C-47 "Thats All Brother"

[Bob Womack]

My father was a bit of a pioneering fellow. He and his team developed methods for detecting marijuana plants from the air for the CIA through infrared photo spectrometry back in the '60s. The plane they used was a C-47 owned by the university he was on the faculty of. They cut a photo well in the floor and he operated the gear with his feet dangling in the slipstream. He developed a friendship with the pilot, Charlie Lockwood, who also flew the school's DC-3 that carried the sports teams to away games and the VIP Aero Commander (that I once hitched a ride on). Charlie was the safest pilot I knew. My dad and the C-47 were invited to Cape Canaveral for the Apollo 13 mission launch. Their job was to orbit, waiting to locate the parts of the spacecraft and hopefully the command module with their gear should there be a catastrophic launch failure. The Aero Commander later went down with our friend the pilot aboard. He stopped for high-octane fuel at a small airport and the rookie fueling operator filled the tanks with JP5. There was enough AVgas left in the tanks (and the JP5 floated on the AVgas) that when Charlie did his test from the fuel cock at the bottom of the tank, what came out was pure AVgas. He got about a mile off the field and the engines started missing. He circled to return to the field but didn't make it. No survivors.



Bob