And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I had a neighbor many years ago(1960s) who was a mechanic on P-38s in Alaska. told us kids stories of the War from his viewpoint. I can recall many things he told us. high on the list of things was to never get into a position where one would have to wrench on any Lockheed product in cold weather. Truer words of wisdom had never been uttered. Changing a cylinder or two of an EC-121 on the ramp at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada in the middle of February at -30deg. F. without wind chill, clinches the validity of the statement, in my view. at any rate, we saw him taping over some of the wing windows and air vents on his car with duct tape one fine November day in Montana. it was explained how the mechs taped over any opening in the P-38 gun bay area of the nose(including the gun muzzles) in an attempt to keep the weapons warm. the engine coolant heater in the gun bay couldn't keep up with the Arctic cold and the guns would freeze. Looking back, it seems like a engineering flaw almost as bad as the "compressibility" issue Lockheed had to fix.
When we were there in the mid 80's the EOs of our SeaBee det. started removing Mount Morris because it sat right on the windward side of the runway and was somewhat of a hazard.
I had a neighbor many years ago(1960s) who was a mechanic on P-38s in Alaska. told us kids stories of the War from his viewpoint. I can recall many things he told us. high on the list of things was to never get into a position where one would have to wrench on any Lockheed product in cold weather. Truer words of wisdom had never been uttered. Changing a cylinder or two of an EC-121 on the ramp at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada in the middle of February at -30deg. F. without wind chill, clinches the validity of the statement, in my view.
ReplyDeleteat any rate, we saw him taping over some of the wing windows and air vents on his car with duct tape one fine November day in Montana. it was explained how the mechs taped over any opening in the P-38 gun bay area of the nose(including the gun muzzles) in an attempt to keep the weapons warm. the engine coolant heater in the gun bay couldn't keep up with the Arctic cold and the guns would freeze.
Looking back, it seems like a engineering flaw almost as bad as the "compressibility" issue Lockheed had to fix.
When we were there in the mid 80's the EOs of our SeaBee det. started removing Mount Morris because it sat right on the windward side of the runway and was somewhat of a hazard.
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