Warbird Information Exchange

Some of the oldest of Dick Kamm's pics are from his training days upon entry into the USAF. This would have been in 1947, probably at Chanute AFB. The aircraft depicted are all from the P-80A-1-LO block. These are from 3x4cm negs on 127 size film, which was a beeatch to scan; I had to jerry-rig an adapter for my medium format unit. The negs weren't in the greatest shape; sorry for that.

Excited trainee poses with 44-85007:


44-85010:


44-85120:


44-85262 (2 pics):



Hope you enjoyed!

August

August,

Great shots! I hope the pilot in the bottom pic remembered to straighten the nosewheel before he strapped in and fired up, otherwise with it being non-steerable and free-castering he might have a tough time getting past the P-80 parked off the right wingtip!

Free Castering? Okay, now I want to hear taxi stories...

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

P-38's, B-25's, MIG 15's and Iskra's are all castering nose wheels also. Once you get the hang of it, its a non event. Getting the hang of it, you can see the rudders flailling about with abandon.

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If God had wanted man to fly behind a flat motor, Pratt Whitney would've built one.

There were/are two kinds of T-33/F-80 pilots, those who have oversteered the nosewheel while taxiing and got stuck, and those who will. When my airplane first came out of it's condition inspection, I practiced taxiing with my A&P standing by with a towbar to straighten the nosewheel in case I got stuck. It was tough because the parking area was pretty tight quarters and I got "stuck" twice. Key is keep up a good rate of speed and don't make too large/sharp a steering input on the brakes once you are at slow taxi speeds. The way out of the overcocked nosewheel is to rev up the engine and tap the brake until you hopefully, maybe powered out of it.

I was kind of impressed with the puddles of oil and/or fuel under the airplane. It's like a real round engine...only smaller.

Oh, and by the way...the B-29 and B-24 have free castering nosewheels as well.

Gary

Gotta be fuel....better be fuel! If they leak a drop of oil, you got biggg problems.

Really? Didn't know that. Sorry for the dumb question, but why is it such a big deal on a jet if it leaks oil? I mean, I realize it's not the same as a piston engine, but I wouldn't have thought it was all that uncommon.

Just tryin' to learn.

Gary

I think you want to keep the fire INSIDE the engine!

Some turbine engines vent a fair bit of oil (the Rolls Royce Viper, the P&W JT8), but the Rolls Royce Nene 10 vents verrrry little. In 20-25 hrs of flying between mx visits, the oil sump on my Rolls Nene never has to be serviced! The oil lubricates the bearing surfaces of the main rotating assembly and the bearings and gears in the wheelcase--all by a self-contained single-pressure wet sump system located in the bottom of the wheelcase. The wheelcase is an alloy housing on the front of the engine that contains the engine accessories like the starter motor, oil pumps, high press fuel pumps, tach. An accessory gearbox is mounted on the front of the wheelcase and drives the generator, hyd pump, and centrifugal oil breather. The oil pumps are designed to provide an oil supply in excess of engine needs and ports excess oil into the wheelcase via a pressure relief valve. It's a tight, self-contained system and anything more than a veryslight trace of oil is a red flag...I guess that's all I needed to say!