Oh, he's good...

Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in news:jPSdnQVqtcu-
:
You knew Dick Schramm? Cool!

Most of the time I did this I was flying barefoot anyway....

Bertie

Knew both Sr. and Jr. Both were great guys. Dick Jr. was on the mike
narrating for Dick when he was killed.
He was probably one of the finest sticks ever with a light plane.
It was a freak accident, and I used it in my "Importance of
Preflight Inspections" safety talks for many years.

I don't know how it happened, in fact. My father saw it and came home
talking a buch of BS about how it was a result of that fake stick
thing he used to do, and in fact I heard that story from the usual
suspects for years afterwards, but I alwyas thought it sounded like
BS.

Bertie

The way we got it was that Dick used to "borrow" a J3 from Red Bank
when he was doing the clown act at Reading. I believe it was their
airplane that day that he was using.
Apparently they had used it the day before for a photo shoot and had
taken the rear stick out of the airplane to accommodate that mission.
When the stick was put back into the airplane after the photo shoot,
whoever put it back apparently forgot to replace the lower cotter pin
that safties it in the bracket.
Dick was doing one of his low altitude loops and had just gone through
the upper energy gate and was starting down the back side when the
stick came out of the bracket. He had 0 control at that point. I swear
I saw him trying to put it back in the bracket (of course we had no
way of knowing this was what he was doing at the time).
He went straight in. Never had a chance. Dick Jr. was on the mike and
I don't know how in hell he got through it but he kept his cool and
tried to quiet everyone down. We both knew it was bad.
Anyway, that's what happened.

Oh. OK. That's what I heard, in fact.

Dick is remembered fondly in the aerobatic and demonstration
community. There is an award in his name and he is probably the only
person ever to be made an honorary Naval Aviator without going through
Naval Flight training. A wonderful guy, and a great pilot. Never had a
bad word for anyone about anyone.
The cotter pin should have been checked secured before the display but
for some unknown reason it was missed.

Jesus.
I don't think the rear stick on a J-3 comes out. Maybe they do but I'm
guessing the airplane was modded. Some of the tugs I flew had no rear
stick and no rear rudder pedals, but they were heavily modified.


Bertie