IL-78(warbird?)

[steve dickey]

Went to go help a friend pick up a custom chopper from the North Texas Regional Airport, or Grayson county airport which ever you prefer
Its a one of a kind A/C in the United States and will likely stay grounded indefinatly due to paper work issues.

[Second Air Force]

We were down there a couple of weeks ago and parked next to it, Steve. There is quite a story to go with that beast. The Soviets built them stout.

[steve dickey]

I've heard a majority of it about the failed attempt at agressor training and using the bird as a refueler but it wouldn't work because the fuel pressures are different in the transfer(IL-78) and recieving end(supposedly F-16's, F-5's, and some version of Sukoi I think)). Plus the log books are AWOL so the FAA won't give it a license What do you know?

[Second Air Force]

The contract refueling story is pretty much the same as what I dug up. The problem with fuel pressures is refuelling the IL-76, complicated by the fact that it takes 55 psi to unseat the fueling valves in the airplane, and the FBOs could only provide 35 psi from the trucks. According to what I've read and heard the airplane was originally going to be based at AFW until it was realized that it isn't Stage 3 noise compliant, hence the move to Perrin.

What a pair.....

They evidently did find the logbooks and manuals, but like the airplane, everything is in Cyrillic and would cost a fortune to translate into English to satisfy the FAA. Hmmm.......maybe they could hire Gary since he knows Russian.......

Scott

[steve dickey]

Hey cool, looks like the ladder is out, did you get to look inside? Yeah thats what I heard too, just my memory is not as good to remember all of it

[Second Air Force]

No, we didn't go exploring even though the welcome mat was out. We stopped to chat with a nice lady working in her flower beds outside her hangar and she showed us her Stearman and another project.

Since it was a Sunday (Perrin Field Museum closed) we shot some photos of a few WWII buildings and then headed to Gainesville for a fuel stop.

Speaking of Perrin, have they finished the cosmetic restoration of their F-86?

Scott

[steve dickey]

Hey Scott, the hanger we picked up the chopper was Terry Rogers place(on the north end), really nice guy and fun to talk to They have the F-86 but have yet to start on it.


Here is the brochure for the museum and as we didn't get much time to talk to the fella's in the museum they did say they were looking for A/C at the moment and the only one they had was the 86.



Nice looking Stearman

[cozmo]

Thanks for the picture of the F-86 on the trailer, I have been wondering how they got it from Sherman. None of the other views of the move showed the trailer.

[CAPFlyer]

Back to the IL-78 - Maybe there was a mod done to the aircraft, but the Algerian IL-76TD's that I refueled on their once-a-year flight to Denver International had no problem taking fuel at 30PSI. We had trucks capable of delivering 55PSI, however we had the safety valves set to 50PSI and primary pressure set to 35PSI to help save the truck shutoff valves and pumps when a tank would VTO (Volumetric Top Off - i.e. shut off the valve in the manifold off because it was full).