Warbird Information Exchange

My Father-in-Law was that poor bastard!
P-40F's of the 33rd in North Africa in 1942 until 1945 after they had fought all the way thru Italy and to Burma.

I think Jack been listening to "Beach Girl"
What about todays pilots?

Phil

I have also had to change DC-3 engines in the snow and down in mexico where you spend most of the day moving the tool box around chasing the shade as the sun moves. You realize the importance of this when you see this nice "branded" 9/16 logo on your palm after having picked up your nice shiny snap on wrench.Our 3 was natural alum, so as you slither your way on top of the nacelle to pull the top jug after swallowing a valve you burnt other areas also!
Sure made that local Chihuahua booze that much tastier!.
i believe that even in nicely heated or cooled hangars, taking on maintenance on these old birds is not for the faint of heart or wearer of white shirts!.
not to get off topic too much but as i fear todays video game pilot only want to push buttons, i think todays wrench turner has little in the way of aptitude to troubleshoot or a wilingness to work in the conditions that we have endured.

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"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

had to change fuel nozzles outside our hangar in BTV in Jan on a EMB-145 cause ours was full.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

I know a bit about engines, I did go to mechanics school after basic training. So if I have a nice clean cool or warm well lighted hangar and all the correct tools and parts, and manuals; I can do minor work and sort of enjoy it. But I hate ramp maintenance, I am a wimp at it and definitely don't have a good attitude about it. You are out in the weather, might be finger numbing cold, or 100 degrees with the wind and dust blowing, listening to jet noise without letup, and after you get things all apart you find you don't have the tools you need or the part, or the problem is not where you thought. Ray Middelton is a veteran of this, once they even had to work on a race Mustang at Reno and some engine adjustment had to be done with the engine running standing inches behind the prop and next to the exhaust stacks. I think he sort of regards it as a challenge and takes pride in doing the hard jobs. Once he gets going he can work for hours without stop or even food, or seeeming to get discouraged. He has got all these quaint old specialized British tools probably used in the Boer War, and I don't think he has anything shiny and clean with Snap On written on it, but he has a vast amount of experience in these old things we love to fly. Of course after the work is done, Ray can get down with a good dinner and lots of beer, preferaby room temperature, and regale you with stories for hours.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Jack,

Nice photo. But your caption hit a little too close to home for my liking. At the airline I once worked for we had an AD Note come out on the fwd engine mount bulkheads of the pylons of the 747-100, -200, -200F aircraft for cracks in the fwd structure. As we had 4 hangars available, Two for 747 C and D Check operations and Two for "Line Operations". We figured we could do the work inside......well management was told that the two Line hangars were off limits for planes that would be on the ground for a longer period of time than 2 days, and with the C and D check hangars full...guess where we did this AD Note ?

You guessed it. Outside, on scaffolding, in tented shelters with ineffective space heaters in Late January through February, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As it turned out, it was a rather cold winter that year and we like to froze our tails off doing the jobs. But we got it done. Even with wind chills down around -35 BELOW Zero.

Thanks for the laugh though. Great Pic.

Paul

Great pics and tales!

Any more pics of us "knuckle draggers" in action?