Tabla de contenidos para May - June 2022 en Flight Journal

Mike Spalding, the chief pilot of the Military Aviation Museum (MAM), has more time flying DeHavilland’s Mosquito than any current warbird pilot. Just four of the twin, Merlin V-12-powered, wood airframe “Mossies” are airworthy today. The MAM’s DH-98, which first flew in 2012, has accumulated more flight time than any of the survivors, and 100 of those hours belong to Spalding. Known as one of the fastest fighters/bombers of WW II, the “Wooden Wonder” as it was nicknamed is thought by many to be so speedy because its spruce, birch plywood, and balsa construction yielded what they assume is a lightweight airplane. “No way,” says Spalding. “People think they’re much lighter but actually it’s the other way around. It takes a lot of wood to make a strong airframe. There…

TAKEOFF AND CLIMB “On the runway, ready for takeoff, ease the throttle forward. The sustained rumble ahead changes immediately in pitch, growling its way up to a deep-throated roar. Foot brakes off and keep moving the throttle forward, constantly increasing power, until it is all the way forward. The acceleration shoves me back in the seat as the Thunderbolt hurls itself forward. Ease forward on the stick, the tailwheel lifts, the engine torque is terrific; the fighter keeps trying to swing to the left. I keep increasing right rudder pressure to keep her headed down the center of the runway. I check the airspeed indicator and at 110 mph I ease back on the stick to lift her off the ground. Gear up, flaps up, canopy closed and locked. The…

On a hot afternoon in late August 1996, Robert “Hoot” Gibson was making an approach to Greater Kankakee Airport, 50 miles south of Chicago, at the controls of “Riff Raff,” a Sea Fury modified with an 18-cylinder Wright R-3350 radial in place of its original Bristol Centaurus radial. “I had extended my downwind and I’m out there just about to turn base leg and the engine quit… just quit,” Gibson recalls. If Hoot’s name is familiar, that’s not surprising. By 1996, he had flown Space Shuttles Challenger, Columbia, Atlantis, and Endeavour as a pilot or mission commander on five missions between 1984 and 1995. He’d flown F-4B/F-4N Phantoms in combat during Vietnam, made the Navy’s first deployment with the F-14A Tomcat, and then became a Navy Test Pilot at NAS…

The two were joining up to head west, all the way to Auburn, California for Anderson’s 100th birthday party on January 15. Decades ago, cross-country trips in single engine WW II fighters were commonplace, but flying 5,000 miles in a P-51 nowadays is rare. Famed NASCAR team owner Roush bought and restored the Hagedorn Mustang in 1992 as “Old Crow” and flew it extensively until 2006, when Hagedorn purchased it. Roush bought his B model as a wreck in 2002 and had it flying again by 2008. Both Roush and Hagedorn have been very generous in sending their aircraft to be on hand at airshows and events where Anderson has appeared. The trip west was made in four legs over two days. Fowler and Draper, director of maintenance for Roush…

LEROY RANDALL GRUMMAN had an uncompromising design philosophy that led his company to produce generations of great carrier-based fighters and attack airplanes. His approach was the natural result of his 30-year experience as a naval pilot in WW I, a naval test pilot, a general manager and test pilot of Loening amphibians and later president and test pilot of the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp. aircraft until the end of WW II. His simple philosophy: to build only easily produced, maintained and reliable combat aircraft that can be readily mastered by 200-hour, wartime pilots who are trained to fly from a carrier, engage in successful combat, sustain combat damage, return to the carrier and land their aircraft after dark so that they can be available for combat again the next day.…

THE P-47 THUNDERBOLT PILOT of 1945 wore and carried lots of stuff, and little of it gave meaning to the military term “uniform.” At Metz, France, in January 1945, the group and squadron commanders of the “Hell Hawks” 365th Fighter Group posed in their gear in front of a wrecked Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf 190. The men are from left to right: Maj. George R. “Bob” Brooking (386th FS); Maj. John W. Motzenbecker (387th FS); Col. Ray J. Stecker (group commander); and Maj. Robert M. Fry (388th FS). This shot illustrates the variety of gear worn by Army Air Forces (AAF) fighter pilots in the European Theater of Operations (ETO)—in this case Ninth Air Force pilots on the European continent. It shows how availability and preference influenced what was worn. Starting from…

After releasing its full load of 500-pound bombs, Lt. Col. Gerald Wickline’s B-52 aircraft received a hard hit from a Russian surface-to-air missile (SAM) followed by three more explosions. It shattered his windows and reduced his instruments to worthless hardware. The aircraft immediately became almost impossible to control, according to Wickline. Downstairs, the Radar Navigator, Maj. Roger Klingbeil, was at once awash in jet fuel from a transfer valve that had burst overhead. He was screaming with pain. And the navigator, Capt. Myles McTernan, received some of that fuel spill as it dumped on him and flooded the lower deck. Even worse, a spark from any of the 25-year-old B-52 equipment, switches, instruments, radar scopes, or multitude of electrical connections could cause a blast that would destroy the plane and…

Piloting a Hellcat was similar to piloting a Wildcat, which was used in combat, making it easier for new pilots to check out. Entrance to the cockpit is very easy. After you take the pilot’s seat, you’ll find a very large and well-ordered place to work. The view over the nose is excellent compared with those of Mustangs, Spitfires and Warhawks; they had forward-vision blind spots caused by their long noses that rise in front. The Hellcat pilot could see 100 yards down the runway directly ahead of the propeller. The cockpit’s interior was well laid out because Grumman cockpit engineer Bruce Smith had designed all of the preceding Grumman fighters’ cockpits. He was, therefore, well acquainted with the requirements of Navy and Grumman test pilots. The Hellcat’s engine started…

June 13, 1943 “I lifted the wing, slid the P-47 through a gentle curve in her dive and lunged for the Focke-Wulf 190. Closer, closer, the square wings, big black crosses in the sight, growing larger, clearer. Trigger squeeze, stick steady, the lead is exactly right, he’ll fly into the bullets, hold it down. Crash! Something’s hit me! The Thunderbolt trembled so violently my finger flew from the trigger and the explosion stopped. It was my own guns. All that noise and vibration, the flame and smoke, had come from the eight heavy .50-caliber guns blasting away. I was so scared I nearly jumped out of my seat. Then violent flame, a sudden mushrooming flower of bright fire, jagged pieces of metal twisting crazily, black smoke. There goes the Focke-Wulf, torn…

The Komet was not a war’s-end-crazy-idea born of desperation, as is often believed. In fact, the design began in the late 1930s, and the prototype flew in 1941. It was the hands-down winner for the crown of fastest operational aircraft of World War II, both in speed and climb. From the technological view, it included some of the most advanced aerodynamics airborne at the squadron level during the war, and might have presented the most performance ever eked out of nonstrategic materials (wood wings). It also presented, however, more danger to its pilot than any other aircraft flown operationally during WW II by any combatant (if Japan’s Baka Bomb is ignored). Further, for all its stellar technology, it had little or no effect in combat. WHEN IT WASN’T EXPLODING OR…