with the cockpit familiarization. I told SNO that it all looked pretty straightforward apart from the oil cooler levers, that I wasn’t sure how to use them.
“Maybe when the oil starts getting hot?” he replied.
Engineers.
The Beech 18/SNB/C-45, is a great flying machine. I was fortunate enough to fly right seat in them as a loader/co-pilot for the summer of 03. Ours were working machines, they flew cargo regularly between HNL-MKK-LNY, carrying everything from school supplies to dead bodies. There will be times you will feel you are in a time machine, especially if you do a dawn patrol mission. Nothing beats the sound of those big radial engines. Have fun, it will be a great experience. Also, there’s a guy who does aerobatics in a highly modified Beech 18, he performed at Sun n Fun this year. Its highly modified, but one of the more graceful aerobatic performances you’ll ever see.
The good old Super Navy Bomber (SNB or Beech-18) is as old as I am. Spent many enjoyable hours doing “instrument training” flying from NORIS to Nellis for lunch on the Vegas Strip and home in time for secure.
Had one of those moments of sheer terror flying from NAS Buckley in Denver to Salt Lake City in an SNB. My flying partner needed to get home to SLC for family business. It was December. We flew into the clag at 12,000 feet just west of Laramie. Cracking ice off the wings and props for two hours as we plowed through the wintry sky.
Instrument approach into SLC in a blizzard. Runway was a snowy trench between hedge rows of plowed snow. Touch down was normal. Minimal application of breaks led to skidding, which led to swerving, which led to doing donuts down the runway. Forward motion was finally cancelled by sliding into a snowbank …….tail first.
Judicious application of power freed the SNB from the snow. Visibility was so bad the tower had not observed our acrobatic accomplishments. We requested taxi to parking as if all was normal. Which maneuver was accomplished with all due diligence.
A meticulous post-flight inspection revealed……….no damage; not even a scratch!
The return flight on the following day was accomplished in brilliant, if frosty, clear blue skies. Passing over Rock Springs at 10,000 feet it was apparent we had picked up a mighty tailwind. Our ground speed was 240 knots. We may have set a new speed record for SNB from SLC to Buckley.
Enjoy the flight and particularly enjoy the landings. They are really different for anyone used to tricycle gear.
The very first entry in my first of three Navy log books is a 3.4 hour flight in UC-45J Buno. 67112. Lots of water under the keel and Bernoulli’s over the wings since that first flight. No wonder I look like I do.
xairboss,
Think you made a typo. Buno’s have 6 digits (I still remember 159105, one of my first Hummers – how could you forget that?)
The only way you could have flown something with a 5 digit buno would be if you were really, really…..oh, sorry.
Best,
Nose
Hey…didn’t…” out of the clear blue of the Western Sky…comes Sky King” … fly something similar to this old bird ? Best
PS, That Penny sure was a chaste semi-hottie for the times.
Nose , You sure are one mean sprited, walled-eyed, Pedantic Pecker-Wood… suggest cutting xairboss some major slack…it’s obvious from his picture that he has other issues to contend with. Best
Landing the Bug smasher can really be an exercise in frustration bordering on panic, sometimes. Other times it is really fun.
Snake Eater;
Similar. Sky King started out flying a Cessna T-50 “Bobcat” (Bamboo Bomber), then later switched to a Cessna 310.
I must be missing something here. I looked at the linked picture over a flickr and never could find the control yoke. Where is it?
Jim C
Snake-
Ooops. Apologize for using the SkyKing-niece Penny analogy but I just did up above in the post flight entry. you being such a proprietary ol’coot..I give you all credit. Cessna 310.
How about that jingle? “Out of da clear blue of da western sky comes….Lex”:
http://skyking.com/
b2
Nose:
FYI, the other UC-45J’s I have flight time in are 39243 and 39851. Might I suggest that you are showing your lack of experience (an Obama supporter perhaps) by suggesting that all Bunos are six digits. Before six digits came five digits. And yes, I am almost older than dirt but have over 1,000 traps in six digit Bunos. With respect to your first Hummer flight in a 159 series, I was ancient by the time she was produced. I’m even more ancient now, but life is good.
boss-
I see you are still an airboss at heart. i.e. no sense of humor when paddles throws a dig your way. I have nothing but respect for my Naval Elders, mostly because they stayed alive flying them there death traps in dangerous sit-e-a-shuns.
I was just making fun of your, ahem, “maturity”
I’ll shut up and just get ‘em aboard.
Nose
LEX: If you can’t do the motorcycle thing in person, but still have the “need for speed”
(land-speed that is) rent “The Worlds Fastest Indian” from netflics or blockbuster and get yours vicariously. A nice, low-key job of acting by Anthony Hopkins based on real-life NZ racing legend Burt Munro who set numerous records, some of which still stand.
Of course, if your inclined to go in another direction check out “Wild Angels” (1966) w. Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Michael J.
Pollard, Nancy Sinatra, et al. It was a hoot! (At least it was at the time to a bunch of 2nd Lts in pilot tng) Google it. Over the top and ahead of its time. Lay in two cases of your fave for it–one to drink before viewing and the other during–its that kind of deal.
Nose:
I did take your comment in the humorous vein it was intended. Guess I’m just not good at funny come backs.
You young’uns don’t know how good you have it.
I’ve got plenty of 4-digit BuNos in my logs.
Course, we had to wind the rubber bands by hand in those days.
Rellag, xairboss, Nose, et. al.
You mean to tell me that there are people still alive who flew propeller planes with radial engines while on active duty? Lemme tell you something too, I worked on an aircraft that was made in 1981 once, and hoo-boy was that thing ever old. Veritable museum piece, it was.
C’mon, next thing you’re going to tell me you remember ships with wooden decks and movie projectors.
/me hastily flees the wrath of his elders
Rellag:
You have me beat by a country mile. The best I can do is several flights in a TC-117D BuNo 12443. Best regards for a continued long and productive life.
Boss, I am the class clown. I almost never say anything serious, ’cause I’d just embarrass myself.
I never flew anything older than a T-2, but I once got two traps in one day- one prop and one jet – I’ve always thought that was pretty cool.
Other than that, no big claims to fame (except I just found out that I have flight time in the E-2 whose nose is on the Hangar deck of Midway as a tourist attraction, now.)
I remember the wooden deck of the USS Lexington but that was after you were born whipersnapper.
4 digit BUNOs! That must have been before WWII!
Nose- Is that your name on that E-2 “nose” sticking out of the side of the “Flight Deck Lounge” at NAS Pax? If it ain’t it should be.
I’ll assume the second trap in a prop that day was an E-2 right? Not a T-28, right?
b2
B2,
I have never been on the ground at Pax, and I was not very well liked by the Hummer bubbas there, so I doubt it. How long you been there? You know any of my guys? Bung, Chachi?
Yep, E-2. I think that one was at night. First one was Hornet, day (of course, day.)
They told us when we CQ’d on Lex in late 80’s that parts of the flight deck were still wooden, but hell if I remember ANYTHING from that day except for the AirBoss shouting at me and then whispering to me off the cat.
We had a wooden deck on one of the submarines I rode. Two wooden decks, actually. One was what we stood on in the “doghouse” in the sail; the other was in missile tube 15 where we had what was euphemistically called a “thermal rewarmer”…