Warbird Information Exchange

tulsaboy....

you know these ?

42-51141 using parachutes as landing-aid....





Martin

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Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

Martin,

Wouldn't happen to know pilot's name of that B-24 do you??

I have a good friend who's father is supposed to have made the first use of parachutes deployed by the crew to shorten landing roll.

Short version is that hydralics were shot away on B-24 commanded by a fellow named Waldrop, returning to an Italian base. Without flaps or brakes and the end of the runway dropping of a steep embankment, he ordered the wast gunners to deploy the chutes. Later the AAF made a big deal about it.

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Charles Neely

Hi Charlie

nope - I don't know the name I'm afraid..... but I have a film somewhere showing crippled bombers landing in Switzerland in July 1944. One B-24 also used this procedure to shorten the landing run....

Martin

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Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

Wow, those are great photos! The nose art is the Mobil Pegasus if that helps anyone identify the aircraft.

466th BG 784th BS, code T9-N

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Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

Not that I doubt it actually happened (I've heard several accounts of bomber crews using chutes to slow down a brakeless aircraft) but those particular photos looks rather "staged."

Still always great to see those period color shots!


SN

Doing "Google" and "Yahoo!" searches on "B-24" + "42-51141" gives the followiong results:
http://www.web-birds.com/8th/466/785th%20squadron.htm
http://www.b24bestweb.com/pegasustheflyingredhorse.htm

The first site indicates this aircraft was named "Pegasus" and the second says it was "Pegasus The Flying Red Horse". My guess is that no actual words were painted on the nose, just the flying red horse Pegasus.

The B-24 Best Web entry contains the following:

Color Image

Contributor - James A. Leddy

Caption reads: "When the hydraulic system was shot out, this pilot landed his B-24 with two parachutes attached to the waist windows to act as brakes. England."

Info Contributor - Tom Brittan

Transferred to 785th BS (2U U+). Missions 11 Jul 44 - 25 Apr 45. Repaired at Woodbridge, Suffolk, 23 Feb - 18 Mar 45 - # 3 engine in which oil pressure was lost causing the propeller to be feathered over the Zuider Zee. All the fluid was lost from the hydraulic system when the line to the bottom of the reservoir was severed, making it necessary to crank down the landing gear manually - plane landed with no flaps or brakes and parachutes were released from the waist windows on this occasion. This was on return from the 22 Feb 45 "low level" (9,000 ft) mission to Peine marshalling yards.

Info Contributor - Al Blue

Photo was staged later and not taken during the actual emergency landing. The engines are running to billow out the chutes for the photographer.

It appears that when the landing incident took place, this aircraft was flown by the 784th BS of the 466th BG as "T9 N". It was later transferred to the 785th BS and coded "2U U".

I have found it very useful when researching a particular aircraft to perform a Google and/or Yahoo! search on both the aircraft serial number and aircraft type. In this case, I performed a search on:
"B-24" + "42-51141"

Todd

here's a 15th AAF MTO aircraft with shot hydraulics coming to a stop after using 'brake-chutes'



Martin

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Flying is easy: just learn how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

Was the ad hoc drogue chute actually in the manual, or just somebody's good idea that caught on?


SN

Martin-

Thanks for posting those! Yes, I had seen those before, I think in one of Jeff Ethel's books. In terms of the parachute- assisted landing, a sister ship of my favorite B-24, the Tulsamerican, performed such a landing on December 17, 1944. The "Judy R", plioted by Robert Chalmers, had her hydraulics shot out and the flaps wouldn't move properly because of a flak burst. So they threw parachutes out the waist windows and used them to slow their landing. Below are two articles that show photos of the crew and the landing, along with the story about the landing. Just as a fun FYI, the Judy R's squadron number was 23. The Tulsamerican's was 24.

If you've got any other Tulsa-built B-24 photos, I'd sure appreciate them! Thanks again!

kevin

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FOUND the elusive DT-built B-24! Woo-hoo!!!