far flung athwartship

A PRIL - M AY 2012
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
FAR FLUNG ATHWARTSHIP
By Col Denis Godfrey
The aircraft catapult launch
has long been the Navy’s E
ticket ride. Now imagine
that same launch from inside
a dark tunnel and as you
emerge airborne; blinded by
daylight and blasted with a
20 knot crosswind upon
your battle loaded Hellcat
just 30 feet above the waterline, adding P factor
(pucker) to the E ticket experience. This was the sequence of events for pilots
launched from the HIVA,
athwartship, hangar deck
catapult.
Athwartship catapults had
been around for years prior
to World War II, installed
on battleships and cruisers
to launch patrol aircraft. Prewar, aircraft carrier doctrine
was in flux and many ideas
for aircraft ops emerged. As
newer, monoplane aircraft
with increased ordnance
loads were entering service,
the need for catapults on
aircraft carriers was recognized. Hangar deck catapults
were proposed with the reasoning that aircraft could be
launched below and trapped
above at the same time. It
would also negate moving
aircraft to the flight deck
allowing aircraft to warm up
on the hangar deck and then
launch directly from there. It
was envisioned that scout
planes could be launched
from this position too without disturbing the aircraft
arrangement on the flight
deck. Also, most early carriers did not have catapults
and instead, arresting gear
was installed aft and forward
on the flight deck as a redundancy. If the aft end of the
flight deck was battle damaged, they would simply
steam the ship backwards
and utilize the forward gear!
Installation of a catapult
might interfere with this
arrangement.
pult but could still be utilized in concert with whatever ops were occurring up
top. This arrangement was
adopted into the Essex class
aircraft carrier design and
Intrepid, Wasp, Hornet,
Yorktown, Bunker Hill and
Franklin, were to have hangar deck catapults installed
adjacent the forward elevator. To achieve the required
length across the hull for a
catapult shot, sponsons with
folding outriggers were installed on each side of the
open hangar deck.
Eventually what developed
was one flight deck and one
hangar deck catapult, both
hydraulically actuated. The
latter serving as backup for
the primary flight deck cata-
A Hellcat being prepared for
catapult launch aboard Yorktown displays the overhang
of the sponson and outrigger
from the hangar deck.
Continued on Page 6
I NSIDE THIS ISSUE :
2012 RMW A IR
S HOW S CHEDULE
2
Best Laid Plans...
2
M AINTENANCE
R EPORT
3
W ING L EADER ’ S
R EPORT
4
S TAFF O FFICERS
5
FIFI AT SUN ‘N FUN
5
BURIED TREASURE...
6
PRESIDENT’S LETTER
7
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
A PRIL - M AY 2012
Air Show Schedule
RMW AIR SHOW SCHEDULE - 2012
MONTH
DAYS
May
26th - 27th
Jun
16th
Jul
LOCATION
SHOW
TBM
CUB
STATUS
Ogden, UT
Hill AFB Open House w/
Thunderbirds.
██
Confirmed
Boulder, CO
Open House & Dance
██
Confirmed
13th - 14th
Rifle, CO
Garfield Co Air Show
██
↓
28th - 29th
Twin Falls, ID
Air Magic Valley Air Show
w/ Blue Angles
██
Confirmed
Aug
17th - 18th
Powell, WY
Wings 'N' Wheels Classic
Cars & Air Show
██
Confirmed
↓
24th -286h
RMMA, Broomfield,
CO
Colorado Sport Int. Air
Show
██
Confirmed
Sep
1st – 3rd
Steamboat Springs,
CO
Wild West Air Fest
██
↓
8th
Elko, NV
Elko Sky Fair
██
↓
22nd –
23rd
Grand Junction, CO
Gunfighters Skies w/Blue
Angles
██
Oct
13th - 14th
Midland, TX
AIRSHO - CAF
██
Confirmed
↓
20th- 21st
El Paso, TX
AMIGO Air Show w/ Thunderbirds
██
Doubtful
██
██
Confirmed
Confirmed
Confirmed
██
P AGE 2
Confirmed
Sign up on the big board to support one of these shows.
After many hours of calls,
negotiations and frustration
your show scheduling team
has put together a 2012 Air
Show Schedule for our
Wing that includes a couple
new shows for us to visit
and some reliable regular
annual stops.
Shown here is the schedule
of confirmed shows with
one that frequently appears
but never seems to come to
fruition in El Paso, TX.
Of course CAF AirSho in
Midland, TX is not much of
a fundraiser but helps keep
the CAF in the spotlight.
Shows in Powell, WY and
Elko, NV provide the opportunity to show our TBM
to new crowds - always a
pleasure. In fact that’s what
it’s all about.
Best Laid Plans...
It seems that our Air Show
schedule is in a race to see
if it can melt away faster
than this years western
slope snow pack.
Despite continuing efforts
by Cols Thompson and
Godfrey we’ve had several
cancellations - the most
disappointing to date our
first 2012 scheduled appearance at Davis Monthan
AFB in Tuscon, AZ.
It seems that the expected
fuel reimbursement went
away and then the opportunity to operate our PX
was in question (something
that occasionally happens at
military air shows). The end
result was that attending the
show was guaranteed to cost
the wing money. It’s tough
enough trying to stay ahead
of our costs to attend these
shows so a known loser is
just that - a loser.
All that effort by Col Marvel’s Wicked Wrench Wranglers to have ‘309’ ready to
attack the air show season at
this planned first show will
not be wasted though.
Read Col Marvel’s Maintenance Report on page 3 to
learn how those guys never
rest. ed.
Wing Public Information Officer Col Denis Godfrey
took this aerial photo of the CAF hangars at GJT. Col
Marvel’s Wicked Wrench Wranglers are huddled
around ‘309’ after all that winter maintenance.
The puddle under the engine is just that - a puddle
of water from washing the engine area to make little
seeps and drips easier to find. The work for those
guys never ends.
Is that east hangar bent?
A PRIL - M AY 2012
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
P AGE 3
Maintenance Report - Missing Show Leads to Missing Parts
By Col Bill Marvel
Maintenance Officer
To no one’s surprise (or so I
hope!), all work on the TBM,
including several inspections,
was complete and signed off
in time for our first show of
the season in Tucson. Well,
as you have read elsewhere in
this issue, the USAF changed
the terms of the contract at
the last minute, resulting in
our decision not to fly the
airplane there. The back and
forth costs would have exceeded any possibility of our
even breaking even given the
financial restrictions imposed
on us.
As a result, we took time
before the Tucson weekend
to do further tweaking on the
airplane to reduce the hydraulic pump output pressure by a
couple of hundred psi. That
went well as did another test
flight. The oil leaking number 9 cylinder discussed in
the last issue is still living up
to its namesake. As to the
serial number discrepancy
between that cylinder and the
paperwork which came with
it, one has to ask if the work
was done on our cylinder and
the paperwork was incorrect,
or if the paperwork was correct and the work was done
on a different cylinder. You
can flip a coin on that one
and either side of it is equally
valid. What you can’t flip a
coin to dispute is this -- the
cylinder passed hot and cold
compression checks, a visual
inspection, an operating temperature check and a valve
guide wobble check, so there
is little more to do than accept the oil leakage and fly
the airplane. And that is
what we are doing. After all,
it is an upside down cylinder
in a radial engine and that is
a recipe for throwing oil. I,
for one, believe many of the
TBM’s problems are occurring because of too little
flight time and not too much.
Cost or not, airplanes need to
be flown.
Two small problems were
noted during inspections and
I determined they were not
airworthiness issues in the
short term. Both were deferred for future resolution
once we had a break in the
air show schedule. Curiously, they involved hydraulic
leaks-- does that surprise
anyone? One was in the
right wing and the other in
the tail section. More specifically, the right wing flap
sequence valve had a minor
leak as did the tail wheel
retract cylinder. Neither was
an operational issue at the
noted rate of leakage but
when the Tucson show cancelled, I decided to use the
newly available time to remove both components for
repair. As of this writing
(April 18), they are in Idaho
and will be returned to us
shortly for installation in the
airplane. Once that is done,
I suspect the irritating but
small telltale puddles of red
hydraulic fluid on the hangar
floor will be replaced by the
much more preferable dirt
and dust.
All in all, the airplane is in
the best shape in years and
should be ready for the rest
of what is already a disappointingly short show season.
.
The missing right flap sequence valve used to be
here, connected to the two aluminum tubes.
The missing tail wheel retract cylinder was once
attached to the two flexible black hoses you see.
A PRIL - M AY 2012
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
P AGE 4
Primary Business Address
PO Box 4125
Grand Junction, CO 81502
Propwash Gazette Editor
Col Tom Howe
Phone: 970-872-7373
Fax: 970-872-7474
Email: [email protected]
RMWCAF on the Web
www.rmwcaf.org
Encouragement to participate in Scrap Metal Drives were very
common during WWII and the Korean Conflict. Not too many
would remember how much the lumber industry contributed.
“KEEP 'EM FLYING"
WING LEADER’S REPORT
By Col Collin Fay
After all of the hard work
completed over the winter to
get the TBM ready to go to its
first show in April, we had a
“false start!” The Air Force
decided they didn’t really
have the funds to bring classic
warbirds like ours to their
show in Tucson, so we had to
scratch our appearance at the
Davis-Monthan Air Force
Base earlier this month. The
government is tightening its
belt everywhere, and we are
down to only 10 shows on the
schedule now for this year;
we are looking at other ways
now to raise funds so we can
‘keep ‘em flying!
As I mentioned last month,
we are planning a local open
house, showcasing our aircraft and museum to the
Grand Junction and western
Colorado community. We’ll
use it as a fundraising opportunity, selling rides in the
TBM and Cub, but most importantly, we’ll use it as a
recruiting venue, hoping to
bring people in who are interested in what we do and want
to help out. Please plan to
help us get more volunteers in
to our group! We still haven’t set a specific date, but in
order to get our facilities
spruced up and have time for
sufficient publicity, it will
probably be held on a Saturday in early June.
Due to the cancellation of the
Arizona show, our first air
show will now be on Memorial Day weekend at Hill
Air Force Base in Ogden,
Utah. Be sure to sign up to
crew this show if you’ve
got the weekend free!
And, even though we’ve
had a few cancellations, we
will still be attending many
shows this summer and we
can use your help. Be sure
to check the board in the
hangar and sign up now to
help out.
Thanks again for your help
to “keep ‘em flying.”
January 21, 1945
The Deck of the Hancock
shortly after a VT-7 TBF
Avenger was trapped
aboard and while taxiing
with two 500-pound
bombs in its bomb bay the pilot, not knowing that
he had armed bombs hung
up in his Bomb bay..
opened his Bomb bay
doors; the bomb falling to
the deck and exploded.
http://
www.usshancockcv19.com
/history.htm
A PRIL - M AY 2012
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
RMWCAF STAFF OFFICERS
Wing Leader
Collin Fay
Executive Officer
Bruce Verstraete
Finance Officer
Don Coleman
Adjutant
Jerry McDonough
Operations Officer
Rob (Dunc) Duncan
Maintenance Off.
William (Bill) Marvel
Museum & Mess Sergeant
Dorothy Dutton
Safety Officer
Bob Thompson
Judge Advocate
Gerald Feather
Public Information Officers
Denis Godfrey
PX Officer
Georgia Thompson
Newsletter Editor
Tom Howe
TBM Aircraft Coordinator
Bob Thompson
Cub Aircraft Coordinator
Charlie Huff
Facilities Manager
Bruce Verstraete
Recruiting Officer
Bob Caskey
Other WWII Aircraft
Both Ours and Theirs
P AGE 5
Photo by Col Tom Howe
FIFI’s First Ever appearance at Sun ‘n Fun—2012
2012 marked the first time ever that FIFI has appeared at
the Sun ‘n Fun Air Show in Lakeland Florida.
Make sure you understand a move being made by
one Ohio Congressman that would ground FIFI and
many other national treasure War Birds. Write your
Congressman and tell him/her to stop Rep. Micheal
Turner’s amendment to HR 4310. For more information on the threat to the CAF, EAA and many other
Warbird operators - see the CAF emergency news release available by going to this link:
http://commemorativeairforce.org/editor/userFiles/Press%
20Releases/4_20_2012_FIFIUnderAttackByCongressman.pdf
Other Torpedo Bombers
Grumman XF-5F - First flew on April 1, 1940.
and became a design platform for the F7F Tigercat - the Navy’s first twin engine fighter.
This poster,
issued in
1943 or 1944,
was intended
to perpetuate
the Nazi myth
of "the Jew"
as "inciter of
war, prolonger of war." As
German fortunes in the
war begin to
decline,
Myths of a
"Jewish conspiracy" prevailed.
Savoia-Marchetti SM 79 Sparviero
It sounds incredible, but SM 79 actually caused more allied war
and merchant ship losses in the Mediterranean than Italy's entire
surface navy! Courageously flown, it was a considerable thorn in
the side of the Allies in the Mediterranean theater until overwhelmed by Allied air superiority. Says something about the Italian Navy, eh?
A PRIL - M AY 2012
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
P AGE 6
FAR FLUNG ATHWARTSHIP - Continued
Continued from Page 1
The photo above shows the
Hellcat launched in close
proximity to the water.
Not only were Hellcats
launched in this manner, but
also the largest airplane of
the fleet, the Avenger shown
in the photo below.
As you can imagine the pilots
hated being shot out broad-
side like this. No wind over
the deck and little margin for
error, especially if the ship
was rolling. The one plus is if
you did end up in the drink,
the ship wouldn’t run over
you.
dered obsolete by advances
in radar. Therefore, the
hangar deck catapults were
abandoned in short order and
the Navy later removed them
and on some carriers, added
a second catapult to the
flight deck. The Hornet was
the only carrier that retained
and utilized its hangar catapult till the end of the war.
The catapults took up a lot of
valuable real estate on the
hangar deck and found not to
be all that useful. The need to
launch scout planes was ren-
The popular science fiction
TV series of the late 1970’s,
Battlestar Galactica, often
featured Lieutenant’s Apollo
and Starbuck being launched
Buried Treasure - Warbird Style
Aviation historians and
warbird enthusiasts are drooling at the discovery of at
least 12 and maybe as many
20 perfectly preserved brandnew Spitfire Mark 14s buried
in Myanmar, which was formerly Burma. Thanks to the
tenacity (and apparently considerable diplomatic skills) of
British farmer David
Cundall, the lost squadron of
pristine fighters was found
where they were buried by
U.S. troops in 1945 when it
became clear they wouldn't
be needed in the final days of
the Second World War. At
least a dozen of the aircraft,
one of the latest variants with
their 2,035-horsepower Roll
in their Viper fighters
athwartship, zooming out
the side of the battlestar.
Whiz bang Hollywood stuff
for the youngsters in the
audience but something
familiar to many WWII
aircraft carrier veterans. But
like so many Hollywood
fantasies, the hangar deck
catapult was a whiz bang
concept made impractical
by the realities of evolving
aircraft carrier operations.
A partial reprint of an article from AVWeb 4/17/2012
a camera to look
at the crates," he
told the Telegraph. "They
seemed to be in
good condition."
Royce Griffon engines replacing the 1,200-1,500horsepower Merlins in earlier
models, were buried without
ever being removed from their
original packing crates. It's
possible another eight were
also buried after the war ended. After spending 15 years
and $200,000 of his own money, Cundall was rewarded
with visual proof of the magnitude of his discovery. "We
sent a borehole down and used
The aircraft were declared
surplus when they arrived in
Burma because the Japanese
were in retreat by then and
carrier-based Seafires were
getting all the action. They
were ordered buried in their
original crates, waxed,
swaddled in grease paper
and their joints tarred
against the elements.
Cundall found some of the
soldiers who buried the
planes by placing ads in
magazines and was able to
narrow down the search
before using groundpenetrating radar to confirm the burial site. The
next obstacles to recovery
are political. Myanmar's
former military junta was
under a variety of sanctions, among them an international convention that
prevented the transfer of
military goods to and from
the country. Recent political reforms have led to the
lifting of that ban effective
April 23. Cundall will also
need the permission of the
new Myanmar government
to unearth the treasure.
Which has been granted - ed.
A PRIL - M AY 2012
HONORING AMERICAN MILITARY AVIATION THROUGH FLIGHT, EXHIBITION AND REMEMBRANCE
P AGE 7