Warbird Information Exchange

Thanks for sharing. I love the C-124, one of my favorite vintage big prop military transports. I wish I could have seen some of those last flights in 1983, 84 and 86. I think the last time I saw a Globemaster II in flight was around 1970 or 71. Interesting to see the B-29, the Connie and other aircraft at Phillips Army Airfield at Aberdeen Proving Ground back in 1983 also.

As a kid growing up in West Seattle in the 50's/early 60's the MAC outfit @ McChord in Tacoma operated 124's and you could hear one coming about two days before you could see it.when the McChord Museum got it's Shakey, they wanted a formation flyby for posterity using the 124 and a C-141 which was then on strength there, the 124 blew one of it's borrowed engines and was trailing smoke when it arrived over the Tacoma area but the photo mission went ahead with the 141 about to fall out of the sky trying to slow down to stay with the 124 while everyone on 124 had their hats on backwards trying to lessen drag and get some more speed and was going flat out, they got one pass and several pictures and wisely cancelled the rest of the formation work and the big girl went ahead and landed.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Back in the early 90s, the NMUSAF had large back-lit transparencies of that shot in the hall between the main hangar and the new Modern Flight Gallery.
I hope they kept them.

When I was in the service we had a base commander who flew 124s during the Vietnam era. He said they were often tasked with delivering and bringing back helicopter rotor blades for overhaul. The trip, he said, took days...and days.

If I could go back in time and do a flight..it would be a trans-pacific flight in a 124. Travis to Hickam, to Wake, to Tachikawa.

Love the 124...my dad flew them and I still have his Dash-1 flight manual, and a metal 1/72 scale Douglas desk model made by Allyn.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

There was a squadron at Dobbins AFB in the late 1960's-early 70's that flew C-124's - I think it was the 116th. I can still recall the sound of those engines as they flew over. This was about the time the C-5A was coming off Lockheed's production line, and to see both of those aircraft together was a sight.

Walt

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If God had intended airplane engines to have horizontally-opposed cylinders, Pratt & Whitney would have built them that way.

My first flight on "Old Shakey" was from K-2 Taegu to Tachikawa .... As we were taking off and we were shaking like hell, I promised God, if we made it safely, I'd be a good boy for the rest of my life ....

I think of that flight often as I volunteer in the NMUSAF gallery with the old bird.



As many of you know, I have a hobby of embroidering warbird hats ... I wear both of these hats proudly ...

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Jerry
S/Sgt. - USAF Radio Operator '52-'56
C-119 "Flying Boxcar" - Korea & Japan

Volunteer: National Museum of the US Air Force (2007-2016)
LTM 381st Bomb Group Memorial Association

When I was visiting the museum @ Hill a few years ago, the only shirt I bought was the 124 one. I love that 124 hat!!
I had a friend who was a leg shaver (avionics tech) @ Mc Chord on 141's and went TDY to 'the war' to rewire the firewall of a 124 that had dropped an engine clean off the firewall taking lots of stuff with it as it left.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Me and my two favorite birds .... some 57 years ago ...

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Jerry
S/Sgt. - USAF Radio Operator '52-'56
C-119 "Flying Boxcar" - Korea & Japan

Volunteer: National Museum of the US Air Force (2007-2016)
LTM 381st Bomb Group Memorial Association

You flew a Ju-52!?!

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

I remember seeing a C-124 parked across the street from the Las Vegas airport in the winter of 1999. Quite a surprise actually, I didn't know what it was and had to look it up later. Has that one been scrapped?

Yeah they cut it up. That sucks! I love the 124

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

When I was a kid, the Reserves at Dobbins (mentioned in the video) had C124's. That probably lasted until the early '70's. I remember two things. The aircraft appeared incredibly slow, although it wasn't *that* slow. The size created an optical illusion. The C-5 gave the same impression. The second thing I rememberd about the 124 was how small the engine nacelles looked relative to the overall size of the airplane.

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned a desire to make a US-SE Asia trip in a 124. A friend who was a C124 flight engineer during those times told me about how long it took (both on the calendar and in his logbooks) to make a round trip from the US to SE Asia. IIRC, we're talking 2 weeks and maybe 100 flight hours. It was a serious undertaking.

I'm not arguing whether that was the last flight or not but, sometime in 1986, the Florence, SC, C-124 flew down to Charleston,SC. I saw it being readied during the summer of 1986.

The flight of the C-124C, 52-1072, from Florence, SC, to Charleston AFB, SC, took place in August of 1986.

Walt

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If God had intended airplane engines to have horizontally-opposed cylinders, Pratt & Whitney would have built them that way.

I sold a number of the 124 hats on Ebay ..... one guy had me personal the back by embroidering .. RECIP MAN ....

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Jerry
S/Sgt. - USAF Radio Operator '52-'56
C-119 "Flying Boxcar" - Korea & Japan

Volunteer: National Museum of the US Air Force (2007-2016)
LTM 381st Bomb Group Memorial Association

were those B-29's saved along with the other aircraft?

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" I am a nobody in aviation, but somebody to my family."