Warbird Information Exchange

Annual almost done on my -5
Gear swings are always a little scary for me.
I am aways glad when we are done.

At least you have a mule! Try doing that 10 times in a row with the hand pump...

If you get me a side view, I'll do a color profile of it

Rich Dann

I was always fascinated watching the gear swings on the FA-18s when I was in the Navy. I wonder if it was that sick part of me waiting for something to go bad. I think if I had to watch your -5 swing I would not be able to breath until it was over. Somehow I see a Corsair as far more valuable than a Navy Lawn Dart.

Tim

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www.tailhookstudio.com

On the F4U-5N that I used to work on, I was always uncomfortable hanging all of the ballast weight on the tail and climbing in. Just knew that someday, I would forget some ballast and the aircraft would nose over pivoting on the main jacks.

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

I know what you mean about holding your breath on gear swings, I don't know which plane was worse the Tracker or the Lodestar. With the Tracker we had to have 4 jacks under it going up equally and with the lodestar you always wondered if you had enough ballast on the tail.

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Col Craig Duck
Life Member CAF
Life Member YAF
Life Member EAA

Mike,
Thanks for the post and pics!
I hope it all went okay and the engine is running well!
We missed you in '05!
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Mike,
I worked on your plane when I was at Pacific Fighters.
It was then owned by Dick Bertea.
Looking nice now.
Rich

She's a 'bute! But go back to some of the WWII videos and watch the same thing with the plane sitting on 4 x 4's from the shipping crates. You have a beautiful hangar with substantial jack systems. Now watch the swings as they are sweet and if there is a malfunction, you don't have to go around until you run out of fuel.

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

First gear swing I was involved with was the A-26. Talk about scary ! That big old gear moving, nose gear rotating, doors slamming shut. The whole airplane shakes, scary as heck !!

First gear swing test I ever was involved with using a warbird was the Collings Foundation B-25. I was amazed at just how much noise is involved.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Swinging the gear on a Skyraider can be fun too. Lots of noise and jumping around as it comes back down. Makes me nervous just thinking about it!

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"They can teach MONKEYS to fly better than that"

http://www.heritageflight.org
http://www.bravo369.org

When we did the Convair swings I always wondered if we had enough jacks on the bird. We'd have 1 on the nose, 1 under each wing, one under the tail, and sometimes 2 more under the inner wing (inside the nacelles there's secondary jacking points there), however when the gear would go down, all three legs free-falls for most of its travel and then are slammed into position with 2000 PSI of hydraulic pressure. The noise when the gear hits the bottom of the freefall is pretty loud, but when the braces snap into place it's even louder and on at least one occasion both mains did it at the same time and slid the airplane backwards several inches. To me, I was glad we used jacks several times bigger than what was required because I have to wonder if the plane would have tipped the "normal" jacks for the Convair when those legs slammed into position.

A number of years back I had Jim Beasley Jr help with a gear swing on his Mustang, Frenesi. I wish I had a picture of his face the 1st time he heard the noise of the springs twanging during the retract and extension. He was shook up by it and didn't think it was right.
I had to reassure him and told him he couldn't hear it due to the big noise maker up front but each time he flew it was making all that racket.
Rich

Hi Guys,

Try this one on for size. I was walking through the hangar of my "former employer" and I saw this 747 sitting in there and my first thought was...okay...no big deal just keep on going. It wasn't until I caught myself standing under the air conditioning packs that I realized that ALL five gear were tucked up in the wheel wells !!!!! I thought to myself....hmmmm thats cool, and then I thought OH S**T, I gotta get outta here NOW. Because EMPTY weight on the 747-200 models runs something like 450,000 lbs empty and 825,000 lbs fully loaded. Needless to say I did an OH S**T in a hurry and bolted out from under the plane.

submitted for a laugh....

Paul