Pete Sherman

[Lynn Allen]

Anybody have a photo of 3005R??

TIA,

Lynn

[Dennis Bergstrom]

But the reports is listed as 1974?

Paul,
Just to clarify, links to two different accident reports were given in the earlier messages. The 10/19/74 accident was N38LL "Scatterbrain Kid" and the 8/1/78 accident was Pete Sherman's N3005.

Dennis

[T J Johansen]

Anybody have a photo of 3005R??

TIA,

Lynn

Here is a photo of N3005.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p38regis ... 53193.html



T J

[treadigraph]

Thanks folks.

Was re-reading Martin Caidin's book about his Junkers last night - he mentions bumping into Don Plumb and John Bolton in FL while dodging bad weather on the way to the CAF show that year. Doesn't mention their sad demise after the show.

There are also some poignant pics at the end of the book - Caidin and Sherman had both been displaying at Langley Field two days before the P-38's accident.

Will have to buy the Rag Wing book now - Caidin was a fine author!

[P-Screamer]

Pete Sherman and his wife were killed when their P-38 struck the ground near a cannery at Whitehouse, Ohio. Witnesses said the airplane was pointed nose down and rolling as it came down. There was no fire after the crash and it was later discover that the aircraft had no gas in it at all. These two curious facts prompted the NTSB to investigate.



The NTSB first learned that Sherman had taken on a full load of fuel---including drop tanks---that morning in Virginia. He told the FBO attendant that the fuel instrumentation on his P-38 was not working properly, so he always filled the bird before each flight. The lack of fuel and no fire at the crash seen led the NTSB investigator to conclude that Sherman’s P-38 must have experienced a massive fuel leak. However, the NTSB was puzzled by the aircraft’s continuous rolling wing-over maneuver during its descent.



Interviews with other P-38 owners at that time brought to light a little known P-38 phenomenon that indeed is associated with boosted ailerons. That is, a lack of hydraulic pressure could promote the boosted ailerons to go into a differential mode (one up and one down) in which they will stay---regardless of what the pilot did with the yoke--- until the boost switch in the cockpit was switched off. The NTSB further concluded that fuel starvation reduced the hydraulic pressure in Sherman’s P-38 and that cause the ailerons P-38 to deflect in opposite directions.

[Dave Hackett]

I got the story of the initial thought being fuel starvation. My buddy says that the drop tanks were full and were each 110 gallon. Plus the all the airplanes tanks were full at departure. I was told, or at least I heard, that the fuel was military fuel following the airshow, and was 130LL. I have never smelled it, but I am told that it smells very different from 100LL. My friend said that people who arrived on scene reported a smell which he says was the right smell for the 130LL. Pete told him that he was able to lean the 38 out to 75 gallons per hour. So basically the drop tanks would have covered the flight to that point and still had some in it. I believe he also said that the engines were making power when they hit the ground. Was that not the case?

Anyone have any idea how close Whitehouse is to Toledo? My buddy thought they were going to drop in to Toledo to stretch, and had the Toledo frequency in the radio.

dave

[Lynn Allen]

130LL is Purple and 100LL is Blue. I'm not sure about the smell as it smell's the same to me.

Lynn

[marine air]

Okay, First of all , in the 1970's the deal at most airshows was that they would pay all the gas to get there, all the avgas you could burn during the event, and all the fuel you could take home with you. That is one of the reasons you see those pics back then with mustangs with the 200 gallon F-86 drop tanks. They were hauling it home to fly on later. It is a huge assumption to say that his drop tanks were plumbed and functional. Most weren't.
Second, Pete bought the P-38 in Pennsylvania, never heard anything to do with the DuPonts, it was just another WWII surplus warbird and there were hundresds lying around abandoned or owned by defunct aviation companies. Scatterbrain Kid was a totally differnet airframe with exceedingly bad luck. SHerman paid $25,000 and had it ferried back to Orlando. He then paid another $25,000 to have it restored by some Air FOrce guys who had experience on the P-38. My dad took me to see it when I was a kid and it was at the former B-52 AFB now know as Orlando International. It was in a huge , empty bomber hangar next to a squadron of O-2's . SHerman was immensely proud of the fact that he had a flyable P-38 for $50K at a time when P-51's and F8F's were selling for $75 to $100K and P-38's were selling for $150K. (P-38's have always been 50 to 100%) more than Mustangs. It was bare metal and made its first airshow at Sun'N Fun which was in Feb. or March, back then. Right before Oshkosh, he painted a black S on the tails and the spinners and wingtips were painted red also.
He had had trouble that summer with an engine quitting, I think it was the right one and each time he had come in and landed. The last time it was said that the cause of accident was that he got blow VMC, and the airplane rolled over on its back and went in.
Many P-38 accidents have been fuel related. It must also be appreciated that no one was buildind new parts like they are now and back then everyone was using stuff left over from WW II. He may have had other contributing factors.
Aileron boost problems, very possible. I know the P-38 that was rebuilt in Tampa by Jon Silberman and Jaybo Hinyub had them disconnected as well. (too expensive to rebuild.)

[Dave Hackett]

My buddy is an A&P and worked with Pete elbow to elbow on the 38 from the day it arrived in Florida. It was not ever kept at the McCoy AFB. It was also based at what was the former Sanford Naval Station, now known as Sanford Orlando International airport. The hanger was huge and it was standing until about 1994 or 5.

The drop tanks were plumbed and full functional. All fuel tanks at the crash site were ruptured. The airplane was contained in a 65 foot diameter hole.

It was purchased from Lex Dupont and Pete with the help of a few people to include Tom Reilly made it ferriable. Pete flew it back to Sanford in the fall of 1977. My buddy and Pete then did all the work to make it flyable on a daily basis.

Some notes about the airplane. The nose was replaced by Pete and my buddy and was a T-33 nose. The nose gear door was from Scatterbrain Kid. The Picture above is just prior to the Oshkosh trip, as the sharkteeth were added in July. The airplane was polished except for the outer wing panels.

Anyone have some more pictures of the airplane from those days. My buddy wants to see some more.

dave

[marine air]

I did some checking up on this topic;
You are right about it coming from the Dupont family in Pa. The airport was/is indeed what is now called the Sanford/Orlando Intl. airport. I thought it was ex A.F. but it apparently was Navy. Mr. Sherman had had several engine stoppages that summer, and since airshows always gave you free gas, I was told he was "funny" about putting his money into the gas tanks. He had earlier ran out of fuel at the Cape Canaveral and Pensacola Airshows and landed on one engine. I was told that he had to declare an emergency at one of those because he didn't have the 15 minutes to spare before the field was open for civilian aircraft. He also had been having trouble with the old carburetor on the right engine that summer.
Ironically, at the time of his death he had two fresh engines waiting to go on the airplane.

[Dave Hackett]

According to my buddy, One Engine was changed in PA prior to the ferry flight to Orlando. He believes it was the right engine (although he claim the nearly 30 years have faded exactly which one it was).

For a fact, there were not two new engines in the hanger waiting to go on the airplane. Pete had mentioned several engines that were available, but none had been acquired. My buddy was at the hanger and the house after the fact and not only did not see any engines, but no paperwork involved with new engines. The executor of the estate enlisted my buddy to help go through things.

In terms of the single engine stuff, my buddy says that Pete was doing a phase during airshows where he would shut down an engine and do low passes. He has no recollection of him ever doing a landing that way, but he claims that he never went to every airshow Pete took the 38 to.


As to Cape Canaveral and P-cola, my buddy never got those stories from Pete, so they may have happened. However, he believes that he would have heard the story either from Pete or from Robbie Roberts.

Robbie also said that he believed there may have been a "possible" aft CG problem with the airplane.

dave

[markcearley]

Pete's son Chuck and I were best of best friends in the 70's. Being a teenage motor head, I would linger in Pete's garage long after Chuck had lost interest. The garage was where Pete and Glennis (Chuck's Mom) would restore exotic cars for resale. Masseratis, Ferraris, Rolls Royce, Bentley etc etc, even letting Chuck and I take a few for a spin now and then. Pete also raced Can Am series race cars. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can-Am ) These were unlimited horsepower, super or turbocharged, pretty much anything goes monsters. He did all the work there in the garage. To my great delight, on any given day or night the thundering sound of 1000 + hp engine testing could be witnessed or heard and felt from across the 100 yard wide cove that separated us. Often Pete would even drive the beast around our street with a big triumphant sh*t eating grin across his face. For me, it doesn't get much better than this, except that Pete also had a twin engine cigarette racing boat. We would participate in test runs from time to time. Sorry for the ramble, just wanted to pay tribute and share a bit more of what Pete was up to in those days. (Ramble Over)

Several questions remain unanswered in this thread. I'd like to share what I can:
* A few days after the incident I entered Pete's garage and did indeed see what I remember as a 12 cylinder aircraft engine. However, Chuck told me that Pete was building it to go for some type of aircraft speed record. I suppose instead it could have been for the p38.
* It was a two seat (but not "double bubble") P38, but it seems this modification may have been by pete. Pete's wife Glennis was a passenger and died in the incident.
* Chuck told me shortly after the crash, that it was thought the cause of the accident was defective fuel line, degrading internally and then clogging the fuel system to at least one engine. This would fit the "tanks full at takeoff" scenario if you include the posts stating that all tanks were ruptured at the crash and that there was the smell of fuel at the crash site. Is there a different fuel line spec for military grade fuel?
* According to Chuck, at the time of the accident Pete was doing or preparing to do a low flyby of an airport (at the airports request) on the way to Oshkosh.

Mark

Last edited by markcearley on Wed Aug 17, 2011 9:10 am, edited 2 times in total.

[John Kerr]

Above are three photos of N3500 from my collection 1 & 2 at Eglin AFB, FL, 1978 by Bill Thomas. 3 at Langley AFB,
VA (one or two days before the crash) by Bob Burns.

[51fixer]

The P-38 fuel selector set up was a bit different as the layout isn't logical as I recall.

Stock all the accessories are on the L/H engine I wanna say. The Generator and hyd pump were both on the one engine and the Aileron boost would be known to hiccup and possible go full deflection under certain circumstances. There was a shut off valve for turning off hyd pressure to the boost system. It was placarded Do Not Turn Off and Back On In Flight as I recall.
Turning off the pressure to the ailerons would make them normal and unboosted. The late P-38s with boosted ailerons also had the throw increased. It would go down as much as it would go up, earlier manual types would go down quite a bit less than going up.
As a note, in a rolling input, Aerodynamically the down aileron increases lift on that wing, increasing lift increases drag so the wing rising slows you a bit and causes a skid to a degree. Increasing the Aileron throw downward increases the effect.

P-38s do need a bunch of weight in the nose to maintain CG.

Late model P-38s had a fuel bag in each leading edge of the outer wing and fed directly to the engine using a check valve and boost pump, reserve tank was forward of the spar inboard of the engine, main was aft of the main spar to the rear spar- center rib out to the nacelle. Drop tank and reserve/main tanks fed through the fuel selector but the outer wing tanks did not.

[markcearley]

Great Pics, Thanks