My 1980 Single Engine B-17 Landing

[skybolt2003]

Wow. I love hearing about your experiences. I spent a lot of time hanging out on the fence at Goleta as well as Ramona, but never got up the nerve to go to the other side. Maybe I should have?
About feathering again–thanks for posting the A-26 manual section. Another question. How do you unfeather on the ground? Does the electric pump unfeather the blades and then you start up, or do you crank it over with the blades flat?

[retroaviation]

The feathering pump will feather and unfeather the props on the ground or in the air.

Gary

[Ztex]

Again...great story!
I have always been in awe of you air attack guys ever since I saw a DC- something flying low over a smoky spot around Ruidoso, NM in the late 70's...I saw a DC-6 make a drop at Yellowstone in 1988



And here is a pic of the Evergreen machine cockpit @ 1996.

[Jet Mech]

Well, there are two different Fortress models by Boeing still flying way past there prime. One is still active duty.....and who said the government never got there monies worth for something.

Kurt

[ALAN.L]

Once in a while a thread comes along that you cannot wait for the next instalment of, last year it was Gary's Diamond Lil one and it seems we are lucky enough to have another one already !

Larry, thank you for so eloquently relating your memories,I am sure it takes up a lot of your time but if you can, please keep updating it with your memories.

Fascinating stuff !

Regards, Alan

[RNDMTRS4EVR]

Larry;
Thanks for the reply and the picture. I have to say that the DC-7 is one hell of an air tanker. I miss the days of hanging out with Don Orembaum (sp) and Walley Griffin (sp) when they were flying #67 out of Reno and I was a loader. Don knew me from my dad's HVFS days and would always tell me great tanker stories about those days of my youth and some of the funny things captains would do to newbie co-pilots. Keep the stories coming, it just makes me miss the biz even more!
Scott........

[Eric Friedebach]

Cool thread! Thanks for taking the time to post that, Larry.

[Larry Kraus]

Scott,I have a few pictures that I took from the CDF tower at Hemet when I was there in 1982.I was flying Tanker 65 that season out of Porterville on a CDF contract.I also ended up in Ramona and have some Boxcar pictures at the tanker base there.I didn't like flying out of Ramona because it had a short runway and is in a bit of a bowl.Also,it's usually hot there,which the airplane doesn't like.Every time that I'd get a dispatch south of Fox Field,the guys at Porterville would tell me that I had to reload Ramona.I'd grumble and be irritated all the way to the fire.Then,more often than not,it would turn out that the fire would actually be closer to Fox or Hemet and I'd be told to reload at one of those places instead.I always felt tremendously relieved,but I knew that the guys at PTV were getting a good laugh over it.

The last time that I had to fly out of Ramona,the wind was blowing down the runway at 20 kts.We always downloaded on retardant from 1800 to 1600 gallons at Ramona and often carried a lower than normal fuel load to reduce the take off weight.I'd just loaded and had a dispatch to a fire as we were fuelling,With the wind conditions,I brought the fuel up to our normal load.As we taxied out,Larry Hill overflew us with a load of mud from Hemet in his Boxcar and my flight was cancelled.

The next day,I was released back to Porterville at the hottest part of the day.It was 105 degrees with no wind when we taxied out.Normally,we'd rotate on a loaded take off at 115 mph.I got my B-17 Type Rating from Don Ornbaum.He really made me earn it.He also told me that there were a few things that he wasn't going to tell me about flying B-17's until he was through flying them.He didn't want some whippersnapper flying a B-17 as well as he did and trying to take his job (As if that could ever happen).One thing that he did tell me,however,was that,if you REALLY needed to,you could coax a loaded B-17 into the air at 105 mph.You just needed to immediately lower the nose and retract the gear and stay in ground effect until you were actually flying.

We got to the end of the runway and stuck the tail in the dirt at the very end and locked the tailwheel.Then we dailed the tubos to #8 and went to full power (46"/2500 rpm) and released the brakes.Tanker 65 sedately waddled down the runway and as we passed the CDF tower,which was maybe 1/4 of the way down the runway,I looked down at the airspeed indicator.It read 45 mph.That's when I flipped up the guard on the drop button in case we needed to jettison the load at the end of the runway.

We continued accelerating (if you could call it that),but were still firmly planted on the runway when we passed the numbers near the end of the runway.Off to the side of the runway and a few hundred feet out,I could see the remains of Tanker 122,which was a PB4Y that was destroyed (without injuries) a couple of months before when it "Failed to become airborne". Just as we came to the end of the pavement,the airspeed hit 105 mph.I horsed the airplane off the runway,called for gear up and lowered the nose.As we staggered around the valley,I watched the airplane shadow trying to touch the airplane until we finally got aimed back toward the airport from a left 270 degree turn and came back to climb power.It looked to me like we'd just cleared the tanker base flagpole as we crossed over and turned toward Porterville.

A couple of weeks later,we ended up back at Fox Field and one of the Boxcars from Ramona was there.The pilot (who's name escapes me for the moment) said that he wanted to buy us (my c/p Gerry Glenn and me) a beer.I asked why and he said that all year,he'd been hearing about how bad the Boxcar looked staggering out of Ramona with a load and compared to us,they now thought that the box climbed out like a Boeing 727.

Pictures 1-4 are at Hemet

Pictures 5-7 are at Ramona

Pictures 8&9 are at Porterville all are from the 1982 Fire Season

Last edited by Larry Kraus on Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[Forgotten Field]

Larry,
Thanks so much for posting your stories. This is very interesting to hear. When I was a kid, I watched the TV show "Emergency" religiously. I can still remember the show when they were fighting wildfires, and they showed a B-17 dropping retardant. I remember to this day how exciting it was to see that airplane on the show. Interesting, the B-17 will come off the ground when the L-5 is at cruise (105)....

[B17news]

I loved that show (Emergency).

B

[Larry Kraus]

Randy Mantooth in his pre-Emergency days went to San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara.He was in my older brother's class,3 years ahead of me,but I met him a couple of times.He was really active in the drama club.He was a nice guy,but a little goofy.Talk about type-casting!

[CAPFlyer]

Hey Larry, have you ever worked with Bud Rude or any of the Flying Fireman crew? Just kinda wondering if you had any good stories if you did.

[warbirdguy]

Thanks for sharing your story!

[Michel Lemieux]

Entertaining and extremely well narrated.......

Thank you for sharing sir.

[skybolt2003]

I was thinking about your comment about being it was a B-17, you went around rather than over obstacles, and then later you wrote about a 250fpm climb rate. I've flown gliders out there and thermals of 10 knots or more are pretty common so I imagine there were some pretty interesting moments.
I remember watching the Boxcar go out of Ramona and thinking how absolutely marginal it looked. They'd be out of sight before they'd climbed above the horizon.