Opinion

Dear Martha

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Martha Lunken is an active member of the Federal Aviation Administration, a part of the United States Department of Transportation. The FAA is charged with regulating and encouraging civil aviation in the United States. Martha gives checkrides in the DC-3. She also writes with dry humor and elan a monthly column in Flying magazine. Her latest "DC-3, A Real Man's Airplane."

Dear Martha,

Ah yes, the year of the iconic DC-3/C-47 at Oshkosh and I had to miss it! Sometimes family is more important than fun and this is one of those times. Anyhow your wonderful article about the "Gooney Bird" in my latest Flying Magazine stirred a bunch of memories for this, how do I say, "seasoned" pilot.

I never flew a DC-3 but did get to ride in one. It was on Frontier Airline from McCook, Nebraska to Omaha. At the stop in Lincoln I was maximum impressed as we landed right in the middle of a Cocoa exercise. Lincoln was an active SAC base at the time, populated with a whole host of B-47s and KC-97s. On an irregular schedule, SAC would exercise those nuclear weapon-loaded bombers by requiring the crews to start them up and taxi to the active runway. I was in SAC at the time and those exercises were intense -- woe to the crew commander who showed up late to the hold line! But there we were, the tower held those powered-up bombers and we in the mighty "Douglas Racer" grandly touched down in front of them on the joint-use runway and taxied with aplomb to the terminal. We were important and they had the priorities just right.

All my time was in the military version, the C-47, those in genuine Air Force livery. We were stationed at Otis AFB on Cape Cod, yeah I know it was tough living in the premier East Coast vacation spot, but someone had to do it! At the time, I was a pilot assigned to the last active-duty KC-97 Stratotanker squadron in the Air Force.

It was 1965 and we had just put ourselves out of business by delivering all our airplanes to the bone yard in Arizona. The efficient, as always, Air Force personnel system had reassigned me to KC-135 school, but that move was still six months in the future. I wandered over to the Base Operations side and asked if perhaps they needed a pilot in the base flight C-47.

In those days, the Air Force insisted that pilots and navigators actually had to fly to receive flight pay. They kept Gooney Birds, old and antique at 20 years of age, to run supplies and move personnel when needed and for crew members assigned pencil pushing jobs to get their four hours of flight time and rake in that extra $125 or so a month.

Oh yes they could use me! A little airwork, a couple of trips around the pattern and I was good to go, checkride complete. Copilot qualified, about all I had to learn was how to raise and lower the landing gear -- no mean feat that! I flew as often as possible and some of those trips were interesting. We had landed at New York City's Idelwild on a blustery winter day. The line of new jet-powered airliners awaiting takeoff on the active, into the wind, runway was long. The old Major in the left seat asked for the empty runway with the wind 45 degrees off heading blowing at 40 knots and taxied into position. It was my turn to fly, so we powered up the upwind engine to keep her straight and brought in the downwind engine as rudder allowed. The crosswind was probably a little out of legal limits but the old gal was good to go!

A trip to Tyndall AFB in Florida taught me that flying in icing conditions in the Gooney Bird was no big deal. Just let it build up on the leading edge of the wing to a quarter inch thick or so, inflate the boots and off the ice departed into the slip stream. Alcohol, Mil Spec and denatured, delivered to the prop hubs melted the ice there but the outer portions of the blades vibrated enough to cast off ice chunks and hurl them into the fuselage. The loud "whangs" sure made the passengers' eyes big! Alcohol on the windshield worked somewhat, but one could open the side window when needed and scrape out a spot to see to land. It had warmed enough that the ice all went away by the time we arrived at the Panhandle of Florida. All we had to do was wait for the smell of the paper mill, turn left and letdown to land amongst the jet fighters at Tyndall.

In my spare time I had been rebuilding a Cessna 120 that I bought wrecked. I'd driven the bent wing on the top of a station wagon to Morristown, N.J., to be straightened and reskinned. The trip right through New York City was dreadful, but much easier later when we fetched it back in the copious hold of our trusty C-47.

Years later, about 1973 methinks it was, the Vietnam war was winding down and Air Force decided that they needed me to fly "Electric Goons" over northern Thailand and Laos. Never mind that I'd already spent 450 days in Southeast Asia flying my beloved KC-135 in 1967, 1968 and 1969! The electric goon was an original C-47 with more powerful R-2000 engines from a C-54. They were used to fly low altitude at night, loaded with electronic gear and operating personnel to monitor the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I never got to fly one as the war wound down before I could get over there.

This old Major did the training to go; land survival in mountains of Washington State starting the 3rd of January -- good jungle training that! Sea survival off the coast of Florida, which was fun. But then I was honored to be in the last Air Force pilot training class in the C-47.

Hours and hours of ground school to learn to operate all the systems, predict the performance and on and on. I was intrigued with one sergeant teacher that pronounced the hydraulic reservoir as "resi voy." Then into the air to do stalls, steep turns, short field takeoffs and landings, full stall and wheel landings, single engine approaches and landings, we did it all. It reminded of flying the Cub, simple, muscular but easy and most of all fun!

My instructor was much younger but had flown a Vietnam tour in the AC-47, "Puff the Magic Dragon."

My fellow student was 2nd Lt. Miguel from the Dominican Republic Air Force. Mike became disillusioned about halfway through realizing that he should have chosen to fly his country's P-51s instead of the wonderful old Goon!

School ended with a full blown instrument check and I was a fully qualified C-47 Aircraft Commander. The FAA gave me a type rating saying "DC-3" and sadly that was the last time I ever got to fly the honorable old bird.

EAA's AirVenture Oshkosh this year was ballyhooing that they expected 40 of the wonderful 66+ year old workhorses to appear. I'd hoped to bum a ride in one once again. Last year I visited with fellow columnist Lane Wallace and was so hoping to get to meet you this time. Alas it was not to be.

That is the way I saw it.

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