Warbird Information Exchange

I had just read a copy of the Tyndall Schedule for the upcoming airshow and they had a T-33 scheduled to race the jet truck. That would have made a neat thing to see.

It has since changed to be a race with Ed Hamill in his pitts.

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"Hindsight is usually 20% off!"

That's too bad. I always wished to see a jet race the jet truck - or at least a fast piston like a P-51 or something that had a reasonable chance of whipping the stinkin truck. Yes, they do stink! I was over near the B-17 Thunderbird one time when they started Shockwave - they must've had some preservative in there and when they started the truck, it fogged the whole ramp and stank like I couldn't believe.

Ryan

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Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.

The year after the Mig 29's were at Alliance, I helped Les and his wife get the truck setup and recovered after the display. From what I can remember, he ran diesel with maybe a little Corvus oil mixed in for fuel. I think he told me that they did not make any adjustments to the fuel control system to optimize it for the diesel fuel.

When we first start a perserved motor at work, we get a lot of smoke, but nothing like running one on diesel.
One of the guys that I knew from work happended to be there while we were getting the truck ready for the run. The scheduled passenger didn't show up by suit-up time. Les offered my co-worker the chance to ride instead. He got a heck of a ride out of it. They ran 347 mph, pulled over 5 G's and blew a chute on shutdown and came close to overrunning the end of the runway. He wasn't nervous or scared at all until they got back to the staging area and he spotted the destroyed chute harness after getting out of the truck!

Sorry to hijack...but I just scanned these last night



Did somebody say Migs at Alliance????

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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That was a wild few days in the Mig compound. On their arrival landing, one of the guys had a problem with his drag chute and it ended up wrapped around the right drop tank. It wound itself in such a way that he had to taxi over the chute and pull the vent fitting out of the top of the tank so that we could free it. Really bugged the crew out when I took them out to Moose's hangar at Aero Valley and got him to weld up the fitting so we wouldn't have to completely empty the IL-76 to get the spare tank out. They thought the Ferrari in the hangar was neat, but went wild over the TIG and Mig units he had!

When the team offcial asked Moose about payment for the repairs, he just asked if he could have a Mig poster for his shop and if they came to the show on Sunday, could he and his wife come into the compound and see the Migs up close. Well, to make it really great for him, the entire team signed the poster, they got him VIP passes and hosted him and his wife and son as their guests to the show and gave them the super tour of the Migs and IL, as well as putting them all in both cockpits and making their pictures, along with photos with the pilots. The last time I saw Moose years ago, he still talked about that visit.

For myself, I got to spend a lot of time turning wrenches and doing service work on the Migs. Changed tires, did engine service, ECS service and helped on a couple of other systems checkouts during the week. Managed to learn a lot about Russian aircraft design philosophy and manufacturing during that time too.

Cool Story!

I went up there on arrival day, couldn't see much from the south end of the field. Got to see them fly a few times that week.

For me, as a wide eyed young commie hater, it was amazing to see Soviet combat aircraft in Texas.

Thanks for sharing your story.

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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It was interesting to work with the crew. Most didn't speak more than a smattering of english and I knew even less Russian, but we managed to have a great time working together. Texas hospitality kinda got to a couple of them and we nearly had to go bail them out of jail one night... When the deputies found out they were Russian and sorta guests of the State Dept., they wanted nothing to do with hauling them in.

I did manage to spend considerable time with one of the guys that spoke pretty good english and had a very good technical background. He was part of a MIG bureau flight test team and had about 20 years turning wrenches on various products. Got a very interesting education about the Soviet aircraft manufacturing and some design philosophies and production arrangements. Neither side ever even broached the topic of product capability while we talked.

The most interesting thing many of them said was that they were surprized at how open things were in the US and how friendly people were to them, despite the history of antagonism between the countries. At least two of the guys talked with the escorts about what they would have to do paperwork wise to be able to come back over and travel around the US and visit the next summer. Don't know if they ever got to come back over, but it wure would have been neat if they were able to.