C-47 "Thats All Brother"

[Brian Dick]

I think if i ever got an invite for a jump refresher and the opportunity to put my knees to the breeze from a Dakota/C-47, I'd be there in a heart beat. What a fantastic old bird!

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[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Great post!
I grew up very near the local airport well into the jet age but there were a lot of DC3s making regional cargo runs. If I close my eyes I can still here that beautiful sound of those engines on short final. Fell asleep to that sound many a night.

[bigduke6]

I'm hoping to get to Normandy next week, unsure if I'll catch the celebrations though, but will try, I'll be in the van with the AJS in the back, the van acts as a mobile workshop and camper......... I've a few bits to do on the bike before I leave but plan on using this along the coast searching for bunkers and use the van as a Base.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I'm hoping to get to Normandy next week, unsure if I'll catch the celebrations though, but will try, I'll be in the van with the AJS in the back, the van acts as a mobile workshop and camper......... I've a few bits to do on the bike before I leave but plan on using this along the coast searching for bunkers and use the van as a Base.

Sounds like a sound plan. Enjoy the trip for those of us who cannot attend. Perhaps you can post a few photos for the rest of us?

[bigduke6]

Will do HoH, I've just bought another WD bike but unfortunately I don't have time to pick it up, cure the niggles and repaint in time. But it will be ready for next year along with the Matchless. There is a lot to take in on the way down, lots of bunkers etc so would expect plenty of pics.

[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

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

My father was a bit of a pioneering fellow

Great post. The fuel mishaps sounds exactly like the incident that prompted Bob Hoovers development of the "Hoover Nozzle" and almost got him in the same aircraft.

[gary]

Thank You for posting

[CINDERS]

Can I ask something Bob in some of the books I have read they say the fatal thing to do with engines in trouble is to execute a turn back to the airstrip which may induce a spin in, no doubt some pilots have affected the turn with dying engines then again he may have had no choice in the matter if he was over buildings rather than crash into suburbia. RIP to your dads pilot friend and passengers.

[Paul S.]

Can I ask something Bob in some of the books I have read they say the fatal thing to do with engines in trouble is to execute a turn back to the airstrip which may induce a spin in, no doubt some pilots have affected the turn with dying engines then again he may have had no choice in the matter if he was over buildings rather than crash into suburbia. RIP to your dads pilot friend and passengers.

There are two things about turning aback to the departure runway with an engine out in a multi-engine aircraft. First, turning into the 'dead' engine can - as in almost always - cause a spin since you have less thrust, and therefore, less lift on that wing. Second, and this applies equally to single engine aircraft, you normally take-off into the wind (runways are usually arranged to align with the prevailing winds), to take advantage of 'free' lift provided by the flow of the wind over the wings. Given a 5 Knot wind, it's like having 5 knots more airspeed at take-off. So, turning back to the runway means making and 'upwind' landing. You lose that extra airspeed times two, so that hypothetical 5 knots of wind in the previous example becomes a 5 knot tailwind. With that, say your landing speed is supposed to be 120 knots, your actual airspeed with the 5 knot tailwind is 115 knots and your ground speed is 125 knots. Higher wind speeds obviously could get you close to stall speed. I've seen it happen. That said, I did an upwind/crosswind landing in a Cessna 150 during a simulated engine out on take off once, but it was a calm wind day so airspeed was not a factor.