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.
Sunday, May 24, 2020
While over Japan, the inboard propeller spun off and took out the outboard propeller. They had to fly 700 miles home on two engines.
Yep. Cranky engines that had a tendency to swallow valves, the rear row of cylinders to overheat, if a fire started and burned long enough, the magnesium alloy crankcase could ignite catastrophically and burn through the wing spar. The propellers had a problem with runaways that were never completely solved. There were a lot of losses to mechanical failure. The post-war B-50 was the plane the B-29 should've been had not the urgency of rushing the buggy B-29 into full production overridden safety concerns. With a full fuel and bomb load, takeoffs from the Marianas were always a bit nerve-wracking. If a plane lost an engine or propeller on takeoff, they would likely lose the plane and crew.
A friend who was FE on EC-121s out of Clark and Da Nang said they regularly lost one after take-off. They would just continue to destination, even if it were Guam or some other distance. Often their point of no return was so far over water that the crew decided it would be better to just ditch. A few times they landed with two.
Oh, ditching in an EC-121 was never a good thing. the 551st AEW&C Wing lost three into chesapeake bay with only one survivor. not a good idea. In the 552nd AEW&C Wing on the left coast, the preflight briefing always included the aircraft commander's policy statement that we would not be ditching, ever. period. not. goona. happen. I have spoken. Warning Stars had -93A engines that were fairly reliable. much more cooling fins around the exhaust valve area. supercharged not turbocharged. power recovery turbines in the exhausts. 1,500 more horsepower per engine than was as mounted on the B-29 which engine nacelles were rated for no more than 2000 horsepower. lots of differences from the engines on the B-29. much better trained mechanics. Propellor control problems were traced to electrical shorts caused by vibration. the connies had a specification for triple insulated wiring in the prop control circuits. Had an incident of all four props feathering on the taxi way during the pre takeoff autofeather test caused by one wire shorting to ground in the junction box next to the prop governor of the N0.1 engine. it took about 650 hours of operation after the QEC was built up for it to have happened. TBO on the -93A engines was established at 1500 hours. we had two good running engines on 55-0424 that had almost 2000 hours before changing them-spares were short, we were down to pulling engines from the boneyard because our funding went towards AWACS. most three engine landings were usually caused by broken direct injection fuel lines in the power section. I only recall one prop caused rejected takeoff down at homestead which was a faulty governor. broke the prop nosecase gearbox and trashed the engine when it hit 3,650 rpm-(2,900 max). amazing sound. the resident curtis wright factory rep/engineer was impressed the power section did not disassemble itself.
B-17 over Europe had that same issue. Rosie Rosenthal was the pilot. His maneuvers snapped off the wild prop, and it went into the fuselage, through number 2 prop as I remember. WW2 aircraft were marginally safer for the crews than for the target.
"on balance of the evidence I have found I believe the date to have been 24th May. Records show that Rosenthal flew on both 7th May and 24th May missions to Berlin."
A past flight instructor recounted how he was crew on a C-130 in the arctic practicing INS. At FL290 he had just returned to his seat and buckled in (beneath the main spar carry through) when a skin section directly above his seat tore off.
The skin section tore through fuel lines and a piece took out #3 engine. Another piece took out the stbd elevator. This sent the plane into a flat spin. The pilots recovered at 7,000 agl.
I worked with a little tech years ago that was a gunner on a B-29..Pappy Carson. Oh the stories..was shacked up in KC when his squadron shipped out of Salina...somehow caught up in Calif and avoided a desertion charge. Once they ditched off Iwo Jima and lost 3 crew. Another time they got lost in the clouds and the whole formation went to the secondary. They went to the primary, found a hole in the clouds and bombed it. LeMay gave the whole crew a DFC. Man, that guy was a pistol.
My father flew a B-24 in WW2. He told me that one time they lost both engines on one side. He and the co-pilot took ten minute turns with both feet on one rudder pedal just to keep it flying fairly straight. They made it back to the base and landed successfully.
Just lucky in the sense the inboard prop spun out and not in ... yikes. Is that a B-29?
ReplyDeleteYup it's a B-29 Superfortress. This is just one example of the professionalism displayed by airmen in the face of adversity. Here's some more details:
Deletehttps://donmooreswartales.com/2010/06/11/robert-wallace/
Great article and following comments as well. Thank you Bogside.
Deleteimagine the carnage if that happened on No. 3. brave men harsh times.
DeleteYep. Cranky engines that had a tendency to swallow valves, the rear row of cylinders to overheat, if a fire started and burned long enough, the magnesium alloy crankcase could ignite catastrophically and burn through the wing spar. The propellers had a problem with runaways that were never completely solved. There were a lot of losses to mechanical failure. The post-war B-50 was the plane the B-29 should've been had not the urgency of rushing the buggy B-29 into full production overridden safety concerns. With a full fuel and bomb load, takeoffs from the Marianas were always a bit nerve-wracking. If a plane lost an engine or propeller on takeoff, they would likely lose the plane and crew.
ReplyDeleteA friend who was FE on EC-121s out of Clark and Da Nang said they regularly lost one after take-off. They would just continue to destination, even if it were Guam or some other distance. Often their point of no return was so far over water that the crew decided it would be better to just ditch. A few times they landed with two.
DeleteRick
Oh, ditching in an EC-121 was never a good thing. the 551st AEW&C Wing lost three into chesapeake bay with only one survivor. not a good idea.
DeleteIn the 552nd AEW&C Wing on the left coast, the preflight briefing always included the aircraft commander's policy statement that we would not be ditching, ever. period. not. goona. happen. I have spoken.
Warning Stars had -93A engines that were fairly reliable. much more cooling fins around the exhaust valve area. supercharged not turbocharged. power recovery turbines in the exhausts. 1,500 more horsepower per engine than was as mounted on the B-29 which engine nacelles were rated for no more than 2000 horsepower. lots of differences from the engines on the B-29. much better trained mechanics.
Propellor control problems were traced to electrical shorts caused by vibration. the connies had a specification for triple insulated wiring in the prop control circuits. Had an incident of all four props feathering on the taxi way during the pre takeoff autofeather test caused by one wire shorting to ground in the junction box next to the prop governor of the N0.1 engine. it took about 650 hours of operation after the QEC was built up for it to have happened. TBO on the -93A engines was established at 1500 hours. we had two good running engines on 55-0424 that had almost 2000 hours before changing them-spares were short, we were down to pulling engines from the boneyard because our funding went towards AWACS. most three engine landings were usually caused by broken direct injection fuel lines in the power section. I only recall one prop caused rejected takeoff down at homestead which was a faulty governor. broke the prop nosecase gearbox and trashed the engine when it hit 3,650 rpm-(2,900 max). amazing sound. the resident curtis wright factory rep/engineer was impressed the power section did not disassemble itself.
Looks like the 'Pride of the Yankees' propeller took a bad pitch.
ReplyDelete:-)
DeleteB-17 over Europe had that same issue. Rosie Rosenthal was the pilot. His maneuvers snapped off the wild prop, and it went into the fuselage, through number 2 prop as I remember. WW2 aircraft were marginally safer for the crews than for the target.
ReplyDeletePossibly 75 years ago today!!!
Deletehttps://100thbg.com/index.php?option=com_bombgrp&view=personnel&Itemid=334&id=4475
"on balance of the evidence I have found I believe the date to have been 24th May. Records show that Rosenthal flew on both 7th May and 24th May missions to Berlin."
A past flight instructor recounted how he was crew on a C-130 in the arctic practicing INS. At FL290 he had just returned to his seat and buckled in (beneath the main spar carry through) when a skin section directly above his seat tore off.
ReplyDeleteThe skin section tore through fuel lines and a piece took out #3 engine. Another piece took out the stbd elevator. This sent the plane into a flat spin. The pilots recovered at 7,000 agl.
Rick
I worked with a little tech years ago that was a gunner on a B-29..Pappy Carson. Oh the stories..was shacked up in KC when his squadron shipped out of Salina...somehow caught up in Calif and avoided a desertion charge. Once they ditched off Iwo Jima and lost 3 crew. Another time they got lost in the clouds and the whole formation went to the secondary. They went to the primary, found a hole in the clouds and bombed it. LeMay gave the whole crew a DFC. Man, that guy was a pistol.
ReplyDeleteA good friends FIL was a waist gunner on a B-17 spent 2 years in Luft Stalag 17B after being shot down over Poland.
ReplyDeleteMy Lord, the story's he told.
All lost now as well as what they stood for and died for.
And we have the nerve to complain about our lives.
My father flew a B-24 in WW2. He told me that one time they lost both engines on one side. He and the co-pilot took ten minute turns with both feet on one rudder pedal just to keep it flying fairly straight. They made it back to the base and landed successfully.
ReplyDelete