SBD Makes Deadstick Landing

This past Saturday, I had the privilege of flying in a massed Veterans'
Day formation at DeLand, FL. I was leading White Flight, consisting of
my Johnson Rocket, a Comanche and a Bonanza.

We had arranged to form up over Bob Lee Airport with Red Flight,
consisting of an SX-300, a T-34 and and SBD Dauntless from Atlanta. The
formation assembly and flyby went well, with about 18 total planes, in
five flights. Apparently both people on the ground liked the flyby.

The Dauntless went to New Smyrna Beach for the night and made a flyby at
Spruce Creek Sunday, on his way back to Atlanta. After the flyby, he
climbed through broken clouds ot 12,500 and blew a jug about 20 miles
out and turned around toward DeLand. After breaking out the bottom, he
was lined up about 5 miles out and 1200 feet, when the engine siezed,
right over Bob Lee.

The pilot, due to our having used Bob Lee as a waypoint, knew right
where he was and deadsticked the SBD in there. Bob Lee is about 2500
feet of rough grass, with poor approaches, so that was a nice job of
piloting! The plane (and pilot) were undamaged, but the R-1820 is trash!

Today, some friends and I went over to see the plane. Oil EVERYWHERE!
You could see which jug had failed, as the cooling fins were all askew,
rather than parallel. We saw no signs of holes in the crankcase, other
than all that oil.

The pilot did a great job, deadsticking it into Bob Lee. Word is that
the owners plan to disassemble it and truck it back to Atlanta, due to
the primitive conditions at Bob Lee. It looks as if all they really need
would be:

1. about 55 gallons of Varsol, to clean up all that oil,
2. a new (or zero SMOH) R-1820,
3. The proper lifting gear to remove prop and engine.