Warbird Information Exchange

Steve,

Actually,the airplane didn't smell too bad because we carried the fish in heavy duty plastic totes and they were very fresh and Homer Seafoods has a fish washing machine and and ice plant at the beach.Those items and all of the building materials as well as a huge generator were hauled out there by Hawkins and Powers C-119's.I hauled fuel and groceries and smaller items,but the boxcars were the perfect machine for hauling anything and everything.When we hauled empty totes back to the beach was when we got the dead fish stink.You can hold your breath all the way from securing the cargo door to securing the cockpit door.I can say that from experience.We carried as many empty totes as would fit as they didn't weigh much,but it prevented securing the lids and nobody seemed to have any disinfectant or even fresh water where we dropped off totes in King Salmon.They did get cleaned at the beach after we dropped them off,though.

We would get fish parts thrown up into the wheel wells on take-off sometimes when we'd run over discarded fish on our "runway" which was just a strip of beach.We didn't even have a garden hose available at King Salmon and we were based there for about three weeks.I'd wipe down the struts between flights,but conditions were pretty primative.I definitely need to scan more fish haul pictures when I get home.I have to leave Florida on Thursday and drive back to Oregon,so I might be off line for a few days.One more item.I got to thinking about the oil pumps and I think that they came from S-2's because I don't believe that T-28's are catapulted and they make deck runs for take-off.Jack Cook can probably verify that.

Here are some shots of the fish in totes











This is a typical backhaul of diesel for the generator



This is without the fish or fuel



A few Boxcar shots

Cool pics and information..thanks for posting! I remember a few years back seeing a pic of a C-97 fish hauler parked on the beach..a pretty amazing sight. Did you run into any problems with salt water exposure to the aircraft?

SN