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WOODEN WONDER! WE FLY THE DH-98 MOSQUITO THE AVIATION ADVENTURE — PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE

TEST PILOT ADVENTURES

ASTRONAUT GROUNDED BY A SEA FURY

P-47 ACE A HIGH-SCORING PILOT AND HIS NEAR-FATAL MISSION

May/June 2022

BRILLIANT FAILURE Me 163 Komet

16 HOURS IN A MUSTANG Honoring a Legend

LAST MAN OUT Vietnam B-52 Bailout

FLIGHT JOURNAL | MAY/JUNE 2022

THIS PAGE: The Military Aviation Museum's DeHavilland Mosquito flies over the Black Bay Wildlife Refuge. Spring through fall, the Museum puts on Saturday warbird demonstrations. Visit militaryaviationmuseum.org for the schedule. (Photo by Bradley Wentzel) ON THE COVER: John Dibbs gets his camera in close to the Fighter Collection’s F6F-3 Hellcat over the English Coast. The aircraft is painted in USMC colors as flown by Lt. Alex Vraciu of VF-6 aboard USS Intrepid (CV-11) in mid-1944. (Photo by John Dibbs/Facebook.com/theplanepicture)

FEATURES

6 ‹ Test-flying the Hellcat A test pilot’s trials and tribulations in Grumman’s WW II masterpiece

By Corky Meyer

20 ‹ Taming the “Wooden Wonder” Mike Spalding flies the Military Aviation Museum’s DeHavilland DH-98 Mosquito

By Jan Tegler

34 ‹ Jug Ace High-scoring P-47 Thunderbolt pilot Lt. Col. Robert “Bob” S. Johnson

By Clive Rowley, MBE RAF (Ret.)

REGULARS

50 ‹ Riff Raff

4 ‹ Editorial

The Hawker Sea Fury that forced an astronaut back down to Earth

32 ‹ In Theater: What they wore

By Jan Tegler

By Robert F. Dorr and Charles E. DiSipio

58 ‹ Last Man Out

50 ‹ Gallery: Me 163 Komet

Miracle in the South China Sea

By Heath Moffatt

by Paul Novak

66 ‹ Tailview Sixteen Hours in “Old Crow”

By Jan Tegler

FLIGHT JOURNAL (USPS 015-447; ISSN 1095-1075) is published bimonthly by Air Age Inc., 57 Danbury Road, Suite 202, Wilton, CT 06897 USA. Copyright 2022, all rights reserved. Periodicals postage paid at Wilton, CT, and additional mailing offices. Canada Post Publications Mail Agreement No. 40008153. SUBSCRIPTIONS: Go to FlightJournal.com. U.S., $39.95 (1 yr.); Canada, $50.45 including GST (1 yr.); international, $54.95 (1 yr.). All international orders must be prepaid in U.S. funds; Visa, MC, Discover, AmEx, and PayPal accepted. EDITORIAL: Send correspondence to Editors, Flight Journal, 57 Danbury Road, Suite 202, Wilton, CT 06897 USA. Email: flight@airage.com. We welcome all editorial submissions but assume no responsibility for the loss or damage of unsolicited material. All material contained herein is protected under the terms of U.S. copyright laws. Reproduction in any form, including electronic media, is expressly prohibited without the publisher’s written permission. Copyright 2022 Air Age Inc. All Rights Reserved. ADVERTISING: Send advertising materials to Advertising Dept., Flight Journal, 57 Danbury Road, Suite 202, Wilton, CT 06897 USA; 203-529-4604. Email: advertising@airage.com. CHANGE OF ADDRESS: To ensure that you don’t miss any issues, send your new address to Flight Journal, P.O. Box 7337, Wilton CT 06897 USA, six weeks before you move. Please include the address label from a recent issue, or print the information exactly as shown on the label. For faster service, email service@airage.com. POSTMASTER: Please send Form 3579 to Flight Journal, P.O. Box 7337, Wilton CT 06897 USA.

EDITORIAL MAY/JUNE 2022 | VOLUME 29, NO. 3 EDITORIAL

Astronaut “Hoot” Gibson (left) and Corky Meyer (above)—two extraordinary aviators who test-flew aircraft a generation apart.

“HOOT” GIBSON PHOTO COURTESY OF NASA/CARLA THOMAS

Editorial Director Louis DeFrancesco Executive Editor Debra Cleghorn Technical Editor Gerry Yarrish CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Bud Anderson, James P. Busha, Ted Carlson, Doug DeCaster, Robert S. DeGroat, John Dibbs, Jim Farmer, Paul Gillcrist, Phil Haun, Randy Jolly, Frederick Johnsen, Geoffrey P. Jones, Ron Kaplan, Peter Lert, Rick Llinares, John Lowery, George Marrett, Peter Mersky, Dan Patterson, Steve Pace, Stan Piet, Alfred Price, Clive Rowley, Brian Silcox, Jan Tegler, Warren Thompson, David Truby, Barnaby Wainfan, Chuck Yeager ART

Art Director Betty K. Nero

The making of legends

T

he pages of Flight Journal have always been filled with riveting stories by extraordinarily talented aviators, many whose experiences were history-making.

When you read our story “Riff Raff” by Jan Tegler, it would be hard to imagine a pilot more talented than astronaut Robert “Hoot” Gibson. Though the story is about his harrowing entry into the world of Unlimited Air Racing, his aviation achievements are amazing. By the mid ’90s, he had flown Space Shuttles Challenger, Columbia, Atlantis, and Endeavour as a pilot and mission commander. 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 Naval Air Station Patuxent River. He was then selected by NASA to become an astronaut. From riding the shuttles at 17,500 mph and rounding earth every 90 minutes to piloting jets like the F 101 Voodoo, Hoot is the ultimate pilot.

Almost four decades earlier, in 1944 at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, another test pilot, Corky Meyer, was taking part in a fighter conference where pilots were not only flying all the U.S. aircraft in competition, but Axis and British fighters as well. At the time, Corky was Grumman’s top dog wartime pilot and one of the only civilians ever to be carrier-qualified by the U.S. Navy. Corky was the chief test pilot on the Hellcat, and you can read all about the trials of testing this portly but lethal fighter in our story, “TestFlying the Hellcat.” Not only was the Hellcat a record ace-maker, but it was also a stone-cold killer produced in huge numbers that contributed to the Pacific victory in WW II. We are also excited to have an exclusive Pilot Report on the DeHavilland DH-98 Mosquito by top warbird pilot Mike Spalding that you won’t want to miss! Mike is the chief pilot of the Military Aviation Museum (MAM) and has logged thousands of hours in warbirds—and more hours than any pilot in the ultra-rare Mosquito. Be there in the cockpit with Mike as he takes flight in this wooden, twin-Merlin-powered war machine.

So, gather around and get the straight story from these legendary pilots who were there, risking everything and making history.

—Louis DeFrancesco

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TEST-FLYING THE A test pilot’s trials and tribulations in Grumman’s WW II masterpiece

BY CORKY MEYER

LEROY RANDALL GRUMMAN had an uncompromising design philosophy that led his company to produce generations of great carrier-based fighters and attack airplanes. His ultraconservative approach was the natural result of his 30year 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. His philosophy provided the U.S. with 30,119 combat aircraft produced during WW II.

Kevin Eldridge in the former Planes of Fame F6F Hellcat, near Chino, California. (Photo by John Dibbs/ Facebook.com/theplanepicture)

The author about to enter the cockpit of F6F-3 BuNo. 25881—the prototype for the F6F-5. Note the absence of fireprotective clothing, Mae West life vest, etc. Such a disregard for safety would take sufficient toll and turned him into a self-appointed flight gear-safety person for experimental pilots for the rest of his career. (Photo courtesy of Northrop/ Grumman History Center)

TEST-FLYING THE HELLCAT

The Hellcat’s gestation After hearing the glowing reports of European fighter combat performance in September 1940, the Navy realized that it needed a fighter whose performance greatly exceeded the Wildcat’s. The future availability of the 2000hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800-10 that powered the Vought XF4U1 Corsair made it clear to Grumman and the Navy that a comparable fighter with that engine should be designed. On June 19, 1941, the Navy ordered on two Hellcat prototypes.

On January 7, 1942, the initial production order was placed for 1,040 Hellcats, and deliveries started in September. Assistant chief engineer Bob Hall flew the first XF6F3 prototype on July 30, 1942. Although typically a very critical test pilot, Hall approved it with only minor changes.

In September 1942, the Navy sent their famed test pilot Cdr. Fredrick M. Trapnell to Grumman to evaluate the Hellcat. After three flights, he officially declared it acceptable for mass production.

In early 1942, Wildcat and Avenger production was transferred to the Eastern Aircraft division of General Motors. This immediately freed up thousands of Grumman engineering, manufacturing,

tooling and machining personnel. This move made the Navy-requested Hellcat production schedule feasible because no more factory facility construction was now needed.

Early Hellcat flight-test problems “If you really wish to learn, you must mount the machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial.” —Wilbur Wright.

Was he Wright! I had been at Grumman for four and a half months and had flighttested Wildcats, Avengers, Goose and Widgeon amphibians and had a few flights in the new XF6F-3 Hellcat. In February 1943, I graduated to become Grumman’s first full-time experimental test pilot. My leaders were apparently pleased with my performance so far. The Hellcat’s performance-envelope testing required a climb to its calculated service ceiling of 39,000 feet. As yet, all test flights had taken place below 30,000 feet.

Pre-oxygenation begins with hard work I entered the Navy’s low-pressure chamber for simulated high-altitude oxygen training and learned about the problems that

The first XF6F-3; Bob Hall landed it in a Long Island potato field when the early Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine failed in August 1942.

The airplane was rebuilt and flew again. (Photo courtesy Northrop/ Grumman History Center)

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TEST-FLYING THE HELLCAT

compounded oxygen starvation at various altitudes up to 40,000 feet. Pilots remained conscious for only five to 10 seconds if the oxygen failed above 35,000 feet. If you were above 37,000 feet, you wouldn’t last more than a few minutes without pressurebreathing masks, and Grumman did not have them at that time.

To get the nitrogen out of their leg and arm joints, pilots had to pedal a stationary bicycle for half an hour while breathing 100-percent pure oxygen and then get to the airplane while breathing oxygen continuously. Others assisted me to dress for this high-altitude flight; they helped me walk to the airplane that had its engine running. I was strapped in and connected to the airplane’s oxygen system; then I made the flight.

The takeoff was normal, and as I had to manually dial a selector switch and read out 40 engine temperatures continuously during the climb, I concentrated on that immediately after I left the ground. I read off a stream of numbers continuously in a very dutiful manner without taking my hand off the mike button until the Hellcat’s climb rate stopped at 19,000 feet. In the pandemonium of reading the engine instrumentation, I hadn’t looked at the other cockpit gauges; sheepishly, I noted 10 FlightJournal.com

that I had not retracted the landing gear!

With my tail between my legs, I came home to a meal of crow that was difficult for a 22-year-old, newly created experimental test pilot to digest. The tower chided me; they saw the landing gear was down but couldn’t reach me on the radio because I was spewing out data on the flight-test channel.

After the shards of my shattered ego had been swept aside, I asked the chief test pilot just why I sweated so profusely while pedaling the bike and felt drunk during the first part of the flight. He said that I shouldn’t have sweated at all; there was a motor to drive the wheel I pedaled.

Everybody had assumed that I knew I had to switch that motor on. Because of my pedaling efforts, I used about 10 times the oxygen I should have consumed and thus was in a hyper-oxygenated stupor during the process. It is a wonder that I did anything right on that flight.

The next day, the flight went smoothly through 30,000 feet altitude; it was the highest I had ever been. As the airplane continued to climb, I became quite nervous.

I felt as though I was venturing into a great unknown. At 32,000 feet, I still rattled off the engine data, but I couldn’t breathe as easily; however, I took a quick glimpse out

After almost a month of testing the F4F-3 Wildcat’s dive capabilities and pullouts at 8G, I was “promoted” to be the new dive demonstration pilot for the F6F-3 Hellcat.

(Photo Air Age archives)

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TEST-FLYING THE HELLCAT

of the cockpit to prove to myself that the world really was round. It looked flat, sad to say. I suspected that this stratosphere thing was grossly exaggerated. This flight in the Hellcat would be a piece of cake.

A very recalcitrant engine At 32,640 feet, the engine quit as though someone had turned the ignition switch off—not one belch, backfire or even a bit of smoke to clue me in on its imminent demise. The plane became startlingly quiet as it turned into a very heavy glider and descended as surely as a barnbound horse. When I came to my senses, I informed the ground station of my plight and tried to start the engine; ASAP was not fast enough for this unhappy pilot.

I quickly checked the three fuel tanks, and the fuel feeding from a full tank was at the correct pressure. I checked outside the airplane for smoke, fire, or oil, but there wasn’t any.

I tried to cycle the magneto switch. I tried a lower supercharger selection to take the load from the now-defunct internal combustion. Nothing happened. By this time, I was down to 29,000 feet and pointing towards the Grumman airport just in case I had to make an engine-off landing. As my altitude decreased, no noisy results were forthcoming, so I then reduced the throttle to idle with the same results. By this time, I was down to 24,000 feet, and I started to get a little upset with Pratt & Whitney and its well known “Reliability and Dependability” logo attached to the oil sump on the front of the engine. I then reduced the propeller revolutions from the full-power setting

12 FlightJournal.com

to a much lower cruise setting. Quiet still reigned supreme. The only thing that I could think of was to reduce the mixture control from auto-rich to auto-lean. That only continued the silence. Without any help from me, the engine came back to life at 17,000 feet. The cylinder-head temperatures soon returned to normal, and I then cautiously increased the throttle and propeller rpm settings. The engine ran very rough, but it ran! I was then at about 15,000 feet, and although the engine was doing its duty, I was totally out of steam.

As I continued to descend, the engine got smoother, but the magneto drop was still more than 300rpm per side. It should have been less than 100rpm.

The “experts” are all too quiet After I had landed, I went over the salient points of the flight. I was met with an ominous quiet that made me feel that the problem was as perplexing to my group as it was to me. The Pratt & Whitney service engineering representative said that he would inspect the engine, change the cigarettes in the spark plugs, replace the “knockulator” pins, etc., and that everything would be back to normal.

The next day, the engineer told me that there was nothing wrong with the engine, but they had put new spark plugs in and adjusted the carburetor and several other parts. It didn’t really sound as if they had found the culprit. He sounded like a doctor, who, after giving you a zillion very costly tests, says, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning if you don’t feel better.”

Forty-four F6F-5s ready for delivery. The peak month for Hellcat deliveries was March 1945; 605 Hellcats and 85 other aircraft, including F7F-1s, were turned over to the Navy.

The photo shows 51 hours’ worth of Hellcat production! (Photo courtesy Northrop/ Grumman History Center)

My second glider flight The next day, I did the oxygenation procedure and started the climb to service ceiling with some hope but greater doubts.

The engine quit again at 32,640 feet, but it was not such a shock. I called the ground station and, as I had done the day before, lowered the pressures in the cylinders by moving all the handles on the throttle quadrant to the rear at once. It began to run again slightly above 30,000 feet. I was pleased with my new ability to bring a silent engine back to life, but I was finished flying for the day.

After the flight, the experts seemed to be flying in zero visibility in search of a solution. The third time I tried to go to service ceiling the same thing happened at exactly the same altitude, and I was disheartened with the “assistance” we were getting from Pratt & Whitney. Our Grumman engine experts admitted that they were completely out of ideas and looked to P&W for answers, but they were not forthcoming.

That afternoon, I recalled that the Republic pilots three miles to the east of Grumman were climbing P-47s daily to 40,000 feet altitude, and they had the same R-2800 model Pratt & Whitney engine installed as in the Hellcat. I soon found out that all P&W engines that flew over the Long Island Sound had the same airdensity problem.

I called Republic’s chief test pilot Carl Bellinger, and he immediately said, “Hell, Corky, you will never go over 32,000 until you get a pressurized ignition harness.” He further told me that the P-47 engines did

the exact same thing at 32,000 feet before they obtained pressurized harnesses.

What an eye-opener! He told me that the Army Air Corps had priority for all of the pressurized harnesses that Pratt & Whitney could produce because the P-47 was soon to enter high-altitude combat in Europe. Pratt & Whitney reps at Grumman had known that the harness on our engines would quit at 32,000 feet, but their management had put them in an untenable position.

Needless to say, we got the Navy brass in Washington to get us a pressurized harness, and I made a most anticlimactic climb to 39,455 feet, which was the service ceiling we had predicted for the Hellcat. All Hellcats received the pressurized harness soon thereafter.

The Hellcat’s transonic tribulations What I am about to relate has been buried in the wartime history of test flying. It is the story of military and civilian test pilots and engineers who alone worked against the completely unknown effects of an unexpected phenomenon in steep dives and in light-structured fighters called “compressibility.” It was a dangerous prelude to the transonic sound barrier.

Unfortunately, too many service and test pilots lost their lives unwittingly diving into this new and dangerous flight arena.

Very few aeronautical industry personnel outside of NACA (now known as NASA) had ever heard of Mach numbers or compressibility.

Research engineers who studied this phenomenon in government wind

May/June 2022 13

TEST-FLYING THE HELLCAT

An early production F6F-3 shows the early wartime blue gray over medium gray color scheme. Most -3 Hellcats sported the classic tricolor scheme of dark blue upper surfaces, medium blue sides and white undersurfaces.

tunnels in the 1920s and 1930s discovered shockwaves that developed on their models, which choked the test sections of tunnels between 0.7 Mach and Mach 1.2.

This completely scrambled all of the data collected; thus, they were in the dark in this important area.

By December 1941, John Stack, head of the high-speed flight wind-tunnel section at NACA, stated, “No one is about to solve this problem for some years to come—if ever.”

Training to be a structuraldemonstration test pilot I was directed to stop the program for Hellcat speed improvements and begin a full-dive demonstration program in F4F-3 Wildcat (BuNo. 12249). The Navy chose the Wildcat because it could dive vertically from its service ceiling until it reached terminal velocity at 10,000 feet and then safely pull its designed load factor of 8G. Wildcats had also been in service squadrons for five years and had made hundreds of maximum speed dives to more than 8G without any difficulties. I was soon to learn the old axiom, “Many times, Mother Nature gives the final exam before presenting the lesson.”

The Hellcat and I meet compressibility As the new Hellcat demonstration pilot, I was assigned to perform a high-speed dive point of 485mph (580mph true airspeed) 14 FlightJournal.com

combined with a 2.5G pull-up to start the Navy structural demonstration—a seemingly simple, straightforward dive.

On April 7, 1944, during the first Hellcat demo flight in F6F-3 (BuNo. 26101), I pushed over from 28,000 feet to what I had estimated to be a 60-degree dive angle and concentrated totally on the buildup of airspeed versus the rapidly decreasing altitude. I estimated that I would attain 485mph indicated airspeed just as I went through 10,000 feet and then make the easy 2.5G pullout. To maintain the 60-degree dive angle during the speed buildup, I continuously adjusted the elevator with more nose downtrim to overcome the aircraft’s natural tendency to nose-up with increasing speed.

At about 12,000 feet, just before I started the simple pullout, I noticed that the aircraft suddenly didn’t require any more nosedowntrim because the nose was now going down on its own and rapidly increasing the dive angle! I was no longer flying; I was a passenger!

To counter this frightening condition, I pulled the stick aft so far that it should have stopped the nose-down pitch. Nothing happened! So I pulled it much harder; the nose was still dropping, and the dive angle continued to increase, even with a maximum-effort, two-handed pull on the stick. The stick was stuck as if it were solidly implanted in concrete. The nosedown dive angle continued to increase.

With my adrenaline pumping, I roared through 6,000 feet altitude. Something way beyond my comprehension and capabilities was directing the aircraft straight into the ground at more than 650 feet per second. I had very few seconds to live!

I instinctively yanked the throttle from full power to the idle position and, praying for recovery, continued my forceful twohanded pull on the stick.

A long second or two later, all hell broke loose. The airplane started buffeting violently and pitched up to more than 7G with more violent buffeting before I could release my adrenaline-powered, two-fisted efforts! The 7Gplus pullout finally bottomed my Hellcat recovery altitude at 2,400 feet.

The ground receded below me. Having had enough excitement for the day, I slowly flew back to Grumman in a mental fog.

Completely befuddled and greatly shaken up, I landed the plane. After I had turned the engine off, I trembled so much that I told my plane captain Scottie McClain that I was going to remain in the cockpit to write some notes. I’m glad that he tactfully left me alone because he would have seen my hands shake so much that I couldn’t hold a pencil let alone write with one. I knew that I would fall flat on my face if I tried to climb out of the aircraft. When I exited the

cockpit, I contacted the chief inspector to have him check the aft fuselage interior for tools or debris that might have jammed my controls. Nothing was found.

I immediately debriefed some very wideeyed engineers who could not believe what I told them. They removed the smokedglass data plot from the Navy-installed velocity-G recorder from the aircraft, and it showed that I had drastically overshot my goal of 485mph and had attained 512mph.

It also verified the 7G-plus with strong buffeting during the pullout.

Ground examination revealed that the strong buffeting had bent the stabilizers and elevators mid-span—the right one 15 degrees up and the left one 15 degrees down! They were now junk.

I became an instant member of the “Grumman Iron Works,” an unofficial fraternity of Navy pilots who had greatly overstressed Grumman aircraft and returned to fly another day in the same airplane.

A rational explanation was almost hidden The confounding part of the debrief was that none of the engineers could explain the frozen controls, my Hellcat’s automatic, uncontrollable pitch down just as I passed through 10,000 feet altitude, or the automatic pitch-up and restoration of pullout control as I was passed through 6,000 feet. I was concerned because I knew that to satisfy the Navy, I would have to repeat that dive after the stronger stabilizers were designed and installed.

I first experienced compressibility effects in an F6F-3 Hellcat (below).

In a test-dive, the stick froze, and I almost bought the farm; with only 2,400 of altitude to spare, I managed to pull out of the dive. As a direct result of my test-dive experiences, the F6F-5’s empennage was beefed up to help overcome the effects of compressibility. A few other changes also helped to make its flying qualities better than the -3 model’s. (Photo Air Age archives)

In the Pacific theater, many Hellcat pilots dived to their deaths because of compressibility. A few lucky ones made it back, but their planes’ empennages had suffered severe damage.

(Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy via National Museum of Naval Aviation)

May/June 2022 15

On January 21, 1943, the author flies the far Hellcat (number 6 production F6F-3 BuNo. 04780) in formation with Bobby McReynolds (number 7 production F6F-3 04781). The number 6 production F6F-3 was selected as being the “dog ship” for engineering to flight-test production changes. The author spent many hours in this aircraft until production number 254 was selected several months later to continue the job. (Photo courtesy Northrop/Grumman History Center)

Flying the Hellcat 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 exactly the same way as the Wildcat’s did. With the standard Navy earphone-equipped helmet, the engine-exhaust noise was tolerable even during carrier-required canopy-open takeoffs and landings.

Taxiing was effortless and didn’t require any “S” turning as all other fighters of the time did. The Hellcat’s strong wheel-braking capability was a heartwarming improvement over the Wildcat’s fading brakes. With the trim tabs properly set and the tailwheel locked, the takeoff checklist could be completed quite rapidly.

Directional control with takeoff power required little effort even if you forgot the nose-right rudder trim-tab setting because the Hellcat responded to rudder corrections shortly after the takeoff had started. This was not the case with the Wildcat’s narrow-track landing gear. In the Wildcat, if the right rudder-trim setting was forgotten, the plane would depart off the runway’s left side even with an all-too-late full

right-rudder application.

With full flap deflection and full power (2,700rpm and 52 inches of manifold pressure), gross-weight Hellcat takeoffs could be made in 600 feet in calm wind and in 200 feet with 25mph wind over the carrier deck. Landing-gear retraction produced no trim change, and flap retraction required only a small elevator trim-tab wheel motion to attain best climb speed of 120mph. The great external visibility from the cockpit, the intuitive feeling that the flight, engine and equipment controls were strategically positioned where your hand goes instinctively, coupled with a 3,600-foot-perminute rate of climb, gave the Hellcat fighter pilot a feeling of unbelievable confidence immediately after leaving the ground.

The only engine tasks that required attention were the adjustments of the oil cooler and engine cylinderhead temperature cooling flaps to keep them under their respective red lines. The shifting of the engine’s mechanical supercharger from main stage to low blower at 8,000 feet and low to high blower above 17,000 feet to be able to obtain maximum power for combat used the same procedures as the Wildcat.

COMBAT MANEUVERS The Wildcat was a delightful aircraft for aerobatic and spin maneuvers, but the Hellcat’s greater power soon convinced Wildcat-trained pilots that they were in a completely new realm of air-combat superiority. Slow rolls, loops, Immelmanns, lazy eights and snap rolls could now be performed without diving entries.

During air combat, if the Hellcat was inadvertently involved in an accidental upright spin, opposite controls would bring it out immediately. If the Hellcat stalled inverted, it would not spin, even with crossed controls, but it would roll out of the stall and automatically begin to fly upright after the nose

dropped below the horizon. The Hellcat simply didn’t have any nasty habits such as the Vought F4U-1s unannounced accelerated-stall snap rolls that occurred so violently that the aircraft could end up in a spin.

I learned these Corsair tricks during my 75 flight hours to evaluate the F4U-1 and F4U-1D Corsairs during WW II. The Hellcat’s only undesirable fighter characteristic was its need for longitudinal and directional trim changes during airspeed variations because of its positive stabilities in those two axes. This could be annoying at first, but it became habit over time because all of the tabadjustment controls were exactly the same as the Wildcat’s.

These positive stabilities, however, helped reduce the attention the aircraft required in long-range formation cruising conditions, so the pilot could attend to navigation plotting, and in the carrier-landing pattern, keep an eye on the landing signal officer (LSO). The stabilities gave the Hellcat pilot an “auto-pilot feeling” and greatly reduced his fatigue.

Visibility from the cockpit was excellent for almost 360 degrees.

Visibility aft was enhanced by a rearview mirror. The Hellcat fuselage’s eight-degree nose-down angle provided excellent visibility for lead corrections when firing the six guns.

CARRIER SUITABILITY: A CARRIER PILOT’S DELIGHT In the final approach to the carrier, the Hellcat’s visibility was the same as the Wildcat’s but much superior to that of the Vought Corsair with its very long nose. This was again owing to the Hellcat’s cockpit proximity to the aircraft’s nose and the forward fuselage’s eightdegree down-angle design. The Hellcat had the best forward visibility of all carrier aircraft.

Its positive stability on all three axes made it fly as steadily as a rock for the entire landing circuit. But it really showed its robust ability to take structural punishment when the deck heaved in massive swells, and the aircraft had to land on the first pass under difficult conditions such as gross combat damage, pilot fatigue and low fuel in bad weather and darkness.

This is the second production F6F-3 BuNo. 04776 in February 1943 after the first successful climb to service ceiling. Shortly thereafter, all test aircraft were painted with the two-tone, blue-and-gray paint scheme. This aircraft has the original gun fairings that were later deemed unnecessary and were omitted. Just six months after the XF6F-3’s first flight, 10 Hellcats were delivered in 1942. Grumman went on to deliver 2,547 Hellcats—enough to equip all of the squadrons of the fastcarrier attack forces by the end of 1943. (Photo courtesy Northrop/Grumman History Center)

Fortunately, research engineer Dr. Leonard Michael Greene had just completed, “The Attenuation Theory of Compressible Flow” treatise. His tome described my predicament precisely, but because of the complexity of his investigation, no other Grummanites had bothered to probe his work. When he heard the details of my dive, he recognized the situation and explained the flight problems in very simple English.

According to Greene, the Hellcat generated supersonic shockwaves over the full wingspan at 0.75 Mach number (he calculated I had attained 0.77 Mach number on my dive!). The airflow increased to supersonic speeds to go around the wing’s thick airfoil. With the formation of the shockwave, the center of the aircraft’s lift would instantly jump several feet back beyond its normal rear limit! These effects gave the aircraft its strong buffeting, stuck-in-concrete stick elevator forces and pitch down despite my Herculean efforts.

Closing the throttle greatly increased the airplane drag, which, coupled with the typical increase of the speed of sound with decreasing altitude, had then reduced my Mach number sufficiently to back the aircraft out of critical shockwave compressibility. With the center of lift restored to its proper place, normal stick forces were instantly available, and this over-assisted my frantic pullout to 7G-plus just in the nick of time. He further calculated that if I had attained less than 5G, I would have collided with the ground during the pullout! Needless to say, I limited my Hellcat demonstrations to conditions as far away from this “new” compressibility range as possible. The ground had risen much too close for comfort.

The new stabilizers had 10-inch wide, full-span 1⁄8-inch aluminum leading-edge cuffs to better withstand violent buffeting.

Necessity is the mother of a dive-angle indicator With the new stabilizers, I was required to repeat the 485mph 2.5G pullout. To avoid exceeding the required speed again, I installed a series of Scotch-tape angles at eye level on the inside of the canopy so May/June 2022 17

TEST-FLYING THE HELLCAT

buffeting that started at about 5.5G and had experienced two stabilizer failures in strong buffeting without reaching the required 6.5G. I prayed that my new booted, leadingedge stabilizers would now withstand the increased buffeting to attain 6.5G. During the 6.5G pull-up at 300mph, the stabilizers didn’t bend. During the 420mph pull-up, the buffeting was more intense (the cockpit accelerometer hand was bouncing between 5.5 and 7.5G during this maneuver), and the new reinforced stabilizers were permanently bent more than 15 degrees. The stabilizer-cuff thickness was then doubled, and that satisfactorily withstood 6.5G, 420mph buffeting. With that, Navy structural demonstration was completed two and a half years after Grumman delivered the first Hellcats to the fighting squadrons.

My first look outside the cockpit

Bob Hall in business clothes discusses a test flight with chief test pilot Connie Converse prior to a flight. (Photo courtesy of Northrop/Grumman History Center)

that I could set up repeatable increasing dive angles and build up to the 485mph demonstration point gradually.

Starting from a 40-degree dive angle, I performed short dives and increased the dive angle by five degrees each time until I determined that a 55-degree dive angle would give me 485mph at 10,000 feet altitude. I also determined that the estimated 60-degree angle of my almosttragic dive had actually been 75 degrees!

I started the demonstration with little peace of mind, but my second 485mph dive was a “non-compressible” piece of cake.

The canopy dive-angle indicator became mandatory instrumentation for the many Navy dive demonstrations that I performed over my 22-year career as an experimental test pilot.

More transonic trouble—the buffet boundary To complete the Hellcat’s Navy-required flight envelope, I had to make 6.5G pullouts at 300 and 420mph at 10,000 feet. Connie Converse told me that he had pulled into the 18 FlightJournal.com

I slowly performed another 300mph, 6.5G pull-up into a buffet-boundary dive and looked into the rearview mirror to see the effect of buffeting on the stabilizer and fin. I was amazed by the tail assembly’s highly visible torsional oscillations and the marked increase in the violence of their motion as the G increased. The tips of the stabilizer were in a six-inch amplitude blur while in the buffet boundary!

Because of my description of tailbuffeting violence in the F6F3 demonstration, the engineering department stiffened the aft fuselage stations during the F6F-5 static test and designed an allnew stabilizer and elevator made of much thicker sheet aluminum that was twice as strong as the second cuffed stabilizer on the F6F-3 demo Hellcat.

The F6F-5 demonstration was a walk in the park Compared with the F6F-3 demo, the F6F-5 Navy structural-flight demonstration was child’s play. I made nine buildup pullouts into its increased 7.5G buffet-boundary requirement, but I had oscillograph instrumentation to check the loads on each flight. Even with the F6F-5’s increased G requirements and stronger buffeting, the new oscillograph instrumentation

A HANDFUL SURVIVE Of the 12,275 Hellcats built during WW II, only about seven still survive in flying condition. This is largely because few were adapted by other countries after the War. It also didn’t get the PR that the ETO warbirds received, so it didn’t have the continued employment required for longevity. Also, hundreds were simply pushed off carrier decks at War’s end rather than brought home.

The F6F-5 Hellcat production line during the four-hour break between two 10-hour shifts in March 1945, when Grumman set the record of all production aircraft companies in the U.S. (Photo courtesy of Northrop/Grumman History Center)

Hellcat kudos

“The name Grumman on an aircraft or a part has the same meaning as sterling on silver.”

—Vice Adm. John S. McCain, Commander Naval Operations Pacific Fleet, 1944

“I love this airplane so much that if it could cook, I would marry it.”

—Lt. Gene Valencia of VF-9 after he shot down 23 enemy aircraft in his Hellcat

Top Navy ace, Medal of Honor winner and Hellcat pilot Cdr. David McCampbell was credited with 34 kills, nine in one flight with two probables. His wingman attained six kills in the same action. As the War progressed, Hellcat numbers were constantly increased on all carriers to take over the SB2C Helldiver and the TBM Avenger strike/attack duties within the 100 aircraft combat capability of the Essex, Saratoga and Enterprise class carriers.

The complement of Hellcats was increased from 36 in mid-1943 to 54 in mid-1944 to 73 in November 1944 until V-J Day. They were credited with 85 to 95 percent combat availability from 1943 to the end of WW II. In one tour, squadron VF-15 made 26 aces and shot down 310 aircraft, 68 in one day.

confirmed that the redesigned tail structure remained under operational load stresses. I completed the F6F-5 demonstration in eight days. I was a much more confident test pilot after Grumman had installed in-flight recorded stress instrumentation that allowed me to check and compare flight loads with design loads between flights. The company was the first in the industry (by three years) to use inflight recording instrumentation.

The Hellcat becomes a prolific night fighter The Navy’s first night-fighter program, code name Project Affirm, began at NAS Quonset Point, Rhode Island, in early 1942. The 18-plane production run of F6F-3E Hellcats equipped with the APS-4 radar had only a limited production run and insufficient airto-air range capabilities. The Navy modified 229 F6F-3s to the F6F-3(N); they and 1,462 newer F6F-5Ns were equipped with the Sperry APS-6 radar. This radar gave the night-fighters a five-mile increase in airto-air range. It could also detect a ship at more than 20 miles and a fleet task force at 60 miles. After mid-1943, all carriers had a standard contingent of Hellcat nightfighters.

Conclusions Leroy Grumman’s simple, distinctive carrier-aircraft design philosophy in the Wildcat, Avenger and Hellcat provided the U.S. Navy with the vital carrier-combat airpower it needed from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day.

May/June 2022 19

Taming the

Mike Spalding flies the Military Aviation Museum’s DeHavilland DH-98 Mosquito

BY JAN TEGLER | PHOTOS BY BRADLEY WENTZEL

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.

Mike Spalding at the controls of KA114, the Military Aviation Museum's DH-98 DeHavilland Mosquito. Originally built in Canada as an FB-26 fighter-bomber version of the Mosquito for the RCAF, the aircraft never saw combat.

TAMING THE “WOODEN WONDER”

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 are quite a few layers that are pretty thick, and the combat versions weighed over 20,000 pounds!”

In the background was the dramatic end of the last airworthy Mosquito, lost during an aerobatic display at Barton Aerodrome, England on July 21, 1996 when one of its V-12s stalled as the aircraft rolled inverted while climbing after a high-speed pass. The aircraft entered a flat spin at low altitude which the pilot couldn’t fully recover from.

During WW II, float-controlled, carbureted Merlins were notorious for experiencing fuel starvation during negative-G inducing maneuvers like

RENOWNED EX-RCAF MOSQUITO PILOT GEORGE STEWART. STEWART HAD FLOWN THE MOSSIE DURING WW II. THE HIGHEST-TIME MOSQUITO DRIVER ALIVE GAVE SPALDING VERY VALUABLE TIPS. Contrast that with fast fighters like the P-51, F4U Corsair, and Fw-190, all of which have a takeoff weight roughly half that of the Mosquito’s.

Acquired by MAM founder and owner Jerry Yagen in 2004 from the Museum of Flight and Transportation in British Columbia, the museum’s DH-98 was built in Canada in 1945 as an FB26 fighterbomber version and served briefly in the RCAF, never seeing combat. Sporting two Packard-Merlin 225s, as the Canadians designated them, operational examples could weigh as much as 21,473 pounds.

AvSpecs Ltd. near Auckland, New Zealand did a painstaking eight-year restoration/recreation of the Canadian relic made possible by the work of the late Kiwi restorer Glyn Powell, who built the molds needed for the fighter-version’s wooden fuselage, wings, and tail sections and used parts donated from as far away as Australia.

Its first flight in New Zealand in 2012 was followed by a debut at its home near Virginia Beach, Virginia in 2013.

Since then, Spalding has been the man at the controls of KA114. Flying it is an honor he relishes.

Surviving knowledge Exactly 7,781 Mosquitos were built but just 30 survive. It had been 14 years since a Mosquito last flew when KA114’s initial test flights were undertaken in New Zealand by warbird pilots Dave Phillips and Keith Skilling.

22 FlightJournal.com

inverted flight. An investigation by the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch concluded that had occurred at Barton.

But Phillips and Skilling completed a very successful test program, so Spalding reached out to them to gain any knowledge he could before the he took KA114 for its first flight in America. Spalding says he simply emailed back and forth with Phillips and Skilling, carefully reading the aircraft manual in which they’d made notes that detailed their observations about flying the airplane.

“I took them to heart, and [KA114] did exactly what they said it would with the little nuances they noted when I flew it. It couldn’t have worked out better.”

He also relied on the same walking store of knowledge the Kiwi pilots had used: renowned ex-RCAF Mosquito pilot George Stewart. Stewart had flown the Mossie during WW II and after the war served as an instructor for Chinese pilots learning to fly the Wooden Wonder. The highest-time Mosquito driver alive gave Spalding very valuable tips.

“He had a lot of knowledge, was very excited about it and more than willing to offer all the help he could,” Spalding recalls.

“He gave me a lot of little insights from the real world back when he was teaching.”

Ultimately Spalding just got to know the airplane and taxied it around a little bit.

“There was nothing left to do but go fly.”

A rare view of KA114 from above, showing the clean aerodynamic profile of the Mosquito.

TAMING THE “WOODEN WONDER”

Preflight The Mosquito’s landing gear is one of its chief weak points, Spalding says.

“You want to check them over really well. If they get any kind of side load on them, they can collapse. For instance, if anyone had taxied and maybe pivoted on a tire it can damage the gear to the point where it might fail on takeoff or landing. That’s something George told me [and] one of the things you really watch for.”

Otherwise, the Mosquito doesn’t differ too much from other aircraft of the period in terms components that need inspecting.

“There are a lot of cables to check and doors to close,” Spalding notes.

The DH-98’s flight controls come with three types of actuations.

Landing gear and flaps are hydraulic. Ailerons, rudder, and elevators are cable-operated, and pneumatics power the brakes.

Not everything is made of wood, Spalding adds. Metal parts are included in the engine nacelles, radiator sections, ailerons, rudder, elevators, landing gear, and engine mounts. Wood parts are fabriccovered.

“You want to check the hydraulic lines and make sure nothing’s leaking,” Spalding says. “Walking around, there’s not much more, other than inspecting the airplane for any damage or anything abnormal.”

One more thing on the preflight checklist is opening the valve on the air tank mounted near the Mossie’s tail section.

“You open it from the outside. Like a Spitfire, it has a stored-air tank. It has plenty of air pressure for the brakes.”

Mount up and start up Entry to and exit from the cockpit is via a door in the lower right-hand section behind the Mosquito’s nose. Remove the door/hatch and an integral telescoping aluminum ladder can be extended to allow the pilot and navigator to climb inside.

“They’re very long steps, designed for very young guys,” Spalding laughs. At the MAM, he usually uses an external step ladder to save wear and tear on the airplane’s finicky integral ladder.

“You have to be careful when you’re in the airplane extending it, because if you don’t extend it properly it will come apart.”

On the way into the cockpit, Spalding reaches back between the armor-plated pilot and navigator seats and turns two fuel selectors to the “On” position, then slides into the left seat.

There are several checks to perform, including confirming that the doors for the wing root-mounted radiators are open. “The airplane will overheat fairly quickly on the ground, kind of like a Spitfire,” Spalding explains. “So, you make sure you’re getting all the cooling you can get on the ground, especially if it’s a hot day.”

The handles for the Merlin’s cowl flaps are on the far side of the cockpit to the right of the navigator’s seat, but “you can reach the handles from pilot’s seat pretty easily,” Spalding says.

“For something like feathering an engine, which is done from the forward instrument panel on the right as well, you would think it would be nice to have someone in the right seat. But the navigator’s seat sits aft of the pilot’s seat, so they can’t even reach the panel. From that standpoint it is a single pilot airplane. Still, it’s nice to have somebody who knows the airplane in the cockpit with you. You can tell them to open or close the radiator doors or watch engine temperatures.”

24 FlightJournal.com

MAM chief pilot Mike Spalding has 100 hours of flight time at KA114's controls and has flown most the museum's aircraft. MAM's Mossie is one of only four airworthy Mosquitos and has been the most active.

May/June 2022 25

TAMING THE “WOODEN WONDER”

ABOVE: Spalding's "office." The Mossie is effectively a single pilot airplane. Flight controls and most of the engine management controls fall easily to hand but certain actions, like feathering an engine or opening/closing the Merlin’s cowl flaps, require the pilot to reach across to the right side of the instrument panel.

LEFT: The fighter-bomber's bomb bay.

BELOW: Entry to KA114 is through the door that opens on the lower right side of the Mosquito's nose. The airplane's fragile integral ladder is extended here. Up on the nose are two rows of guns: four .303 Browning machine guns above with four 20 mm Hispano Mk. II cannon in the chin. (Photos by Justin Fortier)

Spalding says the float-controlled carbureted Merlins do have one advantage over later versions with pressure carburetors and injection carburetors.

“They’re so easy to start.” Flip on the magnetos for both engines and then it’s a matter of priming them.

“You don’t have to hold your tongue a certain way to get them to start right or anything.” Spalding chuckles.

“You just have to make sure you prime them enough.

You have a prime button and a start button. That’s it. Turn the mags on and prime, depending on how cold it is, for around 11 seconds. You get the throttle cracked, hit the start button, it’ll turn a couple blades and you’ll see the engine quiver a little bit. Then you see the third blade and you know it’s going to start. It catches and fires right up.

There’s no magic to it or bringing the mixture up because there is no mixture control. It’s all done with what’s basically a cutoff lever.”

ABOVE: The Mosquito's tail wheel doesn't lock, Spalding says.

But it does have a self-centering action that helps the twin engine fighter-bomber to track straight on the ground.

BELOW: The main gear must be inspected carefully before flight and taxied with care, Spalding notes. Side loads imparted by turning the aircraft too abruptly can damage the mains.

(Photos by Justin Fortier)

Taxi and takeoff With the Merlins running, Mosquito pilots couldn’t afford to sit on the ground for long. Tightly cowled and with less-than-optimal radiators for warm weather plus oil coolers mounted behind them away from fresh air, the V-12s can heat up fast.

“If it’s hot out in the summer you want to get going pretty quick.” Spalding says. “Typically, when I taxi out, I want to be ready to go almost immediately. I’ll line up on the runway to do my engine run-ups. Basically, I can go straight to takeoff from there. I don’t even bring the throttles back once I’ve run the engines up because when you go to higher power, the temperatures come up pretty quick. You don’t want to do your run-up until you’re ready to go.”

But before taking the runway, you have to taxi. Unlike single engine fighters, visibility is good over the short, blunt nose of the Mossie, he reports. No weaving back and forth is necessary. But caution is necessary when using the airplane’s pneumatic brakes, Spalding stresses.

Actuated by its rudder pedals but modulated by a bicycle brake lever-type grip mounted vertically on the KA114’s control stick, the Mosquito’s binders are “very powerful,” he says.

“It’s very easy to put this airplane up on its nose. You never pull the brake lever and hold it. You’re constantly using it in brief applications. If you see a video of me or anyone else taxiing a Mosquito, it just sounds like a Mack truck with air going ffffft, ffffft, ffffft!”

Quick stabs of the brake are all that’s necessary to help bring the airplane back into line if it strays one way or the other.

“The brake lever also has a little delay. So, if you hold it until you feel the brakes, it’s too late. You already have way too much brake. With some airplanes you might not May/June 2022 27

TAMING THE “WOODEN WONDER”

always have enough brakes. With this one, it’s the other way around.”

With engine run-ups complete, it’s time to push the throttles to the left of the stick forward. Spalding says take off power is 14 pounds (the British use boost pressure instead of manifold pressure) or about 58 inches of manifold and 3,000 rpm for the props.

During WW II, takeoff accidents weren’t uncommon due to the tendency of the Mosquito’s Merlins to pull the airplane to the left. Many pilots developed the habit of advancing the throttle for the left side Merlin slightly in advance of the throttle for the starboard engine. But that didn’t prevent some accidents.

One of the best tips Stewart gave Spalding was to advance the throttles equally.

“George figured out that the airplane has enough power to get the tail up off the ground but not pull itself one way or another. So, he started training pilots to

[from wheels/gear] it doesn’t really want to accelerate. It kind of feels like it wants to fly, but you want to make it stay there because it’s not really ready to fly.”

It takes discipline to hold the airplane on the runway, but when it lifts off it flies away well enough, he says.

A split personality Spalding quips that the Mosquito has what amounts to “a split personality.” Below 200 mph, it behaves a bit sluggishly, “like a bomber.” Above 200, “it’s more like a fighter.”

“After you lift off, the first thing you want to do is get the gear up. That’s really a bad spot in the takeoff sequence if an engine quit. You don’t have enough of anything to stay flying—not enough speed and not enough runway to stop.”

Spalding explains that the Mossie’s Vmc—the speed necessary to maintain directional control of the aircraft with one engine feathered and the other at full

BELOW 200 MPH, THE MOSQUITO’S AILERONS, RUDDER AND ELEVATORS ARE NOT AS EFFECTIVE. “IT TAKES A LOT OF CONTROL INPUT TO MAKE IT MOVE AROUND,” SPALDING AFFIRMS. “BUT OVER 200 MPH, IT TAKES VERY SMALL AMOUNTS OF CONTROL MOVEMENT TO MAKE IT RESPOND.” hold the brakes and bring the engines up to zero pounds boost [30 inches], have everything set, release the brakes, and take the throttles right on up to 14 pounds, to the stops within a couple lengths of the airplane moving. That makes a big difference.”

Spalding says KA114 accelerates to 70 mph “before you know it” with the tail coming off the ground. With full right rudder, the Mosquito usually tracks straight, but if it drifts left, a quick application of the brake on the right main gear will pull it back to center.

One hundred mph arrives shortly after passing 70 mph, Spalding notes. “The book says you rotate at 125 mph. But it takes as long to get from 100 to 125 as it did to 100, if not longer. There’s just so much drag 28 FlightJournal.com

power—is an eye-popping 190 mph. The B-26 Marauder, maligned for its engine-out takeoff performance had a Vmc of 160 mph.

“For us it’s not quite that high because we’re not flying the airplane at 20,000 pounds like they were. But that’s the number you want to get to be safe if something did quit. It’s slow to accelerate to that number because the gear is slow to come up. If the engine quits below that speed, it’s going to roll you over pretty quick if you can’t get the engine back.”

Below 200 mph, the Mosquito’s ailerons, rudder and elevators are not as effective.

“It takes a lot of control input to make it move around,” Spalding affirms. “It’ll do it and it flies fine. But over 200 mph, it takes very small amounts of control movement to

Spalding banks KA114 away from the camera plane over the Back Bay Wildlife Refuge on Virginia's southern coastline.

make it respond.”

With altitude and speed, Spalding says KA114 flies well but isn’t as nimble as single-engine fighters like the Spitfire.

“You can bank it around, but it’s going to do that a little slower because it is a bigger, heavier airplane. You have to push it around a little more. But even all the single-engine fighters are a little different. A P-51 is a very heavy airplane to push around, but a Corsair—it’s like you can do it with your fingers.”

The Mosquito needs little trimming, remaining stable in most circumstances, including engine-out flight.

“I’ve done single-engine work in it to get my rating,” Spalding says. “I shut one down and feathered it, then restarted it. You fly at

140 mph and it’ll fly around happily enough.

After you’re up and going, it’s not the end of the world if you lose one.”

Cruise power is usually around 2 pounds of boost (approximately 34 inches of manifold) and 2,200 rpm.

“We don’t push it hard but it has a little faster cruise than a standard fighter. On the airshow circuit we run more power, like 2400 rpm and four to six pounds of boost [38 inches to 42 inches]. It’s a good crosscountry airplane, and it’s got good range.”

Overall, Spalding says the Mosquito’s best attribute is its speed, even if it’s not an airplane you’d readily dogfight.

“It’s comfortable at speed and maneuvers well for what you’d do with it, but you wouldn’t really fly it like a fighter.”

May/June 2022 29

TAMING THE “WOODEN WONDER”

SPALDING’S FAVORITE THING ABOUT KA114 IS SHARING THE AIRCRAFT WITH OTHERS, DISPLAYING IT BEFORE CROWDS THAT MOST FREQUENTLY HAVE NEVER SEEN A MOSQUITO IN FLIGHT. Point the Mossie’s nose down and speed builds quickly, Spalding attests. “It accelerates, even more than I realized. I was flying at Geneseo [the National Warplane Museum airshow] one time in the Mosquito with a guy flying a P-38. He was hanging right there with me but he said, ‘As soon as you dropped the nose, I had nothing left.

You were gone!’”

While speed is the fighter-bomber’s forte, going slow isn’t. In fact, it can bite inattentive pilots.

“The big thing is not getting slow,” he stresses. “When you have everything up [gear, flaps, etc.] and you’re banking, the stall speed goes up quite a bit. You have to be really careful in doing photo flights and things like that. If a photographer asks you to bank the airplane, there are times when you just have to say ‘no’.”

Landing Landing the twin-engine British fighterbomber requires attention and discipline, Spalding says. With the airplane in clean configuration, it doesn’t slow down easily.

MAM’s chief pilot starts managing the airplane’s speed and levels off well before entering the landing pattern.

At 200 mph, he selects flaps to the quarter-down position and watches for speed to drop to 170 mph. “But it doesn’t really want to slow down, so you have to pull the power back some.”

Dropping the landing gear makes a huge difference, he notes. The drag they induce forces the pilot to add throttle. “Now it takes a lot of power to keep it flying because it really wants to slow down.”

Spalding doesn’t like to turn to the runway on final, preferring to fly the last stage of the approach more like you would in a bomber, straight and level.

“I go full flaps at 500 feet and a mile or so out. You want to pretty much have the 30 FlightJournal.com

field made because you’re not going to go around at that point if you’re single engine.

So, you’re committed to land. You don’t have to worry about being high and fast in this airplane!

“You’d rather it be high. You can use the altitude and let it drop in. You come across the fence at 120 mph.”

Wheel landings are standard, and the Mosquito tracks well during rollout until its brakes need to be applied.

“You have to have your feet where they need to be on the rudder pedals and not move them while you’re holding the brakes,” he says.

“That’s what’s hard for some people.

Moving your feet is normal to keep the airplane in line but now you’re applying a lot of brake on one side maybe that you didn’t have and you’ve released it from the other side. It’s ok if you’re just quickly stabbing the brakes, but when you’re holding the brake a bit you can’t move your feet or something’s going to happen to the left or right.”

Sharing the Mosquito Spalding’s favorite thing about KA114 is sharing the aircraft with others, displaying it before crowds that most frequently have never seen a Mosquito in flight.

He says the “coolest” performance he’s given was during the finale of the Hamilton, Canada airshow in 2013 where during the “Merlin Flight,” Spalding flew KA114—at the time the only airworthy Mosquito—in formation with the only Lancaster flying in North America, a Supermarine Spitfire, and two Hawker Hurricanes.

But given the rarity of flying Mossies, it’s even more special to tell anyone who flies with him in MAM’s Mosquito what a unique experience they’re having.

“I can look at them and say, ‘We’re doing something right now that nobody else in the world is doing!’”

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IN THEATER

What They Wore

BY ROBERT F. DORR AND CHARLES E. DISIPIO 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 left: Brooking wears the AAF B-8 back chute with AAF parachute first aid kit tied to the harness just below his elbow, B-10 flying jacket, early-version AN-H-15 summer flying helmet in cotton with AN-H-B1 headset, AAF B-8 goggles, A-14 oxygen mask, U. S. Army Enlisted Men’s 18 oz. Special Light Shade Olive Drab (shade 32) serge wool trousers, and U. S. Army parachutist’s boots (jump boots).

Motzenbecker wears B-8 back chute, B-10 flying jacket, late-model Royal Air Force (RAF) type “C” leather flying helmet (likely with an AAF AN-H-B-1 headset), RAF Mk VIII goggles, A-14 oxygen mask with special RAF wiring produced for use with U. S. microphones (if the aircraft was outfitted with a U. S. radio, there was also an adaptor to first plug into before connecting to the radio), U.S. Army Officer’s Drab (shade 54 -“pinks”) Elastique wool trousers, U.S. Army combat boots with two-buckle cuff and not yet dubbed for water resistance (at this time, these boots were still not on large-scale issue in the ETO).

Stecker, the group commander, wears AAF B-8 back chute, the coveted, 32 FlightJournal.com

venerable A-2 flying jacket in russet brown leather, U.S. Army Type II horsehide gloves still fairly new and revealing their natural, tan coloring (the most typical gloves of ETO fighter pilots), silk or nylon scarf likely made from a parachute canopy, AN-H-15 summer flying helmet in cotton with reinforcements for snaps (either applied to an early helmet by parachute riggers or a later version as outfitted from the factory), AN-H-B1 headset, RAF Mk VIII goggles, AAF A-14 oxygen mask with special RAF wiring produced for use with U.S. microphones, U.S. Army Officer’s Olive Drab (shade 51) Dark Elastique wool trousers, and U.S. Army parachutist jump boots.

Fry wears RAF seat chute (highly sought after due to its quick-release turnbuckle on the chest) with attached AAF parachute first aid kit tied to harness near silver-metal ripcord housing, AAF seat cushion sandwiched between seat parachute pack and RAF type “K” seat dinghy container (cushions weren’t usually used with “K” dinghy kits, and when they were, they were usually placed on top of the container to better cushion your butt), AAF B-2 jungle survival kit back pad (not uncommon in the ETO), which housed a multitude of survival items and is easily identified by the silver zipper chain in this photo, AAF A-2 leather flying jacket in dark seal brown, U.S. Army Type II horsehide gloves well-used and very soiled, late-model RAF type “C” leather flying helmet (likely with AAF headset AN-H-B-1) and RAF Mk VIII goggles, AAF A-14 oxygen mask with special RAF wiring produced for use with U.S. microphones, U.S. Army Enlisted Men’s 18 oz. Special Light Shade Olive Drab (shade 32) serge wool trousers of the later design with flap on rear pocket, and U.S. Army parachutist jump boots.

Among the four leaders, the only common elements of flying gear are the absence of life vests and presence of A-14 oxygen masks and the special

RAF wiring. The absence of life vests confirms these pilots believe they have little chance of ditching or bailing out over water, yet Fry still has his RAF “K” dinghy kit on his seat chute, which is likely because it contained many useful survival items, it was too troublesome

to remove (and replace if needed at a later date), and his P-47’s seat was already adjusted to allow for his height while wearing the dinghy kit. It’s also fairly safe to assume that, due to the extreme cold at the time, all would have been wearing long underwear, and the

two pilots in A-2 jackets, if not all of these men, would have been wearing sweaters under their jackets. The pilots with B-8 back chutes also would have had seat cushions and, almost certainly, RAF “K” dinghy kits of a different type designed for back chutes (the

parachute harnesses they wear have the female attaching clips in place for the RAF “K” dinghy kits); the dinghy kits would have been hand carried or delivered to their aircraft by vehicle, in most instances, but may have been left on the aircraft seat (far less likely).

May/June 2022 33

High-scoring P-47 Thunderbolt pilot Lt. Col. Robert “Bob” S. Johnson BY CLIVE ROWLEY, MBE RAF (RET.) 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 into pieces from my first burst! My Thunderbolt flashed through a spinning torrent of fire, smoke, and debris, the remains of the disintegrating 190.”

Planes of Fame Air Museum’s razorback Curtiss-Wright P-47G-15-CU (license-built version of the Republic P-47D) 42-25254, in the colors and markings of P-47D-5-RE 42-8487 UN-M “Spirit of Atlantic City N.J.” This was the aircraft of Capt. Walker “Bud” Mahurin of the 63rd FS, 56th FG, a colleague and friend of Bob Johnson based at Halesworth, England.

(Photo John Dibbs/Facebook.com/theplanepicture)

JUG ACE

This is how Robert “Bob” S. Johnson, a P-47 Thunderbolt pilot with the 61st Fighter Squadron, described his first aerial kill over France on June 13, 1943. He was flying his personal aircraft, razorback P-47C 416235 HV-P, named “Half Pint.” It was the first time that he had fired all eight of the Thunderbolt’s .50-inch caliber guns and witnessed their devastating destructive power, as well as experienced the amazing noise and effects in his own aircraft.

Previously, in training, he had only fired two of the guns at towed target sleeves, and then only a couple of times. In fact, he had not passed the gunnery course and theoretically had not qualified as a fighter pilot. Yet he was destined to become the second highest-scoring Thunderbolt and European Theater of Operations (ETO) ace of World War Two, with an eventual total of 27 aerial victories.

Oklahoma boy Robert Johnson was born in February 1920.

He grew up in Lawton, Oklahoma, and took an early interest in aviation. As a young teenager he took jobs to earn money to pay for flying lessons. He flew solo at the age of 14, by the age of 16 he had 35 hours flying Group photo of pilots of the 61st FS, 56th FG with a P-47D at Halesworth.

Squadron commander Maj. "Gabby" Gabreski is fifth from left, "Bob" Johnson is fifth from right. (Photo author’s collection)

time, and at 18 he completed the Civilian Pilot Training program.

Meanwhile, owning and shooting a .22 rifle and hunting small game familiarized him with aiming a gun, compensating for gravity drop and assessing the necessary lead against a moving target.

At high school and college, the young Bob Johnson was a good sportsman. He boxed competitively and played football as a blocking guard, experiences that improved his physical conditioning and developed his courage. His football coach told him that the opposition were not supermen and “they put their pants on one leg at a time just like you do.” He remembered those words and sometimes thought of them in combat.

Cadet pilot In November 1941, at the age of 21, Johnson enlisted with the U.S. Army Air Corps, completing his pre-flight training as a cadet at Kelly Field, San Antonio, Texas.

Johnson’s primary flying training on Fairchild PT-19A Cornells and BoeingStearman PT-18 Kaydets began in December 1941 at Sikeston, Missouri, immediately after Pearl Harbor and with the U.S. now at war. At the end of the course, having discovered it was permitted, he married his college sweetheart, Barbara Morgan, on February 21, 1942. He would now be going to war as a married man, with a wife waiting for him back home.

FOR A NEWLY QUALIFIED PILOT WHO HAD FLOWN ONLY RELATIVELY SMALl TRAINING MACHINES, THE HUGE SIZE, BULK, AND POWER OF THE P-47 MUST HAVE BEeN DAUNTING. Five days later, he began his basic flying training at Randolph Field, Texas, flying the North American BT-9 Yale.

On graduating, although he really wanted to be a fighter pilot, Johnson’s instructors persuaded him that flying multi-engine bombers would provide commercial aviation opportunities after the war, so he volunteered for bombers.

His advanced flying training to become a bomber pilot took place at Kelly Field, flying single-engine North American AT-6 Texans.

On July 3, 1942, with a total flying time of 300 hours, Johnson was awarded his silver pilot’s wings and commissioned as a second lieutenant. Things then got even better as he was posted to fighters.

P-47 Thunderbolt On July 19, 1942, Johnson reported to the newly designated 56th Fighter Group and to the 61st Fighter Squadron, at Bridgeport, Connecticut. The 56th FG consisted of the 61st, 62nd, and 63rd Fighter Squadrons and was the first USAAF outfit to receive the new Republic P-47B Thunderbolt fighter, the “Jug” as it was to be nicknamed.

It operated initially as an operational evaluation unit, bringing the new aircraft into service and ironing out the many technical bugs. The group quickly moved to Bradley Field, Windsor Locks, Connecticut, where the runways were twice as long. The work-up and operational training program with the new aircraft was to cost the lives of 18 of the group’s pilots.

For a newly qualified pilot who had flown only relatively small training machines, the huge size, bulk, and power of the P-47 must have been daunting. That is borne out in Bob Johnson’s own description of his first impressions of the Thunderbolt: “In every respect the Thunderbolt was

an airplane that lived up to its name; it was a giant! I had been accustomed to 600 horsepower, but beneath the P-47B’s massive cowling was a great engine capable of 2,000 horsepower. She was big, and on the ground she wasn’t very pretty, but every inch of her structure was power, a rugged and sturdy machine with all the mass of a tank. A tremendous four-bladed prop, wide and straddling landing gear and in each wing four .50-caliber guns, giving the Thunderbolt a fantastic punch, the ability to throw heavy lead at the rate of 7,200 rounds per minute! It was love at first sight. Somehow I knew that this machine and I were meant for each other.”

In mid-September, the 56th FG received a new Group Commander, 28-year-old Major Hubert “Hub” Zemke, who was to become perhaps the greatest of the USAAF Fighter Group commanders. He was a strict but fair disciplinarian and proved to be a brilliant combat leader and tactician. Under his leadership, the 56th FG developed “dive, fire, recover” tactics that capitalized on the P-47’s strengths, particularly its excellent diving performance and superior roll rate.

In November 1942, the 56th FG was alerted for overseas deployment to England and flying ceased in order to prepare for the move.

A P-47 firing its eight .50-caliber machine guns on the ground. The Jug's firepower cold be devastating. (Photo courtesy of John Dibbs/Facebook.com/ theplanepicture)

May/June 2022 37

P-47 Thunderbolts of the 62nd Fighter Squadron, 56th Fighter Group, flying in formation with a B-24 Liberator in May 1943. (Photo author’s collection)

38 FlightJournal.com

England The 56th FG arrived in England in January 1943, having sailed across the Atlantic unescorted in the fast Queen Elizabeth liner, now being used as an overcrowded troopship. The group’s first base was RAF King’s Cliffe, in Northampton, some 12 miles west of Peterborough in Cambridgeshire.

Brand-new P-47Cs began to be delivered to the group in late January, and the first training flights in theater were made in February. The 56th spent its time at King’s Cliffe learning RAF procedures and training for combat.

Future top-scoring P-47 and ETO ace Francis “Gabby” Gabreski joined the group while it was at King’s Cliffe and was assigned to the 61st FS. He quickly became a flight leader and in May he was promoted to major. He took command of the squadron in early June 1943 and remained its CO until January 1944.

By April 1943, the 56th FG was ready for bomber escort operations. The group moved to RAF Horsham St Faith, near Norwich, Norfolk, closer to the North Sea and in easier range of German-occupied Europe. It was time to prove what the P-47 could do in combat and whether Zemke’s training methods and tactics would match the challenges.

Zemke had a few pilots that he was worried about. A few were too aggressive

and some had failed to qualify at gunnery school. Of these, Zemke doubted that one young man in particular would last very long in combat. Bob Johnson nearly proved Zemke correct on his early missions.

However, he would survive his first brushes with the enemy and go on to terrorize the Luftwaffe like almost no one else in the 8th Air Force.

Early operations The 56th FG flew its first operational mission, an uneventful fighter sweep to St Omer, on April 13, 1943. Johnson flew his first combat mission, the third for the group, on April 17. This mission, a fighter sweep over the coast of the Netherlands, also proved entirely uneventful.

After his return from his first operational sortie, Johnson and four other novice pilots were sent to RAF Goxhill to complete their air-to-air gunnery training. Initially, Johnson “couldn’t hit a thing,” as he admitted to himself, but he was learning.

On the last day he had grasped the basics and scored 4.5 percent. As the score to pass gunnery school was 5 percent, the second highest-scoring ace of the ETO never officially qualified as a combat pilot.

The 56th FG experienced its first combats during a mission on April 29, losing two P-47s and their pilots. Johnson was not scheduled for that mission and did not

resume combat flying until May 3. On May 14, he encountered Luftwaffe fighter aircraft for the first time, on a mission to escort Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses to bomb Antwerp. Several Focke-Wulf Fw 190s broke up his squadron’s formation, Johnson became separated and, finding himself alone, he broke off the engagement against a superior number of Fw 190s and dived for home. When he landed, he found that he had erroneously been reported as missing in action. He was chewed out by Zemke for breaking formation, and this was the start of an unwanted and possibly undeserved reputation that Johnson developed for wild and undisciplined flying.

During their early operations, P-47s without drop tanks lacked the range to escort the bombers far into enemy airspace. In addition, the group’s pilots were still green and learning to fight and survive.

Early losses were high and did not stack up well against the limited number of enemy aircraft being shot down.

On May 19, Johnson’s flight of four P-47s was ambushed by German fighters over the

Dutch coast and he experienced for the first time what it was like to be shot at. In his own words, he “apparently set some sort of unofficial speed record over Europe” as he ran for home.

First kill Johnson’s first combat kill, against a Fw 190 on June 13, 1943, was described by him in the lead paragraph. The 56th had scored its first confirmed kill just the day before and, as Johnson himself admitted, he broke all the rules and regulations to get the second. He later said: “I was supposed to fly top cover, but I flew past Colonel Zemke to shoot down the leader of an eight-plane formation of Focke-Wulf Fw-190s. With more experience I might have been able to shoot down two more. I arrived home late because I was looking for more enemy planes, and upon my arrival I was thoroughly chewed out by my group and squadron commanders and by my flight leaders Zemke, Gabreski, and ‘Gerry’ Johnson. I was congratulated for getting the kill, then reprimanded.”

Pilots of the 56th FG in the briefing room at Boxted, England, in early May 1944. This photo appeared in the Saturday Evening Post of June 3, 1944. Bob Johnson is second from right. Other notable aces are: “Gabby” Gabreski (back row, far left), Frank Klibbe (fourth left), then David Schilling and “Hub” Zemke.

Seated front left is Fred Christensen, below Klibbe is “Gerry” Johnson and below Bob Johnson is Walker “Bud” Mahurin.

(Photo John Dibbs / Facebook.com/the planepicturecompany)

May/June 2022 39

Lt. Robert S. “Bob” Johnson (left) and Capt.

Walker Melville "Bud" Mahurin (right) beside P-47D 42-8487 UN-M “Spirit of Atlantic City N.J.” in early March 1944. This was “Bud” Mahurin’s aircraft in which he claimed at least five of his total of 20.75 aerial victories during WW II. (Photo author’s collection)

Near-fatal mission On June 26, 1943, Johnson flew one of 48 Thunderbolts of the 56th FG, taking off from the forward operating base at RAF Manston on the Kent coast to escort Boeing B-17 bombers returning from a mission against Villacoublay airfield on the outskirts of Paris. He was the number four in his flight, exposed at the rear of the squadron formation and, having been criticized previously for poor discipline, he was determined to hold his position.

As the P-47s approached the rendezvous point at around 30,000 feet, Johnson, with his exceptional eyesight, spotted some enemy fighters and reported them on the radio, but the squadron continued straight on. They were they jumped from above and behind by 16 Fw 190s of JG 26. Johnson’s P-47 “Half Pint” was hit and seriously damaged by an accurate burst of cannon and machine gun fire as the squadron scattered. Shells smashed his P-47’s canopy and instrument panel, ruptured the hydraulics and knocked out the oxygen system. The engine was damaged and running rough, and oil was spraying onto the windscreen. One round nicked Johnson’s nose, spinning his head to the left, and he was slightly wounded in the right leg by shrapnel. Then the hydraulic fluid spraying around the cockpit ignited and the cockpit filled with smoke and flames.

Johnson attempted to bail out, but found the damaged canopy would only open about six inches, insufficient for him to escape, regardless of how much physical force he applied to it. Suffering from the effects of hypoxia due to the failure of his oxygen system, he tried to squeeze out through the shattered canopy but found that his parachute snagged and he could not get out while wearing it. Meanwhile, his aircraft had fallen into an uncontrollable dive and he flashed down vertically through the bomber formation, miraculously without hitting any, before he was able to regain control at about 20,000 feet. Equally miraculously, the fire went out, but now he was subjected to hydraulic fluid spraying into his eyes and scorched face. He was flying without his goggles as he had put them in for repair having broken a lens. He was now being almost blinded and his eyes and scorched face were puffing up.

However, he found that the P-47 was still flyable and throttling back reduced the thumping from the engine.

He set the shot-up Thunderbolt into a gradual lowpowered descent towards the coast and home, now quite alone.

As he approached the Channel coast, Johnson spotted a single fighter bearing down on him. It was a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and Johnson’s crippled Thunderbolt was in no condition to fight. All he could do was lower his seat and huddle down, seeking refuge behind the inch-thick armor plate behind the pilot’s seat and continue on his way. The Fw 190 slid in astern and from very close range pumped machine gun rounds into the helpless P-47. Fortunately, it seemed that the Fw 190 had already expended all its cannon ammunition, but Johnson jumped every time a bullet hit the armor plate as the Thunderbolt was chewed up. Unable to take any more, he stomped on the rudder pedals, slewing the Jug from side to side, and the sudden loss of speed caused the Fw 190 to overshoot. It settled into tight formation alongside. The German pilot made eye contact, shook

JOHNSON ATtEMPTED TO BAIL OUT, BUT FOUND THE DAMAGED CANOPY WOULD ONLY OPEN ABOUT SIX INCHES, INSUFfICIENT FOR HIM TO ESCAPE, REGARDLESs OF HOW MUCH PHYSICAL FORCE HE APpLIED TO IT. his head in astonishment that the shredded P-47 was still flying, and waved his hand before peeling away.

However, this was not “A Higher Call” chivalrous moment because the German pilot slotted in behind and proceeded to pour more bullets into the Thunderbolt before pulling up alongside again. How the P-47 stayed together and kept flying is a mystery but it did, much to the amazement of both Johnson and the German fighter pilot, who modern research suggests was Feldwebel Wilhelm Mayer of JG 26. At this point of the war, Mayer already had four confirmed kills. He was eventually credited with 27 confirmed aerial victories but was shot down and killed by an RAF Spitfire on January 4, 1945.

By now the pair of aircraft were down to 4,000 feet and passing over Dieppe, normally a hotbed of flak, but the anti-aircraft guns could not fire. The Fw 190 alongside was unwittingly protecting Johnson.

As they coasted out over the water, the Fw 190 once again slid behind and pumped more bullets into the helpless Thunderbolt. Then silence. The Fw 190 was out of ammunition. For the third time, Mayer flew up alongside, shook his head in wonderment and peeled away for the last time, leaving Johnson to escape.

With some help from the British distress homing system, Johnson managed to reach England and land his wrecked Thunderbolt at Manston without flaps or brakes. Fortunately, the undercarriage lowered normally and the tires were undamaged.

May/June 2022 41

JUG ACE

Ace

The cannon-shelldamaged canopy of Bob Johnson’s P-47C, “Half Pint,” after landing at RAF Manston on June 26, 1943. The jammed canopy had prevented him from bailing out. (Photo author’s collection)

42 FlightJournal.com

Once stopped, Johnson crawled out through the smashed canopy, dragging his parachute behind him. He was a mess, with blood from his nose smeared over his face, which was puffed up from the stinging hydraulic fluid and burns. Splinters from cannon shells were embedded in both of his hands, and his watch had been shot off his wrist. He also had two flesh wounds in his right thigh. His Thunderbolt, “Half Pint,” had 21 gaping holes and jagged tears from 20mm cannon shells. Three had burst against the armor plate behind his head, while there were more than 200 bullet holes in the airframe. The aircraft looked like a sieve with holes in the wings, nose, fuselage and tail, and five in the propeller. It was beyond repair and never flew again, but this was surely a graphic demonstration of the strength and resilience of the P-47.

Four pilots of the 56th FG were killed in action that day, one of them a close friend of Johnson’s. A fifth pilot had to bail out over the sea but was rescued, another P-47 was damaged beyond repair, and five more were seriously damaged. The debt was growing larger, but the Germans’ failure to kill Johnson on June 26, 1943, was to cost them dearly. He was back flying on July 1 and named the new P-47D, 42-8461 HV-P, which was allocated to him, “Lucky.” It was given nose art of a hand with the middle finger raised. He was to score 21 of his victories in “Lucky.”

In July 1943, the 56th FG relocated to RAF Halesworth, just seven miles inland from the North Sea coast of Suffolk.

Johnson did not see combat again until August 17. The P-47s were now flying with 108-gallon belly tanks to increase their range, allowing them to escort the bombers to targets in the Ruhr Valley. On the operation that day, several combats occurred and, although Johnson did not get the chance to engage the enemy, the 56th FG claimed 17 enemy fighters for the loss of two of their own.

Johnson’s second confirmed kill, this time against a Bf 109, came two days later on August 19, during a fighter sweep over the Netherlands. Not for the only time his kill was achieved when he caught the enemy aircraft during a high-speed dive, where the Thunderbolt was much faster.

In five weeks of bomber escort missions up to the end of September 1943, the 56th FG claimed 43 enemy aircraft destroyed in aerial combat for the loss of eight of their own pilots. The balance sheet was gradually being restored into credit.

On October 8, Johnson destroyed a Fw 190 over Lingen, Germany. Modern research has suggested that his victim was the commander of JG1, Oberstleutnant (Lt. Col.) Hans Philipp, who was killed when he bailed out too low for his parachute to open.

Two days later, Johnson shot down a twinengine Bf 110 and a Fw 190 on the same mission, during a mass aerial combat over Muster, Germany. Johnson’s rudder cable was shot away by another enemy fighter and he was forced to fly home without any rudder control and to land pulling on the cable with his hand. However, with five kills to his credit he had become an official ace, something he had achieved while flying primarily as a wingman. He had also overcome the unwanted reputation of being a lone wolf.

Zemke’s Wolfpack The P-47s had now received 75-gallon underwing drop tanks and the 56th FG began to reach deeper and deeper into Germany. With some experienced combat

Flying the Thunderbolt

BY LT. COL. BOB JOHNSON 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 Thunderbolt climbs, the altimeter needle keeps winding and soon the big fighter has a different feel, due to the fading air resistance, and then we’re at 31,000 feet. The Thunderbolt is no angel, but how she can run into the blue.”

IN COMBAT “The P-47 was as fast, if not faster, than anything else in the air at the time. Its roll rate was very good; it could out-roll any plane in the air, bar none, and it could out-dive anything. It was very rugged and could take quite a beating. The Thunderbolt carried eight wing-mounted, .50-caliber machine guns which were very, very destructive. In its first year of combat, it was equipped with a thin, feather-tip propeller which was great for level speed, but helped not one bit in a climb or zoom.

P-47D Thunderbolt cockpit. This was Bob Johnson’s place of work while on operations in the ETO in 1943-44, sometimes on long missions over enemy territory.

(Photo author’s collection)

In very early 1944 we received the big, paddle-bladed prop with 14-inch-wide blades. This helped tremendously in the Thunderbolt’s climb and zoom. You could literally hang the airplane on its prop! The P-47 was not a very tight-turning aircraft and not particularly maneuverable at low altitude.

It was originally designed as a high-altitude fighter, so we could go all the way up to 44,000 feet if we wanted to, but most combat started at 25,000 feet where we were very maneuverable and held every advantage over all enemy fighters, except in a level turn. So, we learned to stay out of turning fights. We made the enemy come to our level and fight our kind of fight. In combat, we defeated every type of enemy aircraft from 30,000 feet right down to tree-top level. In a fight we knew that the Thunderbolt would never fail us, that we could literally hurl the airplane in any attitude through the sky. Thunderbolts fought the best pilots in the Luftwaffe at its peak and defeated them. Many pilots survived the war flying the P-47 who might not have in another aircraft. I know I did.”

LANDING “Heading home, ease back on the throttle and drop the nose.

Several tons of fighter slip earthwards, steady as a rock.

Maintaining an approach speed of 120 mph because so big and heavy a fighter stalls out at 105 mph. Gear down, flaps down on the final turn, and set her down at 110 mph, just above stalling speed, in a three-point landing.”

JUG ACE

Johnson was the only member of his squadron to score victories, shooting down five German fighters.

On New Year’s Day 1944, Johnson flew his Jug “Lucky” to a maintenance unit at Wattisham to have it modified. The P-47s were being fitted with broad-chord paddlebladed propellers, which significantly improved their performance all around, particularly their climb and zoom capabilities.

Maj. Robert “Bob” S. Johnson shakes hands with his crew chief, S/ Sgt. J C Penrod, from the cockpit of his P-47D LM-Q, “Penrod and Sam,” in which he scored his final two victories flying with the 62nd FS. The name came from Booth Tarkington's boys' novel of the same name, matching Johnson's crew chief's surname (Penrod) and his own middle name (Samuel). (Photo author’s collection)

Top ace

pilots and aces among its pilots and with increasing successes, the group was now being referred to as “Zemke’s Wolfpack.”

On November 26, 1943, Johnson was made a flight lead and by the end of December that year his score had risen to 10 confirmed aerial kills. In fact, between December 22, 1943, and January 5, 1944,

Johnson’s score continued to mount: during January 1944 he destroyed two Fw 190s, a Bf 109, and a twin-engine Messerschmitt Me 410.

In February 1944 the 56th FG, which was still flying razorback P-47s, began employing 150-gallon underwing drop tanks, enabling them to escort heavy bombers to target areas on deep penetration missions. On four missions in February and March, when the 56th FG was assigned a patrol sector west of Hanover in the vicinity of the Dümmer See Lake,

56th Fighter Group in Ww Ii The 56th FG, known as “Zemke’s Wolfpack” after its legendary commander, flew the P-47 Thunderbolt throughout its time stationed in England (January 1943 to October 1945) by preference. It was the only fighter group in the 8th Air Force not to trade its P-47s for P-51 Mustangs.

By the end of the war in Europe, the 56th FG was credited with 677.5 German aircraft destroyed in aerial combat, the second highest total for all USAAF fighter groups in the ETO, the highest among the 8th Air Force fighter groups, and the highest among Three high-scoring P-47 aces of the 56th FG after a successful all the P-47 groups of the USAAF. The 56th was also mission in February 1944. Left to right: Capt. Robert “Bob” S. Johnson, credited with destroying 311 enemy aircraft on the Col. Hubert “Hub” Zemke (Group Commander) and Capt. Walker “Bud” Mahurin. ground, making an overall total of 976.5.

By the end of the war in Europe, counting only expending more than three million .50-caliber rounds of air-to-air victories, the 56th FG had produced 39 aces, the ammunition. second most of any ETO group. The two top USAAF aces of The 56th FG lost 128 P-47s in combat and another 44 in the ETO, “Gabby” Gabreski and “Bob” Johnson, both flew with accidents, while a further 10 were written off with battle 56th FG. damage too severe to repair. Eighty-four of the 56th FG pilots The 56th FG flew 447 combat missions, with some 19,000 were posted killed or missing in action, another 30 were combat sorties and over 64,000 combat flying hours, killed in flying accidents, and 34 were captured as POWs.

Johnson shot down eight more German planes during mass aerial combats, making him the leading U.S. ace of the war at that time.

His 200-hour combat tour was now nearly over, and he applied for and was granted a 25-hour extension. Promoted to captain on March 15, he scored three more victories before being transferred to the 62nd Fighter Squadron as its operations officer. In mid-April 1944, the 56th FG moved to RAF Boxted, near Colchester, Essex, which was to be the group’s base for the remainder of the war.

Johnson was promoted to major on May 1, 1944, and on the last mission of his extended tour, on May 8, 1944, he recorded his final two kills, bringing his total score to 27 and breaking World War Two fighter ace Captain Eddie Rickenbacker’s record of 26 aerial victories. Bob Johnson had flown a total of 91 combat missions between April 1943 and May 1944. His total of aerial victories in the ETO was exceeded only by Lieutenant Colonel Gabby Gabreski with 28 kills.

his flight of Thunderbolts.

Johnson was an aggressive and courageous fighter pilot, always eager for a fight in the air, and he possessed tremendous skill as a pilot. He was also the beneficiary of some good luck. To those who flew with him he appeared fearless, but he said that he was always scared; it just seemed that he was able to control his fear.

Back home With his combat tour finished, Johnson was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross to add to his DFC (U.S.) and DFC (UK). He returned to the United States to be reunited with his wife and to a hero’s welcome. He saw the war out in PR roles.

He subsequently became a test pilot and engineering executive for Republic Aviation and eventually retired from the USAF Reserve as a lieutenant colonel in 1962.

He then became an insurance executive.

Robert S. Johnson died on December 27, 1998, aged 78, considerably later than he might have done.

What makes a top ace?

Many facets contributed to Bob Johnson becoming such a successful fighter pilot.

One of the most vital, often cited by those who flew and fought with him, was his phenomenal eyesight. This allowed him to spot enemy fighters in the sky where his fellow pilots saw nothing and allowed him to maneuver into the most advantageous position to attack, before the enemy saw

All of the 27 confirmed aerial victories with which Johnson is credited were against German fighters, only four of those were twin-engine fighters; the rest were single-engine Focke-Wulf Fw 190s and Messerschmitt Bf 109s, many of them flown by expert and deadly Luftwaffe fighter pilots.

His greatest number of aerial victories was achieved leading a flight of four Thunderbolts. Under his leadership, any one of the four pilots in his flight was free to attack German fighters that they had seen first, with the others providing protection.

Because of this leadership style, his flight’s pilots scored more kills and the flight destroyed more enemy fighters.

Remarkably, Johnson never lost a wingman to an enemy fighter, even when the wingmen were novices. That is an exceptional feat.

A hero’s welcome! Bob Johnson gets a rapturous reception at the Long Island Aircraft Plant after returning to the USA with his combat tour finished in 1944. (Photo John Dibbs/Facebook.com/ theplanepicture)

May/June 2022 45

GALLERY

Me 163 Komet A brilliant failure TEXT & PHOTOS BY HEATH MOFFATT

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.

The performance of the Komet was the result of some basic rules of high-performance airplane design: Put the biggest motor possible on the tiniest airframe possible. With the later motors, it had a thrust-to-weight ratio that approached 1:1 as the fuel burned down. It couldn’t help but climb fast and fly fast.

The cockpit was adequate for medium-size pilots and had good visibility.

WHEN IT WASN’T EXPLODING OR BEING SHOT DOWN, THE KOMET REPORTEDLY WAS AN EASY AND PLEASANT AIRPLANE TO FLY.

GALLERY

Originally the Me 163 carried a pair of 20mm cannon. They were replaced with two 30mm Mk 108s, which fired too slowly to reliably hit the target at high speed.

Germany’s high command, especially Hitler, was enamored with advanced technology. Der Führer was continually looking for newer, faster, bigger everything and micromanaged his side of the war to the point where he personally was responsible for much of the outcome. The Komet fell into that category. It was unique, it promised blinding speed, and it looked as if it might be an inexpensive aerial killer that no one could touch, so it was a must-have. It was, indeed, fast, but even that turned out to be a limited attribute.

Germany had a number of true geniuses in its employ, not the least of whom was designer-engineer Alexander Lippisch, whose trademark was highly swept wings with only a vertical tail surface (no horizontal stabilizer). Lippisch had first developed the concept in sailplanes, and he brought that knowledge with him when he transferred to Messerschmitt in 1939 to do serious work on the Komet. He initially worked with a glider version to test the aerodynamics, but in 1941, the Me 163A V4 was shipped to Peenemünde, where the Messerschmitt HWK R11-203 rocket engine was installed. In October of that year, with Heini Dittmar at the controls, it set an absolute world speed record of 48 FlightJournal.com

Above: The pilot jettisoned the landing gear immediately after takeoff.

Right: Nearly half of the Komet’s weight was fuel.

The Messerschmitt HWK R11-203 engines were improved continually, starting at 850 pounds of thrust and eventually delivering 3,400 pounds. Burn duration increased from 7.5 minutes to nearly 15 minutes in that time.

The common Revi 16/B, reflector, noncomputing gun sight was used.

624mph. In July 1944, however, Dittmar pushed his own record to 702mph, in a Me 163B V18 powered by a new version of the original rocket motor. He returned from the flight with much of the tail missing. The original motors had roughly 850 pounds of thrust and only seven and a half minutes of power available, while newer, 3,400-pound-thrust engines ran for as long as 12 to 13 minutes. This sounds laughably short, but the flight profile during that time was impressive.

From takeoff, an Me 163B-1 could be at 39,000 feet, well above most bomber formations, in a little more than three minutes. Because rockets don’t need

air to breathe, the 163B climbed faster the higher it went, reportedly achieving rates of climb of 16,000 feet per minute at altitude. The climb angle was an almost-impossible-to-believe 70 degrees! The initial plan was to station squadrons of Me 163s in rings around population and industrial centers, where, with five minutes’ warning, they could be attacking bomber formations at altitude (jettisoning their landing gear on takeoff). The very thing, however, that gave the Komet its edge—550mph speeds in “cruise”— greatly hampered the pilot’s ability to fire accurately. Even with multiple passes, pilots couldn’t reliably achieve the four or five hits their 30 mm cannon required to down a bomber. Plus, fighter escorts quickly realized that the interceptors ran out of fuel rapidly, so they just waited until the Komet planes were gliding back to their bases and followed them down.

Another major shortcoming was that the aircraft were, literally, flying bombs. The two chemicals (C-Stoff, a methanol-hydrazine rocket fuel, and T-Stoff, a hydrogen peroxide oxidizer) comprising its fuel exploded if only a drop or two of each commingled.

Even worse, both of the fuels were extremely toxic and capable of melting the pilot if he came in contact with them. When it wasn’t exploding or being shot down, however, the Komet reportedly was an easy and pleasant airplane to fly and highly maneuverable, even when out of power.

Although the Komet appears to be a plane of the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time variety, it spawned technological advantages out of proportion to its tiny size.

May/June 2022 49

The Hawker Sea Fury that forced an astronaut back down to Earth BY JAN TEGLER 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 Patuxent River. By 1978, he was selected by NASA to become an astronaut.

Hoot Gibson (right) stands next to famous fellow aviators and Unlimited class racers Tom Dwelle (left) and Skip Holm (middle) prior to the 2003 Gold championship race.

Holm, a decorated fighter pilot in Vietnam, Lockheed test pilot for F-117/F-22 fighters, and five-time Unlimited class champion, flew the P-51D “Dago Red” to victory at a 487-mph race average that year.

Dwelle, awarded the DFC in Vietnam while flying Skyraiders in combat, finished in third place flying his Sea Fury “Critical Mass.” Gibson raced “Riff Raff” to a seventh-place finish at 428 mph. (Photo by Eric Tegler)

Hoot Gibson, down low in “Riff Raff,” races wingtip-to-wingtip with Stewart Dawson in another Sea Fury, “Spirit of Texas,” at Reno. (Photo by Neal Nurmi)

RIFF RAFF

From riding the shuttles at 17,500 mph on the way to low earth orbit and rounding earth every 90 minutes to piloting a host of different aircraft—Piper Cubs to the F-101 Voodoo—Hoot’s wide experience led to repeated questions from the media.

“Frequently I’d be asked, ‘You’ve flown jet fighters, you’ve been a test pilot, an astronaut. Is there something in the world of aviation that you’ve never done that you’d like to do?’”

“The answer was always, ‘Yes.’,” Hoot says. “I would dearly love to race in the Unlimited class at Reno.”

Air racing was the reason Gibson was aloft in owner Mike Keenum’s Sea Fury that afternoon. Keenum had intended to race in the Unlimited class himself and in 1995 had purchased the airplane Hoot was flying. But after witnessing an accident at the Reno National Championship Air Races that year, Keenum’s wife forbid her husband to race.

Dejected but not defeated, Keenum asked a friend, ex-Navy pilot Chuck Scott, if he knew anyone interested and talented enough to race the converted (to single-seat) T Mk. 20 Sea Fury at Reno.

Fate intervened when Keenum, Gibson, and Scott happened to be at an airshow in

52 FlightJournal.com

Quincy, Illinois. Keenum had flown the Sea Fury in for the show, and Hoot was on hand to fly a two-seat MiG-21.

Scott asked Hoot if he’d be interested in racing Keenum’s Sea Fury. “I told him I’d love to,” Gibson answered.

“Wright Up Front” It was a deal. Keenum would have one of the nation’s most famous astronauts race the airplane he initially dubbed “Wright Up Front,” a riff on the Sea Fury’s big Wrightdesigned radial engine.

There was a small wrinkle, however.

Though Hoot had considerable tail-dragger time in Aeroncas, Luscombe Silvaires, Globe Swifts, and the de Havilland Beaver and Otter he’d flown in U.S. Navy Test Pilot School, he didn’t have experience in warbirds.

Hoot phoned Sanders Aeronautics chief Dennis Sanders, a good friend and part of the Sanders family, renowned for their Sea Fury expertise and their racing exploits in the 4360-powered Sea Fury “Dreadnought” and other racing Sea Furys.

“He was completing the annual for Wally Fisk’s two-seat T Mk.20 and needed to do a test flight. ‘Is there any way you’d consider

Mike Keenum’s Sea Fury in 1996 sporting the name “Wright Up Front,” a play on words referencing the Wright 3350 radial that replaced the fighter’s original Bristol Centaurus engine.

This was the name the airplane carried prior to racing as “Riff Raff.”

(Photo courtesy of Hoot Gibson)

“Wright Up Front” rests on its belly in a soybean field short of the runway at Greater Kankakee Airport, Illinois. The Sea Fury would rise again to race in the Unlimited class at Reno with Gibson in the cockpit from 1998 to 2009. (Photo courtesy of Hoot Gibson)

doing a check out for me in the Sea Fury?’”

Hoot asked. Sanders said, “Sure.”

“Dennis coached me right from the start on things to watch out for,” Hoot says. The flight went well and Sanders signed off on Gibson’s Sea Fury rating.

But Mike Keenum wanted his race pilot to accumulate time in the backseat of a T-6 to become more familiar with landing a longnosed warbird like the Sea Fury.

“That was my initiation rite,” Hoot jokes, adding that his “penance” was flying in the Texan with Ralph Royce, longtime air show pilot and president of the Lone Star Flight Museum in Houston. Well known for his safety advocacy in the airshow world and his sign-off at pre-flight briefings—“Don’t do nuthin’ dumb!”—Royce was just the guy to put Gibson through his paces.

Having successfully completed a batch of touch-and-gos and landings with Royce, Hoot went to Kankakee on August 26 for his first flight in “Wright Up Front.” The flight “went great” Gibson recalls, and he and Keenum were ready to go air racing.

“Not so fast,” said the Unlimited class

check pilot and president Art Vance.

“Art told me, ‘I understand you’ve got all this flight time and that you’re a Space Shuttle pilot and all that, but we’re going to want you to have 80 hours in that airplane before you show up to race.’”

Even for astronauts, pushing a warbird around the pylons at Reno at nearly 500 mph isn’t something you can do without preparation and a trial period of acceptance into the class. With his usual quiet determination, Gibson put his head down and worked on building 80 hours in the Sea Fury that he would race under a different name.

“Riff Raff” Gibson credits Keenum’s wife with the ultimate name for the racer. “She said, ‘We’re the new guys. We’re the Riff Raff,’”.

To rack up 80 hours in “Riff Raff” as quickly as possible, Hoot was making the trip to Kankakee on weekends to fly the Sea Fury. On the weekend of August 24, he had flown one of NASA’s T-38A/Ns up from Ellington Field, Houston to Rockford, Illinois,

EVEN FOR ASTRONAUTS, PUSHING A WARBIRD AROUND THE PYLONS AT RENO AT NEARLY 500 MPH ISN’T SOMETHING YOU CAN DO WITHOUT PREPARATION AND A TRIAL PERIOD OF ACCEPTANCE INTO THE CLASS. May/June 2022 53

RIFF RAFF

Hoot Gibson taxies “Riff Raff” just prior to qualifying laps at Reno in 2000. (Photo by Birgitta Nurmi)

then drove to Kankakee to bore holes in the sky locally in “Wright Up Front”/“Riff Raff.”

“It was kind of dumb really because what I was doing was taking off, throttling way back to max endurance and cruising for two and a half hours. Then I’d land and refuel and go up again. The object was just to get hours in the airplane.”

On one of the flights, “Unbeknownst to me, an oil line had blown down under the belly of the airplane and was dumping all of the oil out of the 3350 fast,” Hoot remembers.

Already close to the airport, Hoot entered the pattern for landing, unaware that a 1.5-inch oil line “that carried 90 psi of oil pressure” had separated from the clamp holding it.

“On downwind, there was a Cessna Cardinal in front of me. I had already done a 360-degree turn on downwind to get some spacing. But the Cardinal flew a B-52 pattern … a long, long final.”

“So, I had extended, turned base and … no engine.”

In characteristically honest fashion, Hoot says, “Part of my excuse was the engine oil pressure gauge was low on the panel behind the control stick. The stick blocked your view or maybe I would have seen when it ran out. There’s no warning light for it.”

The Sea Fury’s big prop was still turning but “with any airspeed at all, that prop goes to flat pitch, otherwise called a ‘speed brake,’” Gibson notes.

Hoot was turning hard to line up with the runway when the engine momentarily came back to life.

“I had jammed the throttle forward one time and it sputtered for a second. I thought, ‘My gosh. Maybe it’ll come back.’ It didn’t.

I don’t why it sputtered like that because it had sheared the drive to the accessory section of the engine. The magnetos were gone, the fuel pump’s gone, everything’s gone.”

Gibson was in trouble “I was at 1,000 feet, but the problem was I was too far out because I hadn’t been able

ABOVE: Gibson on the takeoff roll down runway 8/26 at Reno-Stead Airport, the site of the National Championship Air Races. (Photo by Wayne

Sagar) BELOW: “Riff Raff’” owner Mike Keenum (head in hand), Hoot Gibson (in cockpit), and the racer’s crew chief consult with famed Lockheed thermodynamicist/air-racing-carburetor/cooling-systems guru Pete Law about gremlins plaguing the racer’s complex Wright 3350 radial in 1998, the first year it competed. (Photo by Eric Tegler)

May/June 2022 55

SEA FURYS ARE KNOWN FOR NOSING OVER IF LANDED WITH THE GEAR DOWN OFF-RUNWAY. ... "IF THE GEAR HAD COME DOWN, IT WOULD HAVE KILLED ME.”

Gibson banks “Riff Raff” around the 8-mile race course at Reno.

Between 2005 and 2007, he pushed the oncewrecked Sea Fury to race averages in the high 430-mph range. (Photo

by Neal Nurmi)

to fly the pattern I wanted to fly. Not even halfway to the runway, I got into wing rock.

I recognized that, ‘Hey, I’m about to stall this airplane.’ What happens is that the ailerons get real light as you approach the stall and the stick will actually start moving back and forth.”

“I thought, ‘You stall this thing, you’re a dead man.’”

Still at least half a mile from the runway, Gibson knew he had to lower Riff Raff’s nose and attempt to land short of the runway.

“One of the mistakes I made was thinking, ‘Oh I can’t put it on its belly. I’ve got to get the gear down!’”

Sea Furys are known for nosing over if landed with the gear down off-runway.

Hoot reached down to the left of his left leg on the floor, unlatched the gear safety lever, then pulled the handle backward to lower the gear. “I was trying to hold the aircraft off the ground as much as I could without stalling it, but I touched down before the gear could ever move, fortunately! If the gear had come down, it would have killed me.”

“Riff Raff” went careening through a soybean field off the end of runway 4/22 but only for a short distance.

“The tail came down first and then the forward part of the airplane came down pretty hard. It dug into the dirt and it was about the shortest landing roll I’ve ever had, maybe only 150 feet. I got out of the cockpit really fast! I didn’t even remember shutting off the fuel, shutting off the mags, or killing the battery and then opening the canopy, jumping out, and getting clear of the thing.”

Seeing that the Sea Fury wasn’t going to burn, Hoot went back to the cockpit to make sure he’d shut everything down. He was concerned that he’d somehow flown “Riff Raff” with the fuel shut off. The next day he and Keenum went back to the wounded Sea Fury along with the racer’s crew chief and a mechanic.

Gibson was slightly relieved when “the mechanic hopped up on the wing, pulled the engine dipstick out and said, ‘Yup, there’s no oil.’”

From “Riff Raff” to Champion The beginning of Gibson’s racing career in the Unlimited class was inauspicious. But sheet metal work fixed the damage to the underside of the aircraft, and a rebuild of the racer’s 3550 made it flyable again by the summer of 1997. Hoot, Keenum, and his crew were looking forward to finally racing in 1997.

That is, until Keenum took “Riff Raff” up for a test flight.

“Mike landed and was just about to shut it down when he saw a chip light,” Hoot remembers. “The oil was full of metal and the engine was done. There goes 1997.”

Hoot finally got to race “Riff Raff” in 1998 and went on to compete for 10 years in the airplane he’d once bellied into a bean field.

The Sea Fury and Hoot got faster and faster, and for three consecutive years (20052007) scored fourth place finishes in the Gold championship race, pushing “Riff Raff” to high-430 mph race averages.

By 2011, Gibson was flying another racing Sea Fury named “September Fury.”

Sporting a much more modified 3350 radial with a boil-off cooling system, the airplane became the fastest Sea Fury in history in 2006 with previous owner/pilot Mike Brown, when it won Gold at Reno with an average of 481.619 mph. Gibson flew “September Fury” to second place overall in 2012, but an Unlimited championship still eluded him.

In 2015, Hoot came out on top, flying the famed P-51D “Strega” to victory. His first lap was clocked at 503 mph, and he went on to beat “Rare Bear” at a record Unlimited Gold race average of 488.983 mph. He had finally climbed Unlimited air racing’s mountain—nearly 20 years after “Riff Raff” forced him down to earth.

May/June 2022 57

LAST MAN OUT Miracle in the South China Sea

BY PAUL NOVAK

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 crew.

58 FlightJournal.com

Clockwise from above: Q Typical B-52D weapons drop.

Q Official AF photo of Capt.

Myles McTernan.

Q B-52D returning from combat mission. Notice there aren’t any bombs on the pylons just inside the second engine nacelle; means they dropped them.

Q “Mush” McTernan on the Utapao Royal Thai Air Base flightline. How do you know if it was hot that day?

“I DON’T REMEMBER ANYTHING FROM THE TIME I JUMPED ... WHEN IT WAS DARK, UNTIL I FOUND MYSELF FLOATING IN THE WATER ... ALONE WITH MY PARACHUTE STRETCHED OUT BEHIND ME IN 8-TO-10-FOOT-SHARK-INFESTED SEAS.”

LAST MAN OUT

Capt. McTernan’s crew at post-mission debrief ... without Capt. McTernan.

Seated right to left: Lt. Col. Gerald Wickline (pilot), Capt. William Milcarek (co-pilot), Maj. Roger Klingbeil (radar navigator); Capt. Bill Fergason (EWO); T. Sgt. Carlos Killgore (tail gunner).

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The military target that night of January 4, 1973, was the North Vietnamese city of Vinh, surrounded by SAMs just as Hanoi had been a few days earlier. Vinh still seemed like a “milk run” for the nine B-52s that attacked it in a loosely spread “V” formation of three, three-ship cells, with Wickline’s aircraft placed next to last in the string.

“I wasn’t happy to be next to last in a long string of aircraft,” said McTernan. No one liked that position because you soon learned that being in the rear allowed the SAM operators to sharpen their aim on the front aircraft and then start targeting in more precisely at the guys in the rear positions. But I convinced myself not to worry; it was a milk run and we were veterans of Linebacker II [the 12-day bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong during Christmas 1972].”

But as their now-wounded aircraft started its unplanned descent toward the South China Sea, on fire and severely damaged, no one on the crew thought that

anymore. But since Vinh is located about 240 miles north of the DMZ and the haven of a friendly, American Da Nang Air Base, a bailout would have to wait at least 30 minutes or more.

Wickline aimed the plane south, hoping the old BUFF (Big Ugly Friendly Fellow) would be as reliable as ever and allow his crew time to eject over safe water just east of Da Nang, where he was certain they would all be picked up by Navy ships. He did not count on any glitches in the ejection seats the crew would use to escape.

As Wickline turned the B-52 east out to sea, near the American air base, Wickline turned on the bailout light. At all stations, it flashed indicating the crew should eject from the aircraft. They did ... or, in Capt.

McTernan’s case, tried to. (The tail gunner, T/Sgt. Carlos Kilgore, had already left due to excessive fire at the rear of the plane.)

Wickline assumed that McTernan and Klingbeil, the navigators, as well as Capt.

Bill Fergason, the Electronic Warfare Officer,

ABOVE: Three-ship cell of B-52D aircraft, each carrying 108 500-lb. bombs, will devastate an area 1.5 x 0.5 miles, or 480 acres.

BELOW: The tail gunner’s cockpit on a B-52D. To eject, the gunner jettisons the rear part of the cockpit and bails out manually.

had all ejected. And after a cloud of debris cleared, he could see that his co-pilot, Capt.

William “B-52 Bill” MilCarek had joined them. Since he was the sixth and only crewmember left, Wickline waited a few seconds, triggered his seat, and blew out of the aircraft.

Shark-infested seas for four and a half hours What he did not know was that, though he heard and felt them all leave, one had not: McTernan, the navigator, had triggered his seat and it started the downward ejection, but then stopped before his hatch blew, perhaps damaged by the SAM hit. He was down in that hole and could not tell Wickline he was still there because he couldn’t reach the microphone button.

As the plane was slowly being consumed by fire and its descent angle increasing, McTernan knew he had a minute or two to get out of a deadly situation.

So that’s what he did. McTernan knew his raft kit was attached to the seat he just left.

So, knowing that staying in the plane for even another 30 seconds would kill him, he had to get out. He realized that when he hit May/June 2022 61

LAST MAN OUT

Cessna 0-1 Birddog, similar to the observation plane that spotted Capt.

McTernan as the pilot turned back to refuel.

the water, many miles from the rest of his crew, his chances of survival were close to zero. The current and the waves it produced were reported in the 10-foot neighborhood.

The South China Sea was known to have sharks, and there was a chance that someone besides the U.S. Navy might get to him first. So, McTernan became the last man to bail out of a B-52 during the Viet Nam War. “I don’t remember anything from the time I jumped ... when it was dark, until I found myself floating in the water ... alone with my parachute stretched out behind me. I was told later I was out there in 8-to10-foot-shark-infested seas for four and a half hours. It wasn’t until 10 years later that I learned how close I came to not being rescued.” And Myles adds: “... so close that my parents received a missing-in-action notice on me that same day.” He did not know that he would not have any of the equipment in his survival vest to use. And, of course, he had hoped that he would not be injured on his way out of the plane.

Both of those thoughts turned on him.

He had lost a radio, and his face still shows the deep scars due to a helmet bayonet connector loosening and slashing him. His hands and face were bleeding, and he had burns from the jet fuel. None of the four

flares worked, the waves he was battered about in felt twice as tall, and he didn’t even think about using the hand mirror from his survival vest to flash any friendly rescuers, probably because, at the time, there weren’t any.

As the hours went by, McTernan was swallowing massive amounts of salt water, and his mind was trying to swallow the fact that, though he was known for his persistence and positive attitude of looking forward, he might be coming to the end of the line. McTernan did not harbor the negative thoughts for long, but he did think that he might not survive the day.

“And guess what? A while later a single small plane spotted me at the top of a wave as he was turning to go back and refuel.

If that guy had turned left instead of right or showed up 30 seconds later when I was down in the trough between waves, I wouldn’t have made it.”

Soon, that spotter plane had help on the way. McTernan recalls a helicopter involved in the pick-up. Indeed, it was. He would be on dry land soon—Da Nang Air Base—and back to his crew, who greeted him with open arms … and “You look like shit, man.”

Recovering from that perilous night Occasionally we meet people who are exceptional, positive, and ready to get things done rather than think about and dismiss them. Having had the good fortune for many years to know McTernan, I can tell you that he is open, honest, courageous, and intelligent. A hero is a person who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength either of a physical or mental nature. A hero is not necessarily military.

But he is special. Ask yourself: could I ever imagine treading and swallowing saltwater for four and a half hours (!) with a punctured life preserver in 10-foot waves and with a bleeding head injury?

HIS HANDS AND FACE WERE BLEEDING, AND HE HAD BURNS FROM THE JET FUEL. NONE OF THE FOUR FLARES WORKED, THE WAVES HE WAS BATTERED ABOUT IN FELT TWICE AS TALL, AND HE DIDN’T EVEN THINK ABOUT USING THE HAND MIRROR FROM HIS SURVIVAL VEST TO FLASH ANY FRIENDLY RESCUERS, PROBABLY BECAUSE, AT THE TIME, THERE WEREN’T ANY. 62 FlightJournal.com

Keep Pushing Forward: Conquering PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which McTernan suffers from, is a mental health problem that can occur after a traumatic event like a war, assault, or disaster. It’s normal to have upsetting memories, feel on edge, or have trouble sleeping after an upsetting event, but if symptoms last more than a few months, it may be PTSD. McTernan gave me permission to write about his experience with PTSD as he wants to get the word out to others, both military and civilian, that this disease could be related to all kinds of difficulty in their lives, and he wants them to know there is help available, and, yes, they can beat it. Maybe not wipe it out of their lives … but close.

PTSD can cause rage over something trivial. It can also cause difficulty getting a job, problems on the job, and with relationships between co-workers or spouses. It can defeat you if you let it. Let’s listen to McTernan: “I didn’t know what to call it way back when I got it,” he says. “It was just a bad disease that needed taking care of, though I am not sure how well that worked in my case,” He slides that smile back onto his face. Then McTernan looks a little more serious than he has during our other talks. “In my case, I had problems with any position I held. I went to therapy. I had nightmares—not necessarily about the bail out and follow-on injuries—but just bad nightmares. I had to keep my brain working, and I was drinking a lot—way too much. But here is the kicker. I didn’t, or wouldn’t, relate the drinking to a disease, never associated it with PTSD. “What I want to tell other folks,” he adds, “is if you are having any of these difficulties that I have been fighting my way through, keep pushing yourself forward. Keep your brain active. Consider therapy and counseling. Work at it and you can beat it. The help is out there, people. Use it. The worst thing is to not recognize that much of your troubles may be PTSD.” And this author might add that is good advice from an exceptionally reliable source: a hero who fought his way through and ended up as Chief of Navigation Training for Joint Navigator Training at Mather AFB, California. So, thank you, Lt. Col. Myles McTernan, for your positive influence on an entire generation of young men and women (and a few of us older ones, too.)

Veterans experiencing PTSD can get help at ptsd.va.gov.

The entire crew was rescued safely that fateful day, and they all recovered from their injuries. What happened that night of January 4, 1973 over Vinh, North Viet Nam, would shape that combat crew’s lives, and especially Capt. McTernan’s, in ways he could not define at the time.

Sometimes the shape of McTernan’s life was good ... and sometimes not so good as he has suffered with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD; see sidebar). McTernan and his wife, Donna, live near Folsom, California, and in the course of interviewing him for this article I heard him laugh as he stopped at the restaurant table next to ours to ask complete strangers how their dinner was. Somehow, he turned them into

happier people as he passed by. Other crew members were affected as well. MilCarek became the youngest aircraft commander in Strategic Air Command (SAC). He led a life dedicated to bringing other veterans together and, appropriately enough, passed away on the Fourth of July in 2021. Later, Killgore was selected Top Gunner of the U.S. Air Force. After living a courageous life in the air, Wickline and his wife purchased a 40-foot trawler and made several trips a year from their home in Florida to the Bahamas. Among other decorations and awards, he had earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his courage over Hanoi and Vinh. He passed away in January, 2020, at age 86 from natural causes.

May/June 2022 63

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TAILVIEW Continued from page 66

Fowler (pictured at left) led the “Old Crow” flight to and from the West coast in Jim Hagedorn’s P-51D “Old Crow.” The D model is seen here cooling its heels at Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita, Kansas on the return flight. (Photos by Ray Fowler)

With ideal weather, the two flew VFR all the way. Both Mustangs have oxygen systems, but they weren’t needed much en route to Auburn.

“The highest we went on the way out was 15,500, since we didn’t file a flight plan,” Fowler explains. “We averaged about 250 knots.”

Fowler flew the westward trip with the Merlin at 34 inches of manifold and the prop turning 2,350 rpm.

“That’s pretty standard for normal cruise speed and gives Paul as my number-two a few inches to play with.”

A highlight was flying from Albuquerque to McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas. The two chose to stop there to take a light load of fuel on for the final leg to Auburn and its relatively short 3,700-foot runway.

Fowler’s day job is as a First Officer flying Airbus A321s for Delta Airlines, so he’s used to flying into big commercial hubs—but not in a Mustang.

“We pulled up at the FBO and most of the airport came out,” he quips. “They were thrilled to see the airplanes.

Leaving, we took off on runway 1L and the instructions had us turn out directly over the Strip. So we had this great climbing turn going through 600 or 700 feet right over it. That was cool!”

The Mustangs made it to Auburn and flanked the stage set up for Anderson in Tom Dwelle’s hangar. Fowler says Bud was delighted with the party and the roughly 200 people who came from all over to celebrate including, Jack Roush, Clay Lacy, Sean Tucker, warbird collectors Ron and Dianne Fagen, and many more.

The next day, Fowler and Draper headed east cruising at 270 knots and 17,000 feet or so with a 10-knot tailwind.

It took just two stops and three legs to return to Ypsilanti, Michigan.

The weather held up until “the last leg descending into Detroit,” Fowler says. “We ended up having to shoot an approach as a two-ship through snow and ice!”

“I’ll tell you, the P-51 is still a great cross-country airplane, quite comfortable for what it is. You cover ground fast going 300 mph. We flew nine hours on the way out, about seven hours on the return. The airplanes were flawless and I’d do it again!”

May/June 2022 65

TAILVIEW

Sixteen Hours in “Old Crow” BY JAN TEGLER Ray Fowler closed the distance on “Old Crow” above Detroit, Michigan on January 13, rendezvousing with Paul Draper, who was flying Jack Roush’s P-51B. Fowler was at the controls of another “Old Crow,” a P-51D owned by Jim Hagedorn. Both airplanes wear the wartime livery of one of America’s most celebrated aces, Colonel Clarence “Bud” Anderson.

ABOVE: Bud Anderson, America’s highest-scoring living fighter ace, at right, sits with good friend and famed NASCAR team owner Jack Roush at Bud’s 100th birthday party in Auburn, California. A great supporter of the 16.2-victory ace, Roush generously sends his P-51B in Anderson’s “Old Crow” livery to be on hand at events where Bud appears. BELOW: Paul Draper guides Jack Roush’s P-51B “Old Crow” over the Cascade Mountains on the way to Auburn, California for Anderson’s 100th birthday party as seen from Ray Fowler’s view in the cockpit of Jim Hagedorn’s P-51D “Old Crow.”

(Photos by Ray Fowler)

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 Aviation Services, flew for an hour from Detroit to Terre Haute, Indiana looked over the airplanes, topped off with gas, then flew 2.5 hours to Wichita, Kansas. From there they headed southwest to Albuquerque, New Mexico where they hangared the “Crows” overnight.

Continued on page 65

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