Warbird Information Exchange

I don't know just when this was taken -- the print was undated. It was probably in the very early 1980s, though. I was driving North from Reno on Highway 395 when things got smoky, and I saw a fairly large brush fire to the East and decided to hang out for a while. It paid off. I think this shows well the skills these guys need to do their work in mountain country. This is Tanker 141, by the way, for those who follow Tanker ops.

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Neptune.

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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."

Cool picture Neal, thanks for posting it.

In 1980 I was flying TBM Inc. B-17 T68 out of Alamogordo,New Mexico. Evergreen Aviation had P2V-5 Tanker141 based there as well. I had a day off when Tom Hammond (Evergreen's Tanker Division Chief Pilot) who was flying T141 got a dispatch to a fire on the White Sands Missile Range. He asked if I'd go along to read the ignition analyzer as they had major problems with an engine and nobody else could read the analyzer. I went along and found 2 or 3 ignition related dead cylinders for them. It was an interesting flight and they let me fly the airplane back to Alamogordo from the fire as a reward. My lasting impression of the flight was how incredibly noisy it was inside the airplane compared to the B-17 or DC-7's that I was used to.

















In this picture you can see the massive split in the BMEP readings on the second instrument down from the top just to the left of the stack of radios. I have better versions of these pictures that have been contrast adjusted with Photoshop, but I can't locate them at the moment

I'm glad it triggered that reply, Larry. Your posts are some of the few "inside looks" we get on the tanker operations of these interesting birds, and they are always much anticipated, by me at least.

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

Larry -- I have a Neptune question for you. Would T141 in your second picture have been empty? The reason I ask is that in 2012 I was at Reno Stead on a pretty active day for the tanker base there. When taking off with a load this was typical -- a long ground run, gear retraction immediately after liftoff, and a noticeably sluggish departure even with jets running. They certainly didn't launch like the one in your photo.

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

I have to agree that the rotation looks pretty enthusiastic for a loaded P-2. That said, I'm pretty sure that they had a load of water on board. The ground is wet under the airplane in the picture from the post above with the right engine starting and in this picture taken a couple of minutes earlier.





Normally, the pilots are more conservative and try to build up speed prior to doing much climbing in loaded P-2s. Part of the reason is that the jets don't really help much until the airspeed gets to 170 kts. Then again, some pilots want to get a little altitude right off in case something breaks. I'm more in the build up speed first camp, but you can trade airspeed for altitude or vice versa within reason. Tom Hammond must have been in the altitude first group. Here's the take off picture from the earlier post and one from a different take off. Unfortrunately, the second picture was taken with a 110 film camera. A good quality 110 camera, but the negatives are tiny and all of these pictures are scanned from 35 year old prints.





The only other comment on this subject would be that the wind was usually blowing down the runway at Alamogordo at 20 kts or more and this was in May, so the ambient temp wasn't too high. That said, I agree with your observation on the steeper than normal climb angle for a loaded airplane.

Density altitude might play a part, I suppose -- that was a pretty warm day at Stead and I've been told that the density altitude there can easily reach 7 or 8000 feet.

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Neal Nurmi

---Wingman Photo---

I don't get to shoot air tankers that often, but 2 years ago we had a big fire over in Pope Valley. I jumped in the car and drove up to see if I could get any good shots, hoping that just maybe I'd see a DC6 or Neptune. The afternoon wore on and the sun set. Suddenly the growl of a pair of radial engines could be heard in the distance, and it was growing louder quickly. I looked up and there was Tanker 43 making an approach. It was music to my ears. Sadly I didn't have enough lens for any really epic shots. (Yet again, I needed a 500mm lens)







I was out there for hours, and tanker 43 only made one drop. Still, the sound of the R3350s and the sight of t43 appearing out of the smoke was a very memorable experience.

Will

...'Tanker 12' N96264 at Hemet (HMT) 28 Oct 1993 ...