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More from rabbitfangs
This trainer jet is set up just inside the gate at the Estrella Warbird Museum. Pretty cool plane.
Category Photography / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 960px
File Size 438.7 kB
They were the first 'jet' the pilots got to fly after completing prop school.
One of the reasons the T-37 earned the name 'Tweet' was because there was this 'little' gap between the intake cowling and the engine intakes, at idle the airflow across the gap would give you this nasty high pitched screech out of the dang things (dog whistle from hell). Fifty cents per engine for a gasket to fix the noise, but the air force didn't bother.
And 'tiny'? We had one emergency in for failure on the nose gear down and locked. They foamed a section of runway for it, but the pilot balanced it on the main gear until it was doing almost nothing and let it tip over to drag on its nose for about ten yards. A couple techs ran over to it, two jumped up and grabbed the tail to pull the nose off the ground, one forced the now bent nose gear doors out of the way, pulled the nose gear down and pinned it so it couldn't collapse again, pinned the main gear, and then they pushed it off the runway. (two good sized guys could 'tow' one of those things they were so light.)
One of the reasons the T-37 earned the name 'Tweet' was because there was this 'little' gap between the intake cowling and the engine intakes, at idle the airflow across the gap would give you this nasty high pitched screech out of the dang things (dog whistle from hell). Fifty cents per engine for a gasket to fix the noise, but the air force didn't bother.
And 'tiny'? We had one emergency in for failure on the nose gear down and locked. They foamed a section of runway for it, but the pilot balanced it on the main gear until it was doing almost nothing and let it tip over to drag on its nose for about ten yards. A couple techs ran over to it, two jumped up and grabbed the tail to pull the nose off the ground, one forced the now bent nose gear doors out of the way, pulled the nose gear down and pinned it so it couldn't collapse again, pinned the main gear, and then they pushed it off the runway. (two good sized guys could 'tow' one of those things they were so light.)
Now I see why Rocket T. Coyote was calling it a dog whistle. LOL figures.
Please......I'm dying here! That kind of landing sounds like a Mack Sennett movie. I'd kill to see a film of that whole thing!! Probably wasn't funny to the guys at the time, but I bet it's made for some freakin' great stories over a beer or six.
Please......I'm dying here! That kind of landing sounds like a Mack Sennett movie. I'd kill to see a film of that whole thing!! Probably wasn't funny to the guys at the time, but I bet it's made for some freakin' great stories over a beer or six.
Actually, it was 'a whole lot to do over nothing'. They 'planned' in case it all went to hell, but nothing did.
Unlike some RF-4Cs a decade later. If you want something as a 'holy shite' movie, I'll tell you a little story ...
A little background is in order. The RF-4C flies on a pair of J-79 engines with afterburners. The Air Force rates these engines for 600 flying hours before they require a major tear-down and rebuild (this is because they had had too many engine failures and sometimes loss of the aircraft itself.) Rather than having to do both engines at once (and to lower the risk of two 'old' engines failing together) they trade out an engine every 300 flying hours. And they had no problem launching a bird with 599.5 hours on the old engine, they just couldn't take off after 600.
Bergstorm AFB (now an IAP) was southeast of Austin TX, and the bird in our story took off with 599 hours on their older engine, completed an hour and a half training run and when we tune in they were killing time and fuel shooting touch-and-goes (which don't count as landings.)
They had just lifted off again when the number four ring of compressor blades came apart (think of the spokes of a bike's wheel all firing out through the tire at once.) They're called blades for a reason and they sliced out of the engine and into the rest of the craft. Several sliced into the aft fuel cell above the engines, starting a fire, but the real killing blow was one blade slicing through the thin panel separating the engines and taking out the still working engine's fuel control control.
So they have little speed, little altitude, one engine good for nothing but ballast and the other they can't get above idle - and the end of the runway's behind them.
Oh, did I forget to mention we had a northern that day, so to takeoff/land they were flying north - towards Austin?
Oh, yeah, and it was noon, so the streets are full of traffic.
The pilots rode their crippled bird to the last possible seconds before ejecting. Before they'd bailed they'd aimed and stalled their bird - stalled to the point that it 'pancaked' on impact - the pieces were big enough to require a flatbed trailer rather than those little bags used on most crash sites.
The pilots did stop traffic coming down on their chutes, later seen waving the firetrucks on from a corner.
The bird impacted a vacant field next to a 'sto-n-go', damaging two units.
Unlike some RF-4Cs a decade later. If you want something as a 'holy shite' movie, I'll tell you a little story ...
A little background is in order. The RF-4C flies on a pair of J-79 engines with afterburners. The Air Force rates these engines for 600 flying hours before they require a major tear-down and rebuild (this is because they had had too many engine failures and sometimes loss of the aircraft itself.) Rather than having to do both engines at once (and to lower the risk of two 'old' engines failing together) they trade out an engine every 300 flying hours. And they had no problem launching a bird with 599.5 hours on the old engine, they just couldn't take off after 600.
Bergstorm AFB (now an IAP) was southeast of Austin TX, and the bird in our story took off with 599 hours on their older engine, completed an hour and a half training run and when we tune in they were killing time and fuel shooting touch-and-goes (which don't count as landings.)
They had just lifted off again when the number four ring of compressor blades came apart (think of the spokes of a bike's wheel all firing out through the tire at once.) They're called blades for a reason and they sliced out of the engine and into the rest of the craft. Several sliced into the aft fuel cell above the engines, starting a fire, but the real killing blow was one blade slicing through the thin panel separating the engines and taking out the still working engine's fuel control control.
So they have little speed, little altitude, one engine good for nothing but ballast and the other they can't get above idle - and the end of the runway's behind them.
Oh, did I forget to mention we had a northern that day, so to takeoff/land they were flying north - towards Austin?
Oh, yeah, and it was noon, so the streets are full of traffic.
The pilots rode their crippled bird to the last possible seconds before ejecting. Before they'd bailed they'd aimed and stalled their bird - stalled to the point that it 'pancaked' on impact - the pieces were big enough to require a flatbed trailer rather than those little bags used on most crash sites.
The pilots did stop traffic coming down on their chutes, later seen waving the firetrucks on from a corner.
The bird impacted a vacant field next to a 'sto-n-go', damaging two units.
I was working the swing shift, got told the tale and helped unload the truck. Damned if it didn't look like a Mythbuster prop that they'd dropped from under a hundred feet, slightly nose up and left wing down a tad. I'd help clean (find every bit) another crash a while before where the bird was scattered across a large field and they needed as much as they could find to try to figure out why it had gone down. This one was easy for them because the whole tail/fuselage was still in one piece.
Sometimes I wish I had gone in the service back in the days. I had a medical out when the draft would have got my ass back in the late 60s. But I totally believed if I was drafted I'd have been made a helicopter gunner and lasted maybe 1/2 of my first mission. Or at least that's how I remember it. Those were some pretty strange days. If you know what I mean.
For sure. I'm going to visit the Warbirds Museum soon with my good camera and get some decent pix of the planes, copters and whatever else they have on display out there. They even have a Saturn 5 rocket engine in there. You can walk up to within about 15 feet of it right on the roadside. I shoulda taken a pic today but I was engrossed with my Geocaching and the planes going overhead.
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