B-17 in the movie Thunderball

[glennasher]

Actually, if you carefully watch videos of the Skyhook, you'll see that the bungee cushions the liftoff considerably. If you've ever ridden the "boom bucket" ejection seat trainer, you'd recognize the difference right away. It's like the difference between a .375 Weatherby Magnum and a .36 cal flintlock squirrel rifle. A slam in the butt vs a smooth but powerful acceleration. It's not the 7Gs that gets you, it's the suddenness with which they're applied. You'd probably get more spine compression in a bad parachute landing. It took me three days before I felt right after the boom bucket, a whole week after my second parachute jump, where I overshot my final wind alignment turn and came down hard on my butt.
Cheers,
Wes

I''ve shot a .378 Weatherby a few times, with an enormous charge of IMR 4350 and a Hornady 300, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, about like a light 870 slug gun with a 1 oz. slug, not fun, but not really bad. The Magnaporting helped a lot. The little shooting I've done with BP has been with .45 roundballs in a buddy's CVA home-build. It was pretty nice. I was a pretty good pistolero at one time, and spent more of my time with handguns than rifles.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

You're probably right, I'd forgotten that the early ejection seats were fired by a cartridge, and after a lot of injuries, they switched to rocket-powered seats,

The ejection trainer I rode was a Douglas Escapac III of the A4 Skyhawk variety, and it was a hybrid. It had a cartridge to get the seat up the rail and clear of the cockpit, then a six foot lanyard pulled the pin on the rocket boost which could give it about 450 ft gain from a level flight attitude. Needless to say, the trainer had no rockets, and the rail was extended up to 35 feet with hydraulic "arresting gear" at the top to "re-extend" your compressed vertebrae.
If you've read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and absorbed the concept of "perfect speed" (to-"BE THERE!"), then you have a frame of reference for the boom bucket. As the face curtain handles start to come down across your helmet visor, you're looking at the back wall of the Aerophysiology Training Center, and when they clear your line of sight, you're looking through the face curtain across the entire base from atop the third tallest structure on the admin side. Only Base Admin and Paraloft are taller.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[XBe02Drvr]

I DO know that my back and knees have never been the same after my time in the 82nd,

I know nothing about paratroop chutes, but what videos I've seen imply that they're unsteerable and give the jumper no control of anything. Murderous! I've only jumped a T10, which had steering toggles, and could give you a semblance of a flare for landing by pulling both at once. We were cautioned not to attempt a flared landing until we had 10+ jumps and a jumpmaster approval. I graduated from mech school and moved away after five jumps, so never got there.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[XBe02Drvr]

The little shooting I've done with BP has been with .45 roundballs in a buddy's CVA home-built.

I have a .45 kit-built Numrich flint Kentucky tack driver, which is fun, but a friend's custom built .36 flint squirrel rifle is a real treat. 42 inch barrel, gain twist rifling, featherweight, and about as much recoil as a .22LR. If I want to introduce a lady to black powder, I get him to come over with his squirrel gun. He shows up dressed like Hawkeye and a grand time is had by all.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Airframes]

I know that feeling !
After quite a number of very hard military parachuting landings, and then continuing with civilian freefall jumps, all over a period of 20 years, now, thirty years later, I really feel it. Legs and knees are bent and knackered, base of spine and neck and shoulders constantly ache.
"Here, jump with this 60 lb 'Bergen', plus a radio, personal weapon and ammo, plus 200 rounds for the GPMG and six, 2 inch mortar bombs. You'll be fine, no problem."
Yeah, right !!

 

[XBe02Drvr]

"Here, jump with this 60 lb 'Bergen', plus a radio, personal weapon and ammo, plus 200 rounds for the GPMG and six, 2 inch mortar bombs. You'll be fine, no problem."
Yeah, right !!

Jees, takes all the fun right out of it.

 

[Airframes]

Yep, but at least it made me really want to get out of the aircraft !
And to think, I could lift that load one-handed, and travel cross country for miles. Now, I struggle to lift even 6 lbs, and can only walk, with difficulty, a few yards !

 

[XBe02Drvr]

After quite a number of very hard military parachuting landings,

A distant cousin of mine dropped out of medical school in his fourth year and was inducted into the Army as an enlisted medic, per the terms of his ROTC scholarship. He wound up attached to HQ, 101st Airborne, which meant that he jumped with every subordinate unit at every exercise. While the organic medics in the various units were tasked with the theoretical combat casualties, the HQ medics dealt with the actual jump injuries, hence got lots of hands on practice. Especially aging senior officers, a little out of shape, who felt they had to show the flag for the troops, and only showed their own vulnerability.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Token]

Hi
Thanks for that, interesting if short lived method. Not quite sure how the parrot got picked up safely, but I presume it recovered from the trauma. I presume inanimate objects must have been thrown into the 'bucket' to pick them up?

A related technique is still in use today. Not to pick things up, but to establish the polarization of an antenna.

Certain aircraft in use today (like the E-6 Mercury) have very long wire antennas they trail behind them, specifically to work at VLF for submarine communications. Picture an aircraft, oh say one that might Take Charge And Move Out, in flight with a wire antenna trailing behind, and the length of that antenna is measured in miles. Now realize that vertical polarization of the antenna increases the efficiency of that antenna to communicate with submarines, but a trailing wire is mostly horizontal.

What to do, oh what to do....

So these aircraft occasionally cause a stir with the conspiracy folks when ADS-B tracks show them turning tight circles for extended periods. Yep, they turn tight circles, and the trailing wire spirals down near vertically below them, so they end up with a 1+ mile (up to 5 miles) tall vertical antenna for VLF communications.

T!

 

[909CrewFE]

This aircraft is 44-83785, a Douglas built B-17G-95DL, initially used as a CB-17G transport from July 1945 when it was sent to the Pacific Theater from WCW San Francisco. Converted to VB-17G executive transport along the way, designation for which was formalized on her record card July 1951 at Komaki AFB, Nagoya. Continued in this role until overhauled at Tachikawa June-October, 1956 and transferred to non-AF entity (CIA front company) after 22 October 1956. Aircraft was subject of a Stars and Stripes article lamenting loss of this aircraft to those she had safely transported throughout the Far East over many years. Unlike other Far East B-17s entering the shadow world, she was not lost over mainland China or in other nefarious expeditions. This is the only B-17 with a CIA past known to have survived, and a painting of her retrieving an operative from the abandoned Soviet ice station graces the lobby of CIA Headquarters and is also featured on the CIA website, proving, if nothing else, the great ubiquity of the "Queen of the Skies," as well as illustrating yet another interesting career facet of the most versatile aircraft in history, the immortal Boeing B-17.

I believe this Fort was part of the collection in Oregon where the Spruce Goose is. Now owned by the Collings Foundation she was intended to replace 909 on tour but future tours may not happen after a recent FAA decision regarding the crash of 909.

 

[Tieleader]

Pictures of course, Tie Leader! Show us the result of your handiwork.

Not going to happen until December probably now. Least that was what I was told. I'm going to to pick up a few pieces of some extra wing panel skins from 909 (previously hail damaged) to try a test piece first sometime before that. I'll post those when I finish.

 

[davparlr]

I cannot remember the name of the book (printed in the 50's) but it was about an American missionary (New Guinea?) pilot who could toss a long rope outta a Piper Cub and by spiraling the aircraft (I don't understand the physics) the end of the rope would lower vertically. People on the ground in the middle of the jungle could then attach packages and the pilot flies off pulling the rope and package into the cockpit.

?

Same principal the AC-47/130s use only the messages delivered are of a different nature.

 

[IFollowRoads]

This is probably of interest only to me but when I was a WOC (Warrant Officer Candidate) in the Army in 1968 (rotary wing training at Fort Wolters) I heard a story from one of the other candidates. He was older than the rest of us and had already done a tour as a Special Forces SGT in Vietnam. He had some interesting war stories and was certainly my platoon (or flight?) as it was called who looked up to him and elected him as our platoon leader as much as possible (it had to rotate). One story he told was about a Seal named Fox who was picked up by a Skyhook in a training exercise but was killed when the rope/cable broke because someone drop the holding lever (?) as Fox was coming in the back door of the a/c (a C-119?). He said Fox waved goodbye and went into a sky diver's spread but was killed when he hit the water. I always wondered if the story was BS but the guy (last name of Carroll) was believable. Years later, I was reading Brave Men, Dark Waters and ran across the story of Fox being killed. It happened at Little River VA. and Fox is listed on the Seal Role of Honor. Of course, I don't know if Carroll was really there but he told a good story. I have searched the Virtual Wall and I think Carroll was killed flying a Cobra in a night rocket attack when he struck a Palm tree. I didn't finish flight school but am in the graduating class photo which another WOC (who retired as as CW4) sent me a number of years ago. He had labeled all of the names on the backside of the photo (JPEG). If anyone knows where I can find the accident report for this incident with Fox then I would like to see a copy. Of all the folks I knew in flight school, I never thought that Carroll would be the one who didn't make it. According to the reports I have read (if I have the right Carroll), he was the a/c Commander even though he was a Warrant flying with an Officer and had only be In Country for 6-months months. One of the reasons, I don't know if it was the same man is because he would never let us use his first name. If anyone knows anything about either the Fox accident or anything about Wesley Womble Carroll III who was the pilot of the Cobra involved in the accident in 1970 I would most appreciate it. For a first tour in Vietnam, to be assigned to Cobras, you had to be a the top of the class. Most guys expected slicks or worse.

This is probably of interest only to me but when I was a WOC (Warrant Officer Candidate) in the Army in 1968 (rotary wing training at Fort Wolters) I heard a story from one of the other candidates. He was older than the rest of us and had already done a tour as a Special Forces SGT in Vietnam. He had some interesting war stories and was certainly my platoon (or flight?) as it was called who looked up to him and elected him as our platoon leader as much as possible (it had to rotate). One story he told was about a Seal named Fox who was picked up by a Skyhook in a training exercise but was killed when the rope/cable broke because someone drop the holding lever (?) as Fox was coming in the back door of the a/c (a C-119?). He said Fox waved goodbye and went into a sky diver's spread but was killed when he hit the water. I always wondered if the story was BS but the guy (last name of Carroll) was believable. Years later, I was reading Brave Men, Dark Waters and ran across the story of Fox being killed. It happened at Little River VA. and Fox is listed on the Seal Role of Honor. Of course, I don't know if Carroll was really there but he told a good story. I have searched the Virtual Wall and I think Carroll was killed flying a Cobra in a night rocket attack when he struck a Palm tree. I didn't finish flight school but am in the graduating class photo which another WOC (who retired as as CW4) sent me a number of years ago. He had labeled all of the names on the backside of the photo (JPEG). If anyone knows where I can find the accident report for this incident with Fox then I would like to see a copy. Of all the folks I knew in flight school, I never thought that Carroll would be the one who didn't make it. According to the reports I have read (if I have the right Carroll), he was the a/c Commander even though he was a Warrant flying with an Officer and had only be In Country for 6-months months. One of the reasons, I don't know if it was the same man is because he would never let us use his first name. If anyone knows anything about either the Fox accident or anything about Wesley Womble Carroll III who was the pilot of the Cobra involved in the accident in 1970 I would most appreciate it. For a first tour in Vietnam, to be assigned to Cobras, you had to be a the top of the class. Most guys expected slicks or worse.

I graduated with class WOC class 67-19, I was made a aircraft commander after 200 hours (it took six weeks) and then transfered to guns (UH1-C's) where I flew as an A/C and fire team leader often leading Lts and captians. Not uncommon for WO's to be the command pilot, the roles were reversed when we landed.