Warbird Information Exchange

Holy Cow Randy, what a nice place to hang that painting. But what is all that other stuff laying around and does the ATF know about it?? Oh wait, yeah, it has to be inert or your Mrs would NOT stand for it. But now my curosity is up. Would you ID some of your ordinance collection. Wow, what have you got in the back closet that might fit on the K?? Something that might help dispose of our feral hog population out at the ranch?? I am sure the O2 FAC LADY is all set to go. Dean has his contribution on ice. Hawkeye has the BBQ sauce. We just need to add pigs. So back to your very nice collection. Give with the story, ok? Your ol bud, Jim R.

Hey Jim. Quick, There is no I in ordnance, Quickest way to piss of someone in the field, My dad was EOD and I made the mistake when I was little

Any thought to contacting the artist and having prints made and profits go to special k??? Cause I want one for my wall!!

One spot currently holds a pic of mighty mouse.

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

Oops, thanks Jeff... my bad. Down here in Texas we put an "i" in ordnance out of habit. Usually it is because we done broke one of the other kind....a city ordinance. It sorta comes from that John Wayne movie about the Alamo where the Duke alias Davy Crockett tells all the defenders that Santa Anna has sent word to surrender or all will be chastised to the highest degree. Then that feller asked John Wayne alias Davy Crockett " Does chastise mean what I think it do?" Davy alias John Wayne said those famous words, "It do" Where was I going with this???... oh yes... I have been properly chastised...no wait.. chastized??? Aw shucks! How do you spell it? Help me somebody! Red faced in Texas, JR

(......... Would you ID some of your ordinance collection. Wow, what have you got in the back closet that might fit on the K?? )

You know, I didn't realize how much stuff I had lying around until I started putting it all in one room. Most stuff I have collected over the years. Some of the artillery shells I bought at yard sales or flea markets. Most of them were just the brass casings. I turned down the rounds on a lathe-they are painted wood. I have about everything from 50 cal. up to 105mm.
The prop hanging over the print I bought at a swap shop when I was 15. (that was 50 years ago!) Been hauling it around ever since. Paid a whopping dollar bill for it at the time!
The only thing I have that would definitely compliment Special K is a genuine, complete (but inert) 2.75" rocket. Problem is, you would need the launchers to put them in, and then another 37 rockets to fill the launchers. Course, easy thing to do would be to make dummy launchers with the fairings in place and that would do the trick. No one would know if they were in there or not. The picture to the left of the big painting is a reprint of a water color done by the late Frank Gorski. The ACA sells the prints in sets of two if anyone is interested. Frames not included. Frank was a Nimrod pilot on Project Big Eagle. I had no idea he was such an accomplished artist. He signed his paintings "IKSROG", which is his name spelled backwards. Those paintings were done in 1969. Quick story about Capt. Gorski:
At one of our all night squadron parties that the pilots were hosting, Capt. Gorski returned from a mission and came down to the shelter where the party was. He had this portable rotating beacon with him. Have no idea where he got it. Anyway, he sat it up on the roof of the shelter and turned it on. Someone asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Joe (Kittinger) wants to know where the party is!" About an hour or so later, we heard the unmistakeable sound of a 26 coming, and sure enough, Joe buzzed the shelter. He had seen the beacon and homed in on it. It was an awesome sound!
Randy

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Randy Ryman
Project Big Eagle
NKP Thailand 1966
http://www.coastcomp.com/av/florence/florandy.htm

You have a nice collection of things there, Randy. Could we get a little better look at the print on the wall? I see what looks like a truck in the wrong place at the wrong time??? Hard to see the rest of it. While you were at the party with the Joe K buzz job, did the guys do any "carrier landings" for you? As rough and tumble as those guys were, I am surprised that anything was left of the base long before the US pulled out of NKP. Joe Maynard was telling us the other day that on the ferry flight over to SEA in the 26's that his airplane had an electrical problem so he was a day behind everybody during the island hopping trip. He got a cold reception at every stop apparently because the group ahead of him caused severe ripples on the seismometers around the Base Commanders' O clubs. At least it appeared there had been damage caused by earthquakes. One of the fun things was to challenge a new guy to the "head thru the wall to get your man card stamped" game. The old timers knew where the studs where in the wall so they had an easy time finding an easy place to crash thru the sheetrock. To help the newbies, they would mark a spot for them to hit on the wall... that just so happened to have a stud behind it. The Flight Surgeons had a tough time figuring out where all those neck and head injuries were coming from. I am sure you never participated any of sort of those shenangins though Randy!! Maybe Walt but not you. OK, so when you gonna tell us about how you and Walt mixed up the napalm and sorta modified the mixture? Did it really make flubber?? The JR of Texas

The Reality of war. This picture was taken on the ramp June 18, 1966, the day the first 8 A-26's on Project Big Eagle arrived at NKP. Pictured is Capt.Frank Blum, Capt. MIles Tanimoto, Capt. Charles Dudley and Major Henry Welch. Capt. Dudley along with his nav and an observer would be shot down over Laos June 25.All three were lost. Capt. Tanimoto and Major Duke (not pictured) would both die in a landing accident just over a month later on July 23, in #643, the aircraft in the background. I had just turned 20 on the 13th of June. It was a very sobering experience for me to see an empty space on the flight line where an aircraft had stood the day before, knowing that it and the crew would not return. For some, the stakes were very high.

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Randy Ryman
Project Big Eagle
NKP Thailand 1966
http://www.coastcomp.com/av/florence/florandy.htm

I'll try to get a better pic that shows more detail. Never saw any of the "carrier landings" you mentioned. Do remember one night a couple of them that had probably "knocked back a few too many" got on a construction bulldozer, started it up and drove it around a bit.
I had heard about the ruckus that the ferry trip over caused at some places. Also heard about the wall butting games but never witnessed any. I believe Heinie Aderholt also introduced a few to the hard part of the wall!

Napalm Story-- Back in tech school in Denver, they showed us this contraption called a Napalm mixer. Was about the size of one of those yellow power units you see rolling around the flight lines. Theory was, you hooked up a gas hose to one end, dumped the napalm powder in a hopper, and out the other end camp perfectly mixed napalm--in theory! Never saw one after tech school. When I got to Florida and asked about where the napalm mixer was, I got laughed at. I was told, "we don't have one, they don't work half the time, they are basically a P.O.S!
So, we mixed napalm by the SWAG method-(Scientific Wild-Assed Guess). Actually, we had a big funnel and used the end cap of a napalm bomb to measure the powder in. Someone had figured out how many scoops it took for a 110 gallon nape to get a good consistency. Seems to me it was about 5 scoops of powder to each bomb.
Anyway, this took place at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Walt and I were filling the napes, which were all lined up on 4 x 4's. The powder came in about 30 gallon drums. When we got to the last bomb, we still had powder left over. We didn't want to have to haul one partially filled powder drum all the way back to the other side of the bomb dump. We decided that we could fit the extra powder in the last nape, which we did. Typically, these things had to sit for a period of time for the gas to "jell". Anyway, we did our deed, and no one was the wiser-yet!
Two or three days later, our bomb dump NCO came out in the ammo dump looking for us. He found us, and the conversation went something like this:

"Ryman, Land, how much powder are you putting in those nape bombs?"

"Well Sarge, we're putting in 5 scoops per bomb, like we're supposed to, Why?"
(at this point, it hadn't hit us what he was getting at)

"Well, I got a armament discrepency report from one of the Skyraider pilots about his Napalm. He said three of them dropped normally, but the last one went bouncing across the darn range like a flaming rubber ball! He said it didn't disperse or stick to anything."

"Gee Sarge, we don't know what could have caused it." (by this time it was becoming hard to keep a straight face)

Anyway, he left and we never heard anymore about it. God, I would have loved to have seen it though!!
Randy

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Randy Ryman
Project Big Eagle
NKP Thailand 1966
http://www.coastcomp.com/av/florence/florandy.htm

I am still laughing, Randy. I can just see that flaming ball of flubber bouncing across the range. The thing that is really funny though is I can just see that look of innocence on your's and Walt's faces when you told the Sarge how much you were mixing into the gas. I suspect the grins gave you away and he figured it out though. Did you ever confess later??? No wait, don't answer that. Maybe we better check the statute of limitations first?? Wonder what went thru that Skyraider pilot's mind when he dropped that off? Priceless, I bet. Your old bud, JR

Randy, about the loss of 643. I have been told about the loss of one airplane that came back low on fuel, had a bad gear indication on one main and was doing a flyby of the tower to have it checked. When they went to power up for the go around, one engine quit and they crashed close to the field. I was shown a spring clip on the left main gear indication system in the nacelle that typically failed and gave an erroneous unsafe gear indication when the gear was actually down. Connecting the dots, I am wondering if this is the story on 643?? Any idea?? Needless to say, I am very thankful to have been told the tribal knowledge on the gear indication system. We will double check our clips and see if we can figure out a secondary way to verify the gear from the cockpit. I suppose one could say that if the gear is not safe on this airplane, might as well land anyway. Not much you can do about it. If it holds, great. If not, guess we have a clean up on aisle 9. If anybody else has some tribal knowlege to impart, please feel to jump in here. I picked up some on the paint type recently that, for instance, that airplanes were not painted with flat black. That is the something one would assume looking at the museum survivors, but it is actually just faded. Should be gloss or semi-gloss. Easier to keep clean too. Thanks, Jim R

Jim, I have heard varying stories about 643, but never heard the gear problem scenario, although it's entirely plausible. I was asleep in the hooch, as they were called. I don't remember what woke me up, whether it was others stirring around or what, but I remember standing on the porch and looking off in the distance. At the time, our hooches were closer to the end of the runway where he went in. It was raining, and we could see flames off in the distance. We weren't positive, but were pretty sure that it was one of our 26's since we were pretty much the only ones flying at night. We watched for a bit, then went back to bed. There wasn't much we could do anyway. When I got to the flight line the next morning. I found out who it was. There was another empty space on the flight line. Major Duke was our armament Officer. Can't say that I knew him personally, but far as I was concerned, he was a fine officer and a gentleman. He always spoke to even us low ranking enlisted types and wanted to know how things were, etc.
Far as the gear, I remember an incident at EAFB where they had a nose gear problem. Fortunately, they were on a check flight and had the crew chief along. They received the TAC Aircrew Achievement Award for saving the plane. Just to get the story straight, I will print it verbatum from the article in TAC magazine, December 66.

"Captain Alva Rowland and Master Sergeant Geoffrey D. Gustin, 1st Air Commando Wing, England Air Force Base, Louisiana, have been selected to receive the Tac AAA, for the period ending 30 September, 1966.
Upon landing gear extension at the end of a functional flight check in a B-26K aircraft, Captain Rowland and Sergeant Gustin found that their nose gear indicated unsafe. Captain Rowland climbed to 3000ft. and recycled the gear. The doors opened each time but the nose gear remained up and locked. When he attempted to lower the gear with the emergency system the nose gear uplock release cable snapped." (be sure to check that, jim!)
"After a radio discussion with hydraulic specialists on the ground, Sergeant Gustin decided to cut a hole in the right side of the center consold to reach the nose gear. He removed the co-pilots control column and, working in a very awkward position, cut through the console panel with a fire axe. He still could not reach the uplock. However, while Captain Rowland moved the gear handle to various positions, Sergeant Gustin noticed that the nose gear moved lisghtly in the uplock.
He finally broke it loose by reaching beneath the wheel and twisting the strut. The nose gear locked down and they landed without further incident."
I remember hearing about this through the normal circles, from crew chief, etc. Word was, there was talk of landing without the nose gear. The sgt. said in no uncertain terms that they weren't going to "break his *#&%@# airplane" as long as they still had fuel and were still flying!!!
Anyway, you might tuck that little tidbit away. Sorry, don't know anything about the mains.
Randy

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Randy Ryman
Project Big Eagle
NKP Thailand 1966
http://www.coastcomp.com/av/florence/florandy.htm

Chuckie loaned us her replica .50 and looks like it fit to the mounts in the K perfectly. Made my mouth water. NO, not for BBQ pig, but how cool it looked sitting in the nose bay just begging to be locked down and the barrel sticking out of the nose. Wouldn't 8 of these things look great?? Found some of the rubber rings with canvas seals that go around the barrel/blast tubes inside the nose to seal the compartment. Have heard that anything canvas did not hold up very long in SEA so these and the canvas curtain between the nose bay and the cockpit were the first things to go. Couldn't hardly keep them going so most just flew without. I suppose a certain gunplumber might attest to this?? Randy? Randy? anyone? anyone?? Bueller took the day off. How come you haven't gotten Walt to speak up yet? And where is that O2 Lady hangin out now? We need to ask about her measurements. No, not those measurements..... the armament panel on the side of your airplane. What size is it? We know that some of the earlier aircraft in SEA did not use them, but later ones apparently did. We want to put one on the right side below the cockpit. Don't know that you would license us to copy what you have on your airplane, but that is the coolest thing. Speakin of, what do you have written on there now? This is a test to see if you remember. Ha... Mah best... JR

LOLOL Jim....I don't the size......but maybe I can go out to the hangar and measure for you......as for what it says........not sure I can write it here in the Polite Company of WIX. <busily looking for a picture of it to add....later>

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Geez, that gun looks good in there. You know, somewhere, someplace, there has got to be some of them tucked away. I read somewhere that owning any part of a real 50 cal. was illegal. Hard to belive, since you can get a permit for them. Seems like if they were de-milled they would be OK. Those replicas are really pricey, especially when you do "times 8". Looks like if you had one of them, (like the one you borrowed) you could make a fiberglass mold and cast them, and possibly use an aluminum barrel. The ammo boxes should be easy to replicate, but those feed belts would be a challenge!.
The top gun is the trick to remove and replace. When we were training to work on them at EAFB, they had us up on the flat bed and the two training Sgts. on the ground were talking us through removing the guns, starting with the top one. Somewhere I apparently missed them saying, "BE CAREFUL". While I was working the gun to remove it, I cut my hand on something, not severely, but enough to draw some blood. We were handing the gun down to the ground, the Sgt. looked at it and saw a few drops of blood on it, and calmly said, "OK, which one of you just learned how NOT to take out the top gun!" Humiliation is a great way to make you remember!!
Randy

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Randy Ryman
Project Big Eagle
NKP Thailand 1966
http://www.coastcomp.com/av/florence/florandy.htm

O2Lady... well, of course, size does not matter except in armament panels being correctly placed etc. I think we are all adults here who may act like kids (no problem with that) so the contents of your panel would not offend 99.99 percent of the people who read these things. The other .01 percent either won't get it, or won't see the humor, in which case, there being no hope for them, they can just go stick their heads in the sand. We shouldn't run our lives for the sake of a few complainers, now should we?? Do it!!!!! Waaaa... JR

Well, I do have a line on some feed belts, barrel jackets and ammo cans. They are just expensive. I see no monetary reason why we can't go get those except we don't have any monetary. Bought R-2800 top overhaul tools this week from Sun Air. Took care of the budget for this month!!
Earlier was talking about connecting the dots for the loss of 643 at NKP and the incident I described. Got a PM that they were not the same. Thanks for that. Good to know. Now, back to dreaming up new ways to harass O2Lady!! I think it was Yeager or Hoover who said... "never fly the A model of anything" Your airplane, which was at NKP I undertand, is an O-2A. So I waited to fly the O2B, but it only dropped BS bombs and played really obnoxious speeches. Kinda like watching CNN now that I think about the political campaign season. Oops, I did it again. My bad. I have to go now!! Night, JR