I never worked on a C-97 in cold weather climates. However, I did a lot of work on C-124's in the cold.
One winter evening getting ready to eat dinner after a 10 hour work day on the flightline, I got a phone call at home (In a trailer park) from the maintenance officer to get back to the flightline. They had a C-124 ready to go with a rebuilt R4360 engine, oil tank and engine change tools already loaded in the cargo compartment. I got two of my mechanics aboard and we flew to Suffolk County airport out on Long Island, New York. My mission was to rescue a C-124 from Donaldson AFB, SC, that had been enroute from Goose Bay to Donaldson. The crew had shut down #2 engine for internal failure and #3 for an engine fire in the power section that had burned through the right side cowling.
We arrived about midnight in a blinding snow storm. The disabled C-124 was parked out in the boonies by itself, far away from the hangar area. We off loaded the tools, and engine in the snow and the C-124 that brought us there left for home.
I looked over the broke C-124 and considered the problems we were facing. It was cold, windy, dark still snowing and we were bone tired. We were on small base/airport that only had a small fighter operation. I believe it was Air Defense Command (95th FIS). We walked across the flightline in the snow until a base ops "bread wagon" came by and I had them take us to their transit quarters and we found bunks for the night.
We got up the next morning, ate at the chow hall and found a ride out to fix the C-124. It was still snowing. I got a wrecker from their motor pool and we took off the propeller. At the motor pool I found two 55 gallon drums to drain the oil into. Remember the C-124 has an 82.5 gallon oil tank for each engine. I couldn't find a drain hose. I found a long piece of "spagetti". It what we called the sheathing we used to insulate electrical wires. I'm not sure how cold it was but it took almost all day to drain the oil through the spagetti. It was still snowing and the wind started picking up. Fortunately, the C-124 was parked so the fuselage blocked the wind a little as we changed the #2 engine.
I found out the fire on #3 was from a broken exhaust stack on B-2 cylinder. I took the exhaust stacks and cowling off the failed #2 engine and installed them on #3. Remember This was on the windy side of the aircraft.
We had been told the night before that once we got the C-124 fixed, we would ride on it back to our home base at Dover.
It was dark by the time we finished loaded the old engine into the cargo compartment of the now fixed C-124. It was still snowing. I fired up the newly installed #2 engine and did a "burp" run. Then we cowled it up and I started #2 up again and did a run up check, idle speed and mixture check.
While I was at the panel doing the run-up, the Donaldson flight crew showed up in the cockpit. Fresh from their crew rest and a nice dinner in the club. They said, "Sarge, it's cold here in New York. Start up the other three engines , we want to get back home to South Carolina where it's warmer."
So, I fired up the other three engines and we taxiied out in the snow, took off, and they dropped my guys and me off at Dover. We finally got out of the snow and cold!
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