Need to get a T-6 to Hawaii? Put it in another airplane!

[Brad]

It took just about 10 months to get all the paperwork, leg work and loadplans approved but I finally got the T-6 shipped to Hawaii. It took several trips to different T-6's to measure, test fit and finally weld up the tiedowns and come up with a plan that I could get approved by the Air Force. I doubt most people know there is about ten different styles of lower landing gear legs for the T-6 family. Originally it was supposed to go in a C-17 but a reserve C-5 took the mission. Everything pretty much loads the same and I did the certification letter for either airplane.

I was supposed to go take the plane apart, load it, fly with it, unload it and put it back together but everything happened just as I was going to Reno. The C-5 guys didn't tie it down exactly the way I had wanted it done but they did a fair job. Nothing got damaged.














Now Hawaii has a flying T-6.

[Warbird Kid]

Wow! Awesome! Some lucky owner is probably having the time of his life scooting around those islands.

[GIJOE290]

Neat stuff. My question is; How did you get the USAF agree to haul it?I didn't know that they would do that.

[Django]

That's pretty cool. How does one go about getting the Air Force to ship a plane?

[Jack Cook]

My god the AF jet hauling a former Navy a/c owned by a guy who was in the Coast Guard!
What's next, you going to tell me Roger Ramjet isn't a real guy

[JBoyle]

A new museum exhibit? Perhaps the one at Pearl Harbor?

I'm pretty sure that unless you have photos of a General or Senator
doing something very wrong, the USAF is not in the business of transporting private aircraft across the Pacific.


Back in the 50s when most bases had aero clubs, they did transport a few planes for them. Somewhere there is a photo of a Mooney Mite being unloaded from the nose of a C-124.

[Holedigger]

Curious indeed, just wonder what behind the scenes "strangeness" occurred?!?! Here is an Official AF press release, apparently shipped for an Air Show....WHY is still a bit of a mystery!?!?!
http://www.travis.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123168195

[sdennison]

Round trip or one way?

[Brad]

Curious indeed, just wonder what behind the scenes "strangeness" occurred?!?! Here is an Official AF press release, apparently shipped for an Air Show....WHY is still a bit of a mystery!?!?!
http://www.travis.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123168195

There was no "strangeness" involved. As to WHY well just like the press release says. It was for the Hickam airshow. There isn't a lot of warbirds to choose from in Hawaii and even less that are interested in flying across the pacific to get there. In this case, the Air Force wanted a T-6 for their show. The owner is a local guy and they asked if he'd be interested in being in the airshow. He said yes but the plane was in Nevada. Other civilian acts , including the Red Bull helicopter, were sought but for whatever reason they never came to fruition.

I did all the certifications and planning that were required to make sure the T-6 could be prepped and loaded with as much ease as possible. The Air Force called and said they would have a plane with space reserved for the airshow planes at Travis AFB on a certain date. It was up to the owner to get it there, get it prepped and certified in time. The reason it wound up being a C-5 instead of a C-17 is they found one that was going to Hickam anyhow to pick up a load of cargo. As I said in the first post, I would have been there to take care of all that but it ended up happening when I was headed to the races at Reno. So I had to leave it to other people that didn't know me or the airplane. This resulted in phone calls back and forth between me and the guys at Travis while I was in the airport.

This has nothing to do with the museum at Pearl Harbor. There was nothing sneaky, underhanded or illeagle done by anybody. Because the owner knows me he had a little bit of an inside track as far as the process goes and I was able to make things a little easier, but not much. Everywhere we turned, we were met with the Air Force's favorite answer "That's not my job."

The bottom line is that the Air Force doesn't ship privately owned stuff unless there is something in it for them. It has to be done on a space available basis and can't result in costing the Air Force anything. Empty airplanes fly all over the world all the time but we can't just put whatever we want in them. I certainly wish we could though!

In the past, this has been done with a Stearman and a Corsair that I'm aware of. I've recently been asked to look into working up loading instructions for other warbirds in the future.

[gary]

Brad,
as a taxpayer I am .........., forget that last thought, is that the t-6 that we used to play with here? If it is we all need to gang up on the owner and plan a holiday........
Gary

[tex-fan]

REALLY cool, thanks for sharing the story!

[Holedigger]

Meant no offense, just seemed a bit "odd" for a civilian ANYTHING getting moved by the Air Force. The order would have had to come down the chain of command that they WANTED more aircraft at the Air Show and to lend a hand, and SOP would be to use a flight deadheading or training to do it. I imagine local commanders wouldn't touch it unless it was given a green light from above. It is NOT like the average warbird operator can just go to the Air Force and "ask" for a lift. Sometimes they can work odd cases into "aircraft recovery" training exercises, but that is not a real frequent event for privately owned AC.

[bdk]

Meant no offense, just seemed a bit "odd" for a civilian ANYTHING getting moved by the Air Force.

Well, if moving Keiko the whale via C-17 was OK, this should be as well!

[CAPFlyer]

The CAF Corsair and another plane were flown via C-5 up to Eielson AFB for the airshow there several years back. There's pictures on the Corsair website of it being parked in front of the C-5, loaded aboard, and then being unloaded.

Also, the USAF has rules where it can transport civilian payloads under certain circumstances for pay. In fact, before the Antonov's became available, the 2 C-5C's were the only way any Delta II's and Atlas IV's got to the pad and the way many private and public payloads for them got transported. The companies involved fully compensated (and then some on occasion) the USAF for use of their aircraft and crews in such situations.

[Jack Cook]

Well, if moving Keiko the whale via C-17 was OK, this should be as well!

Ha I was waiting for this to be brought up.
I was hoping the C-17 would have a multi-engine failure and give that ol boy a float test about half way there.
What a friggin waste of many millions of dollars