Martin P6M SEAMASTER

Speedy · **Posted:** Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:31 pm

warbird2 wrote:

Nathan wrote:

Yes I like them, I am old school. But I also see them filling a void in our military. Search and rescue is very important.

That is fine, I was just asking if that was the reason you wanted the U.S. to have seaplanes. I do find it odd that you think they would fill a void in the military that the military does not seem to think exists. We do not need seaplanes as we have other means to accomplish that misson. I have been to SERE and water survival. I know how important search and rescue is.

Just for the record....I too have been the SERE and water survival, as I'm sure a lot of the former/current military pilots on this board have been. But that doesn't necessarily make anyone an expert on the matter.

And as one who spent 95% of my flight time out on 'open ocean' patrol, a long-long way out into the middle of nowhere, I killed a lot of the time thinking "okay, if I had to put it down right here, and we got everyone out okay...we're not in the shipping lanes, the last merchant vessel we saw was 5 hours ago going the other direction, and...." This was especially important if we weren't working with a CBG or any other friendly assets. Just my humble opinion, but unless you're within the combat radius of a ship-based helo, or close enough to shore...you're going to spend a LOT of time in the water.

I remember that when I was on West Pac I actually felt a bit reassured that the JMSDF had their US-1 amphibians scattered in the area....because they could come get us long before any of the US recovery assets could get there.

Just my personal thought and observation.

And as far as keeping things civil....if you really have off-topic things to poke at, isn't that what the private messages are for?

Brad

Nathan · **Posted:** Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:35 pm

Hello,

I feel somewhat responsible for the downgrade of this thread. Sometimes I need to learn to explain myself a little better and not leave a comment open to interpretation. .

Back on topic:

The SEAMASTER is one cool ship...errrr plane....or both!

Hope that helps,
Nathan

Franklin · **Joined:** Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:53 pm **Posts:** 183

Quote:

I feel somewhat responsible for the downgrade of this thread. Sometimes I need to learn to explain myself a little better and not leave a comment open to interpretation.

Nathan the only thing you are responsible for, and from what I have read from your posts, is to express your own personal opinions and honesty on any subject that you find interesting here on WIX. Don't ever worry about what you think others may or may not agree with. Just keep being yourself and keep posting whatever you feel like posting. In my short time here I can tell you are the last member WIX needs to worry about downgrading any thread. Maybe many here could learn a thing or two from your posts. :wink:

Forgotten Field · **Posted:** Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:06 pm

Quote:

I will point out again this is why there is a thread on wix and civility. This has nothing to do with you or mudge yet you both seem bent on starting a fight. Please tell me why I should do things the way either of you want? Maybe you should just leave it alone since it does not concern you. So please feel free to take your own advice about pieholes.

I don't care what you do. I just like telling people about my alternative personal checklist entry in my -10:

105. Piehole Operations
a. If in doubt, place piehole switch in off position.

I make the same kind of mistakes. One time, I opened my piehole and sent a guy to Italy, for four weeks paid, on a ski trip. I got in trouble for that. The guy who went to Italy was grateful for what I did. His commander wasn't. His commander was my commander, and had a talk with me about proper use of the chain of command. Had I shut my piehole, Corporal B wouldn't have gone to Italy and I wouldn't have been on the carpet. My only regret was that I couldn't go to Italy with Corporal B. However, with all due consideration to traditional chain of command, and in order to avert personal fault, I created entry 105 in my personal checklist. I in no way advocate making changes to your personal checklist without consulting the manufacturer.

I was not aware the term "piehole" was an improper one. I have used the term "piehole" in a prior professional leadership position, and was not singled out for punishment. If you are personally affronted by that term, please let me know and I will cease its use. Will "cakeholster" suffice as an alternative? I'd appreciate any suitable alternative, as long as it is funny and gets the point across.

Nathan, thanks for reminding us of that marvelous Glenn L Martin piece of equipment, the Seamaster!

Franklin · **Joined:** Sat Mar 19, 2011 3:53 pm **Posts:** 183

How many seamen can a seamaster hold? .... Fill in the punchline .... lol

Rajay · **Posted:** Sat Apr 09, 2011 2:50 pm

3 pages of posts and 2 of them seem to have been way off-topic. Hmmm....

I have always loved the P6M Seamaster. Of course, I have always been infatuated with seaplanes - real seaplanes that is - i.e. boats! That's one of the reasons why I've been up to my eyeballs in Gooses for the last 5 years. Ironically, I always thought that the Seamaster looked like it was more of a Russian product - very Beriev-like lines to it.

The coolest film I ever saw of a P6M was on a SeaWings episode on the Discovery Wings/Military Channel and that same video has shown up edited into several other shows as well. It seemed to have been taken from a chase plane flying above, to the left of, and slightly behind a P6M as it was accelerating for take-off on some relatively glassy water. It seemed to be going over 120 mph before it finally flew off the water - the rooster tail was HUGE and it ate up "miles" of open water in the process. That must have been a sight to see out on the Chesapeake Bay - and mighty hard to keep it secret!

The footage is available on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QowTqmxYZ1Q

I have always heard that the performance and operational capabilities of the P6M rivaled the B-47 but of course it had the added benefit of being able to operate just about anywhere. I loved the previous comment that you can't crater the ocean! Regardless of whether its cancellation was a matter of limited nuclear arsenal budgets or inter-service rivalries or even something else entirrely, the real travesty is that someone (stupid!) decided that all of the Seamasters had to be scrapped and cut up! I mean WTF? What kind of BS is that? Were they afraid that if the nine or so aircraft that initially survived the testing phase (the two XP6M-1 prototypes crashed during testing; they were followed by 6 YP6M-1's and 3 P6M-2's), they might return one day to outperform and "haunt" the Air Force (or whomever)?

As far as facts are concerned, I believe (IMHO) that there were two things mentioned earlier that were incorrect:

1) It was mentioned that the P6M had P&W J-57 engines; I believe that the two prototypes had Allison J-71's and the later aircraft had P&W J-75's. Apparently the inboard afterburners were problematic and had to be disabled - they caused stress-cracking in the aft fuselage.

2) The Harvey Point NC facility (southwest of Elizabeth City, southeast of the town of Hertford, and on the north side of Albemarle Sound) was not built just for the P6M Seamaster program. I've read that it was one of the first PBM Mariner training bases from before the US entry into WWII. Harvey Point was a long-established seaplane base that was eventually reserved for the P6M program, but after the Seamaster was cancelled, it was turned over to the CIA as a training facility around 1960 or 1961. The "Hertford" training center has shown up in a lot of literature about special ops warfare and I always assumed it was in the UK; it turns out that they were talking about Harvey Point. You know, the "Restricted" airspace around it is so small, you can fly right up the river next to it and see everything there is to see - at least above ground.

Cubs · **Posted:** Sat Apr 09, 2011 7:59 pm

Harvey Point was indeed used for the Mariners during WWII. I have 3 or 4 photos from that era with Mariners on the ramp.
Whether a P6M ever was based there, I don't know. I have seen some photos of Seamasters on
the water that did not look like Middle River .But, they could have been from many other places.
Fascinating aircraft, too bad at least one was not preserved. Didn't Carl Spaatz make a decree to "save at least one of every type"????

eLaReF · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:54 pm

It's a l-o-n-g time since I read it, so have no idea where I read it and no idea of the sequence, but......
I read that there were 2 major structural failures during testing.
One, after a failure in the tail, did a bunt and pieces of one wing-tip were found embedded in the other after they met under the fuselage.
The other was the complete opposite. The airframe pulled UP very hard and the wing-tips met above the fuselage.

Rajay · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:56 pm

Never heard anything about the wings coming off - it was always (both times) something related to the tail as far as I know (from what I've read.) I suppose a catastrophic failure of the tail could have subsequently led to a main wing failure....

From the never wrong Wikipedia (yeah, right!) at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_P6M_SeaMaster:

"Flight testing was initially successful, but, on 7 December 1955, a control system fault destroyed the first prototype with the loss of all aboard. The first prototype, BuNo 138821, c/n XP-1, disintegrated in flight at 5,000 feet due to the horizontal tail going to full up in control malfunction, subjecting the airframe to 9 g stress as it began an outside loop, crashing into the Potomac River near the junction of St. Mary's River, killing four crew members: Navy pilot Lieutenant Commander Utgoff, and Martin employees, Morris Bernhard, assistant pilot, Herbert Scudder, flight engineer, and H.B. Coulon, flight test engineer.

Eleven months later, on 9 November 1956, the second prototype, BuNo 138822, c/n XP-2, first flown May 18, 1956, was also destroyed, due to a change made in the horizontal stabilizer control system without adequate evaluation before test flying the design. The crash occurred at 3:36 p.m. near Odessa, Delaware due to a faulty elevator jack. As the seaplane nosed up at ~21,000 feet and failed to respond to control inputs, the crew of four ejected, pilot Robert S. Turner, co-pilot William Cunningham, and two crew all parachuting to safety. The airframe broke up after falling to 6,000 feet before impact."

*from Nicolaou, Stephane, "Master of the Seas: The Martin P6M Flying Boat", Wings, Sentry Publications, Granada Hills, California, December 1986, Volume 16, Number 6

Of course, there is at least one thing wonky with Mr. Nicolaou's description of the events; if the elevators had failed in the "up" position, it would NOT have resulted in an outside loop - it would have been a standard inside loop. In any case, 9 g's in an aircraft of that size and weight was bound to break something major.

eLaReF · **Posted:** Sun Apr 10, 2011 3:02 pm

Sorry - Didn't make it that clear - yes it was tail failure in both cases -one full elevator up the other full elevator down

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