Great shot of the Thunderbird F-16 Ejection

"Big John" wrote in message
...
Dudley

OK. Here's an address I set up. Try it.

In mean time, a story about the "Captive Air" trainer at Willie.

The F-80A/B both had the little engine (3850-4000 lb thrust) and fuel
control was manual.

The fuel valve was like a water valve (90 degrees from off to full
open) and connected directly to the throttle. The fuel boost pump was
the I-16 (prior use as main fuel pump in Bell P-59) that pulled
something like 15-20 amps when running.

Starting engine you had to manually move throttle between idle and
idle cut off to keep engine running (fire burning) and temperature
with in limits.

With the manual fuel control, it took 21 seconds to go from idle to
full throttle. If you moved faster, you overtemped the engine or blew
the fire out.

With this little back ground, back to the "Captive Air". This was a
F-80 mounted on steel posts in a flat attitude (same as you sat on the
ground on the gear.)

The mounting posts were long enough that the wheels cleared the ground
so the gear could be retracted.

Student studied procedures and after deemed ready was put in the
"Captive Air" for a start and simulated flight. Instructor stood on
wing to talk the student through start, simulated take off, gear
retract, throttle acceleration, gear down, simulated land and
simulated go around, etc.

After we used up (crashed) all the F-80A/B's we went to all T-33's and
they tore the "Captive Air" down (

The only significant difference between the 'A' and 'B' was the 'B'
had a ejection seat. When I first got to Willie they had the ejection
seats deactivated as they were scared students couldn't handle them.
Shortly later the word came down from on high. If the bird has a
ejection seat, activate it. All the T-33's had ejection seats so
students were exposed to them prior to going on to the F-84 or F-86
and Korea.

More "War Stories" later G

Big John

`````````````````````````````````````````````````` ``````````````````````````
````````````````````


On Fri, 30 Jan 2004 04:15:28 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:

John; I haven't gotten anything from you except what I've seen here. I've
been hitting the reply to sender button here and I guess that is going to
the hotmail.com address.

Don't have too much time in the T-Bird; a few hours up in Canada. Some in
the F86 which was a blast to fly; then into T38's and finally the F14 for
some test work. Did an evaluation of the Snowbirds Tutors that was fun; A
ton of time in prop fighters; all as a civilian BTW! :-)
I remember the T-Bird simulator though. I believe it was called the C11B;
you probably remember it ; the zero reader eight ball and all that! Much
better than the old Link ANT18 yellow and blue monster we learned on.
The T38 would seem like greased lightning to someone after flying the T33
:-) Just the start procedure would drive a T Bird driver nuts looking for
something to do during spool up!!! It's mostly automatic.
You push the start buttons and watch the clocks. Easy!!
And you don't have those big 230 gal. centerlines hanging out there either
which is nice!! Then there's the ultimate. You can take a 38 out to about .9
and max deflect the ailerons. This will bounce the helmet of the back seat
guy right off the canopy! :-)
Lord, I miss the fun times!! :-)
Dudley