Fly Boy ?????

More to the point, what did the manufacturer have to say on that subject?


I would think the operator would have better information on the ditching
behavior than would the manufacturer.

Unlike some other Naval aircraft, the TBF/TBM were known as "floaters" and it
was not uncommon for them to remain at or near the surface for some time after
they were dumped overboard or ditched. My first instructor in A-school had
started his career a thousand years earlier as a little pup turret gunner in
Avengers and would occasionally share stories with us from either his time in
them, or things he had heard from the "old hands" when he was first starting
out. (OT That dude was crusty old, to the point you couldn't even guess - I
noted that he didn't carry an ID card, just a disk with a Roman emperor's
profile on it. His first ship was some sort of trireme, "I **** you not".)

Without knowing sea state, winds and surf conditions at the time, or taking
into account the controlability issues, its very difficult to second guess
Bush's choice of silk or ditch. I would rather ditch than bale, primarily
because I was a SAR swimmer and I believed that I would find a way to not
drown. Knowing that Bishop, a former NCAA swimming ace, had died in an H-46 in
the best shape of his life didn't tarnish my unshakeable faith that if I
survived impact, I would make it out of the water alive. (Or be found in the
wreck with my hands around the pilot's neck.)

v/r
Gordon

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: nt (Gordon)
Date: 10/23/03 2:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id: 20031023175241.07974.00000029

Knowing that Bishop, a former NCAA swimming ace, had died in an H-46 in
the best shape of his life didn't tarnish my unshakeable faith that if I
survived impact, I would make it out of the water alive. (Or be found in the
wreck with my hands around the pilot's neck.)

Best line of the thread.

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: (ArtKramr)
Date: 10/23/03 6:46 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: nt (Gordon)
Date: 10/23/03 2:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id: 20031023175241.07974.00000029

Knowing that Bishop, a former NCAA swimming ace, had died in an H-46 in
the best shape of his life didn't tarnish my unshakeable faith that if I
survived impact, I would make it out of the water alive. (Or be found in
the
wreck with my hands around the pilot's neck.)

Best line of the thread.

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer



Funny but probably true.

Knowing that Bishop, a former NCAA swimming ace, had died in an H-46 in
the best shape of his life didn't tarnish my unshakeable faith that if I
survived impact, I would make it out of the water alive. (Or be found in
the
wreck with my hands around the pilot's neck.)

Best line of the thread.

Funny but probably true.

There were flights I wouldn't let my junior crewman take because I felt the
mixture of pilots on the flight was not safe. My junior crewman was married -
I wasn't. No frickin way I was facing Rhonda if Danny didn't make it back.
We had a truly scarey pilot, a berserk MO (also a pilot), and a pair of J.O.s
that were known to our detachment as the Terror Twins. These guys were like
oil and LOX - think "Bickersons" wearing helmets. I briefed Danny to always
fly with his pen flare out; in case the Twins killed him, I instructed him on
which pilot to

dammit. Rambling again. Sorry, guys.


Gordon
PS, for every crappy pilot, there is one you'd follow straight into hell if he
asked.

Subject: Fly Boy ?????
From: nt (Gordon)
Date: 10/23/03 10:28 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

Knowing that Bishop, a former NCAA swimming ace, had died in an H-46 in
the best shape of his life didn't tarnish my unshakeable faith that if I
survived impact, I would make it out of the water alive. (Or be found in
the
wreck with my hands around the pilot's neck.)

Best line of the thread.

Funny but probably true.

There were flights I wouldn't let my junior crewman take because I felt the
mixture of pilots on the flight was not safe. My junior crewman was married
-
I wasn't. No frickin way I was facing Rhonda if Danny didn't make it back.
We had a truly scarey pilot, a berserk MO (also a pilot), and a pair of J.O.s
that were known to our detachment as the Terror Twins. These guys were like
oil and LOX - think "Bickersons" wearing helmets. I briefed Danny to always
fly with his pen flare out; in case the Twins killed him, I instructed him
on
which pilot to

dammit. Rambling again. Sorry, guys.


Gordon
PS, for every crappy pilot, there is one you'd follow straight into hell if
he
asked.


Watch that stuff Gordon. You might be attacked for having attacked the "worrior
class".whatever the hell that is. (sheesh)

Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

nt (Gordon) wrote:


Without knowing sea state, winds and surf conditions at the time, or taking
into account the controlability issues, its very difficult to second guess
Bush's choice of silk or ditch. I would rather ditch than bale,

--cut--

I agree...we flew a lot of hours over the Atlantic, both North
and South and not a few over the Pacific as well, most of it
below 1000 feet and I can tell you that it's one uninviting
sight, especially in winter. One doesn't want to imagine trying
to survive down there in a 40-50 knot gale with a continuous
expanse of whitecaps from horizon to horizon in all directions.

I'm sure that you can easily agree Gordon. shudder

One of our crews had that possibility 'up close and personal'.

They had been planting a field of sonobuoys (about mid Atlantic)
when one stuck in it's chute halfway out. It went just far enough
to uncover the vanes which, being dragged along at ~170 Knots
spun at a great rate till the bolt holding the hub on wore off
and the vanes spun up into the a/c belly, slashed through the
skin and cut off a torque tube used to control the elevators.

This caused no end of concern to the cockpit crew who all had
suggestions ranging from "Putter in the water" to "head West"
(home) to "head for Lajes" (closest land) and several other
wildassed suggestions.

Anyway, it was decided to head (gently) for Lajes (good l o n g
runway, plus good wx etc). The crew experimented with flaps and
power to replace the function of the elevators (cautiously).

Anyway they had a nearly uneventful landing at the Azores.
(albeit with quite tired sphincters)

It was one of my squadron's aircraft and crews so luckily I
wasn't aboard.

My point is that only the crew involved has enough facts to make
the decision required about the best course to take. That's why
the buck stops at the Crew Captain's seat. It certainly doesn't
preclude the rest of the crew making suggestions nor him using
(or not) any/all of them (CRM) but the FINAL decision must be his
alone.

I've done considerable flying on 'multi-man' flight crews and
I've always thought this, I've also applauded the CRM aspect when
it started being encouraged/required just a few years ago.
--

-Gord.

Bush's choice of silk or ditch. I would rather ditch than bale,

--cut--

I agree...we flew a lot of hours over the Atlantic, both North
and South and not a few over the Pacific as well, most of it
below 1000 feet

In P-3s, slamming along in the whiteout "somewhere" down close to the water...
or eating saltspray in the doorway of an H-2. Folks thought I was brain dead
to ask for H-2s, supposedly little killers, but my experiences in P-3s led me
to believe that in extremis, I had some control of my fate in a helo. While on
maritime patrol in a big Orion, I felt that I was one of the obliterati if we
ever crashed.

One doesn't want to imagine trying
to survive down there in a 40-50 knot gale with a continuous
expanse of whitecaps from horizon to horizon in all directions.

Or trying to do it alone, which is what happens if the crew bails out and gets
separated.


I'm sure that you can easily agree Gordon. shudder

frickin a. I'm picturing the Sea of Ohkotsk at the moment - always just a few
feet away, waiting with its cold embrace.

They had been planting a field of sonobuoys (about mid Atlantic)
when one stuck in it's chute halfway out. It went just far enough
to uncover the vanes which, being dragged along at ~170 Knots
spun at a great rate till the bolt holding the hub on wore off
and the vanes spun up into the a/c belly, slashed through the
skin and cut off a torque tube used to control the elevators.

Gotta love those rotochutes. We launched buoys horizontally, out of a box
pinned to the fuselage floor against the back of our seats - with a CAD (16
little gunpowder charges each the size of your fist) about a foot behind our
backs. BA-A-M - thick smell of cordite. Look out the window of my station and
see a 3-foot cylinder packed with sensitive sonar equipment falling away toward
the water 200 feet below. But wait - this one doesn't have the familiar white
parachute,
its OH CRAP, ITS ONE OF THOSE POSSESSED THINGS! We are flying along with a
"friend", a well-wound up rotochute sonobuoy (SSQ-36 if you're interested) that
had caught some bizarre lift and, buzzing like a hornet, it shot past below us
at an angle that made it look as if it was trying to clip our tail.

mutters "You've killed us, you arrogant ass!"

"What, SENSO?"

"Nothing sir. Buoy in the water, up and sweet."

This caused no end of concern to the cockpit crew who all had
suggestions ranging from "Putter in the water" to "head West"
(home) to "head for Lajes" (closest land) and several other
wildassed suggestions.

That was my job on the crew. In a Star Trek universe, I would be the guy
killed before the opening credits.

Anyway, it was decided to head (gently) for Lajes (good l o n g runway, plus
good wx etc). The crew experimented with flaps and power to replace the
function of the elevators (cautiously). Anyway they had a nearly uneventful
landing at the Azores.
(albeit with quite tired sphincters)

doubtless.

My point is that only the crew involved has enough facts to make
the decision required about the best course to take. That's why
the buck stops at the Crew Captain's seat. It certainly doesn't
preclude the rest of the crew making suggestions nor him using
(or not) any/all of them (CRM) but the FINAL decision must be his
alone.

My advice was not usually taken. LOL "Aim for the bridge of that carrier
if we can't make it back to our own ship, but don't just GIVE the Soviets our
helo!" [Two helmeted face turn to face me, as if I was an alien or
something...?]

G

"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
nt (Gordon) wrote:

(Snip)

One of our crews had that possibility 'up close and personal'.

They had been planting a field of sonobuoys (about mid Atlantic)
when one stuck in it's chute halfway out. It went just far enough
to uncover the vanes which, being dragged along at ~170 Knots
spun at a great rate till the bolt holding the hub on wore off
and the vanes spun up into the a/c belly, slashed through the
skin and cut off a torque tube used to control the elevators.

This caused no end of concern to the cockpit crew who all had
suggestions ranging from "Putter in the water" to "head West"
(home) to "head for Lajes" (closest land) and several other
wildassed suggestions.

Anyway, it was decided to head (gently) for Lajes (good l o n g
runway, plus good wx etc). The crew experimented with flaps and
power to replace the function of the elevators (cautiously).

Anyway they had a nearly uneventful landing at the Azores.
(albeit with quite tired sphincters)

It was one of my squadron's aircraft and crews so luckily I
wasn't aboard.

Interesting story. If it happened anywhere between 1960-63, that would have
been my outfit (57th ARSq) that got the mayday and gone out to pick them up and
escort them in to Lajes. We had a pretty big SAR area of responsibility,
roughly 1,000 miles in all directions, so we often found ourselves up near
Iceland looking for guys heading our way who were in trouble.

We had one instance where a guy ferrying a single engine plane (I don't remember
what make it was) to the Middle East for its new owner, a sheik of some sort,
developed engine problems and sent out a mayday. We made radio contact with him
and simultaneously scrambled an HC54, although it was quite late in the day. He
reported that he had passed over a freighter about 30 minutes previously and
said that he didn't think he'd be able to stay aloft until our plane got there,
so we advised him to make a 180 and see if he could locate that vessel while it
was still light and then ditch alongside it, which is exactly what he did.

The freighter picked him up and deposited him in Galveston Texas a couple of
weeks later instead of the middle East. After we determined that the pilot had
been rescued, we recalled our aircraft. We sent out another flight at daybreak
the following day and, amazingly, we found his abandoned aircraft still afloat
in the Atlantic.

George Z.

"George Z. Bush" wrote:


"Gord Beaman" wrote i

It was one of my squadron's aircraft and crews so luckily I
wasn't aboard.

Interesting story. If it happened anywhere between 1960-63, that would have
been my outfit (57th ARSq) that got the mayday and gone out to pick them up and
escort them in to Lajes.

No, actually it was in the early seventies, likely 71 or 72.

We had a pretty big SAR area of responsibility,
roughly 1,000 miles in all directions, so we often found ourselves up near
Iceland looking for guys heading our way who were in trouble.


We knew of your reputation and I can say that it eased our minds
a lot too. You need all the friends that you can get out there.


We had one instance where a guy ferrying a single engine plane (I don't remember
what make it was) to the Middle East for its new owner, a sheik of some sort,
developed engine problems and sent out a mayday. We made radio contact with him
and simultaneously scrambled an HC54, although it was quite late in the day. He
reported that he had passed over a freighter about 30 minutes previously and
said that he didn't think he'd be able to stay aloft until our plane got there,
so we advised him to make a 180 and see if he could locate that vessel while it
was still light and then ditch alongside it, which is exactly what he did.


This sounds very familiar...I'm sure that I read about that
incident somewhere.


The freighter picked him up and deposited him in Galveston Texas a couple of
weeks later instead of the middle East. After we determined that the pilot had
been rescued, we recalled our aircraft. We sent out another flight at daybreak
the following day and, amazingly, we found his abandoned aircraft still afloat
in the Atlantic.

George Z.


That's pretty amazing indeed, a huge bulk oil tanker looks
unbelievably tiny in that absolutely huge expanse of ocean when
seen from altitude. Then as you circle around it while punching
down down down to 'rig it' (photograph and get it's data to
report ashore) it keeps getting bigger and bigger till it's a
huge steel monster spouting smoke from what seems like about a
dozen big stacks, with men scurrying to and fro on the decks
doing god knows what.

You fly along the length of it about 50 feet off the water
snapping photos as you go and with other crewmembers scribbling
it's description rapidly. They all get their heads together and
decide if they have enough info and you either 'rerig' or pork on
climb power and get your butt up to your cruise altitude (usually
around 8,000 feet - an optimum radar altitude).

It's mind-bending to watch all this size and complexity dwindle
as you circle and climb, it keeps shrinking slowly and being
replaced with white-caps till you actually lose sight of it in
all that huge expanse of white cap strewn miles of ocean from
horizon to horizon. Makes one realize how insignificiently tiny
man is.
--

-Gord.

In article ,
nt (Gordon) writes:
More to the point, what did the manufacturer have to say on that subject?


I would think the operator would have better information on the ditching
behavior than would the manufacturer.

Unlike some other Naval aircraft, the TBF/TBM were known as "floaters" and it
was not uncommon for them to remain at or near the surface for some time after
they were dumped overboard or ditched. My first instructor in A-school had
started his career a thousand years earlier as a little pup turret gunner in
Avengers and would occasionally share stories with us from either his time in
them, or things he had heard from the "old hands" when he was first starting
out. (OT That dude was crusty old, to the point you couldn't even guess - I
noted that he didn't carry an ID card, just a disk with a Roman emperor's
profile on it. His first ship was some sort of trireme, "I **** you not".)

According the the NACA report I referenced in a post to this thread
just previous to this, the Avenger was fairly well behave when
dithced, unless the bomb bay doors were open or caved in, which wasn't
all that uncommon an experience, especially with a battle-damaged
airplane. (The doors were held shut by hydraulic pressure - no
pressure, the doors open.) In that case, it would dive under teh
surface quite rapidly. These results were, of course, determined
under controlled conditions, in an instrumented test tank. They don't
address the environmental stuff that rules anything involving sailing
on/flying over Blue Water, mainly...


Without knowing sea state, winds and surf conditions at the time, or taking
into account the controlability issues, its very difficult to second guess
Bush's choice of silk or ditch. I would rather ditch than bale, primarily
because I was a SAR swimmer and I believed that I would find a way to not
drown. Knowing that Bishop, a former NCAA swimming ace, had died in an H-46 in
the best shape of his life didn't tarnish my unshakeable faith that if I
survived impact, I would make it out of the water alive. (Or be found in the
wreck with my hands around the pilot's neck.)

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster