Warbird Information Exchange

OK, huge diversion. Check out http://www.myspace.com/therealdrugstorecowboy for some old school stuff.

Just having some fun to go with my love of warbirds.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

He's lip-synching!!

Gotta few burner cans laying around here with cracks.

Fun stuff maintaining these smokers!!!!!!

I'm no jet mechanic but I did spend good hour or so on my knees with my not so sleek body sticking up in the wheel well and my head on the bottom of the motor...helping a guy change/fix/tighten a banjo fitting on a fuel line...or something like that...on a T-33 one day...My wife made me throw away my clothes...

(for that I got my name put on the nose gear door...)

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Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
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Back in 2004, Chris Rounds had the same issue with the fuel nozzles coking up and it burned a hole in the side of one of the burner cans. Pretty nasty lookin' stuff! It's a good call to go ahead and clean those up on yours, even though it was ahead of schedule.

Thanks for the cool pictures & explanations. They are quite informative to someone like me who doesn't know much about those type of aircraft. It's a novel idea that seems to be catching on.

Gary

Had to throw out clothes stinking like jet fuel? Yah, you're a jet mechanic now!

Paul I have been around various Warbirds over the years, but never a T-33. As I have noted before on other threads, thanks for posting the pics showing what it looks like under the skin. A fellow can get some good information around here.
Robbie

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Fly Fast Make Noise!

Gary,

Chris is lucky to be here to talk about a burner can giving up the ghost! As you can see in one of the pics, the aluminum elevator pushrods run right over the top of the burner cans so if one of the cans lets loose an uncontained fire, you've got seconds to go to idle or shutdown (look in your mirror and pray for smoke to go away), or more likely bail out since a fire would make quick work of the aluminum pushrods. The other big thing on an annual is a "leak check" of the engine where an A&P drops the engine access hatches on the belly open with the engine running to see/feel for exhaust leaks in the engine. The rest of the annual is pretty generic stuff...pretty simple birds to maintain!

I should probably clarify that I think it was a burner can that had the hole burned through it. I just barely know which is the hot end of a jet engine.

What happened is that after he arrived for the '04 show, he noticed some soot coming out of the side of the fuselage (just looked like a heavy "exhaust leak" to me). He didn't fly at all after seeing that and the week following the show, we stood around and watched him break the airplane in half (like yours is now) to work on the engine. He pulled what looked like a "can" to me from the engine and showed us a hole about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. He said it was from one of those semi-clogged fuel nozzles causing a hot spot...like you described earlier.

It sure looked kind of scary to me, once I saw the can, but I definitely learned that a little extra exhaust stain on the fuselage of a jet is a much bigger deal than a little extra exhaust stain on the side of an airplane with a round engine.

Keep the updates coming, Paul! We're all learnin' a lot.

Gary

Avter is REAL man's aftershave!
Just when you thought WIX was perfect we get a whole load of BRILIANT maintenance threads. The best has just got better.
Thanks to all of the people posting these threads.
I did do a thread a while ago on Flypast about changing an outflow valve on a 767. I won't put it on hear!.

Rgds Cking

I've actually crawled inside of one of those rear tanks before....Its a little tight!

Hello Paul.
Firstly thanks for posting the photos of your T33 inspectiot. I was wondering on your travels if you ever come across a J8can40 engine for use as a static display?

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Cheers,
Peter

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Peter,

Are you referring to a J85can40? Either way I have not.

Yes J85 just in case you come across a boat anchor we might be interested.

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Cheers,
Peter

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Thanks for posting, those are really interesting. In 1985, I was TDY with the Marines at Tyndall AFB and they still had about 80 T-33's there. The mechanics would taxi the T-Birds to the engine run up area with the canopy up and the tail end of the aircraft off the airplane!
When I was in both the Corps and later the ANG, not very many enlisted guys were engine run qualified (and actually allowed to do it) and no enlisted types were allowed to taxi anything.
Some of the old guys in the ANG had some great stories about enlisted guys banging up C-47's etc. on the ramp.