F7F Walkaround 1980

[Larry Kraus]

I found some pictures of Tanker 63 without the retardant tank that I took at TBM's Sequoia Field near Visailia in 1980.It was being prepared for turnover to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola.

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[Mark Nankivil]

Thank you Larry - I have a friend about to start on a Tigercat model and is converting it to a tanker - this might sway him as to which one!

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[Wheels up]

Do you suppose anyone would have ever been bothered by rounding the GW up 4 more lbs to a much easier to handle (mathematically) 28,000 even? Oh well, arithmetic is arithmetic! The numbers don't lie!

[Larry Kraus]

Mark,here are a few pictures of Tanker 64 with the tank on.All of the pictures were taken at Sequoia Field,except for the left side view by the t hangars,which is at Redmond.The dismanteled F7F on the flatbed is leaving for a new owner.You can look it up in the WIX F7F Registry under BuNo. 80503.In the last three pictures,you can see the retardant tanks and fairings that were removed from the F7"s.I think that these pictures are from 1982.All of this picture posting has reminded me that I really need to buy a couple of digital cameras this spring.I haven't taken any pictures in 25 years.

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[skybolt2003]

Man, that head-on shot is killer! I remember, must have been the mid-70's standing at Ramona when 2 F7F's came in. They beat up the field and made an overhead break, Very showy. My jaw was hanging on the ground when I saw them. What a ride that must be.

[Mark Nankivil]

Most excellent Larry - thanks!

Yes, buy some digital cameras - and lots of storage cards for them

Enjoy the Day! Mark

[retroaviation]

Dang Larry, you're already waaaaay ahead in the polls for next year's WIX Most Valuable Poster. This and the B-17 thread of yours are fantastic!

Gary

[Larry Kraus]

Thanks Gary,I appreciate that,especially coming from you.ALso,for Wheels up's comment on the Gross Weight marking.I'm pretty sure that this was intentionally done .My first guess would be that something changed at 28,000 lbs.This would likely be a response to a new Forest Service contract requirement.Maybe it was an Accelerate-Stop distance item.The Feds were running experiments on various tankers at Mojave to test this at about that time frame.Dave Kelly,who flew F7F Tanker 64 for a number of years took part in the tests.I'll have to ask him about it the next time that I see him,although that might be a while as he's in Redmond and I'm currently in Florida.I could e-mail him,but I'll be home by the end of March and would probably beat the reply.He still uses AOL dialup and Windows 2000.

[SaxMan]

Great pics. From any angle the F7F is a beautiful plane!

[RNDMTRS4EVR]

You know I have said this in the past, and I'll say it again. "The F7F just doesn't look right with out that tank on the belly!" I'm biased as the first one I ever saw as a kid was an air tanker, so I always thought that was the way they were suppose to look. Sure is a sexy airplane anyway you look at it! And every tanker pilot that I talked to that flew them, loved the performance. “It was the hot rod of air tankers” as told by Don Orembaum
Scott......

[RNDMTRS4EVR]

Larry;
In your opinion which air tanker (past or present) do you think is or was the best platform? If you were to ask my dad he would say the P-2V. I don't know, I liked all of them, I do know some had there short comings as an air tanker.
Scott......

[sledge39]

.....

...Tanker 63 N7654C...overhead break at Chino...17 Aug 1969....







.....

[Larry Kraus]

Beautiful pictures Sledge.Those are definite keepers.I was in Vietnam in 1969,but it was almost certainly Stew Kunkee flying Tanker 63 out of Santa Barbara (Goleta) in those pictures.I spent many an hour scrubbing on that airplane between 1964 and 1967.Kunkee is a great guy and treated me almost like a son when I worked at the tanker base as a teenager.

To answer Scott's question about best tanker,I'll offer a bit of a cop-out.I've only flown B-17's and DC-7's as tankers,so I can't really say.All of the guys that flew the C-130 swear by it as the best,at least when equipped with the Aero Union constant flow tank,but I couldn't really say.I flew 900 hours in B-17's and have somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 hours in the DC-7.The B-17 was a fine 1800 gallon tanker and the DC-7 is an excellent 3000 gallon tanker.It would sure be nice to replace the 8 door tank on the DC-7 with a computerized constant flow tank like the P-3's,but at a half a million bucks each,it isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

[tom d. friedman]

even with the pot belly it still has great lines

[Pooner]

WOW~!

I am still gulping air at these shots, Larry. Magnificent. Thank you from all of us closet tanker dogs who remember these wonderful beasts in service, and loved 'em way back when they wore civilian clothes...

OK, so by judging your 1980 time frame of sitting in the seat of so many of these wonderful aircraft, can you share with us any shots of the PV-2 Harpoon in civil service? Granted, the pigs I am working on now would have been employed killing ants while you fellows were putting out forest fires driving the queens of the skies, but a guy's gotta ask!

Any shots of Globe Air 'Poons in action? Any RALCO iron on the ramp? Anything in your files of Globe's 54C or RALCO's N7257C in action? Man, that'd make my day!

Bring on the 'Poons!