Warbird Information Exchange

While I do not pilot any warbird, I did have a few interesting experiences with them while commiting aviation in the mid-west....Date: May-June of 1983......Location : central Missouri.........incident: On combat patrol in my trusty C-152RG...Flying east from Downtown Airport in Kansas City, toward Columbia, Mo...I happened to be crossing the MOA close to Whiteman , AFB. While leaning my aircraft for cruise flight at around 3000', I was ever vigilant looking for my major enemy...the red-tail hawk.....or as we refer to this nasty foe...."The Chicken Hawk" I have had a run-in or two with this faersome foe....always getting the better of me , and making the first attack ..out of the sun, when least expected...Yeah, I know, I was invading their turf...and they are very protective of it......All of a sudden, I get an alert from the common frequncy that I was monitoring on the radio....."Cessna 544, what-ever Y'all do, Don't move".....Being suspicious....I froze.....as I watched underneath me, a B-52 flying Nap-of-the earth no less that 1500' below me...After this..I quickly took my little trainer back home, and fully understand why Sporty's sells this neat little red bottle (with sealabe lid) to pilots...Gary

I had a similar experience while back in my Civil Air Patrol days. We were flying a search and rescue mission on the outskirts of the Hardwood Bombing range MOA. We knew the area was hot, but being with CAP we had permission to be there, just to be on the look out. Well an F-16 pilot who thought it would be fun to buzz us. Man that was cool. Here we are puttin' along in the C-172, then out to the left, there he goes right by us.

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P-51, The Cadillac of the Sky!

Here is a great one:

My grandfather who owned a BT-13 up until his death in 1989, had brought some equipment home to bring back to the hangar and install on the aircraft.

My grandfather who always seem to just set stuff anywhere, left his parts on the kitchen table and proceeded to go wash up for dinner.

My grandmother, moved the parts to teh back room, not know anything about what they were and such.

About 1/2 an hour later, ( my grandfather had ran to the store for something ) she noticed a couple of airplanes circling the house. She thought, what the hell is going on with these two airplanes. ( mind you this is just 1/2 mile from Anoka airport ) She thought it was odd they just didnt go land at the airport.

About another hour goes by and the two planes return and now 4 firetrucks and two unmarked cars are circling the block.

She thought to herself, now what the hell is going on around here?

Two men finally get out of the car and approach her looking through the front door.

She was like, can I help you nice men? The man pulls out his FBI badge and says ma'am, have you seen or heard anything like an explosion or an aircraft sound at all in the last few hours?

She was like, "no, sir, I have not seen anything other then them two planes up there all over the place."

She asked, why what is going on around here? The FBI guy says, ma'am, is your husband a pilot by chance? She GASPED....yes, he is, is he ok? Well, ma'am, he is flying today? She says, no, he is up getting some milk at the store.

Just then, it hits her like a ton of bricks. She gasped even harder and says OH MY GOD, I know what your probably looking for.

She goes to the room where she placed the parts and BINGO....the switch on the Emergency Beacon was flipped in the ON position!

The CAP and everyone around thought an aircraft went down in the area!

Oh, was my grandmother embarrassed! My grandfather was not too pleased at all either.


Luckly, they never got a bill for it, and the CAP said, heck, it was great practice for them.

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Being on the CAP side of the fence for more than 25 years, we've found ELTs in a lot of strange places.

Once found one going off in a UPS truck. Had to almost empty the truck before we found the offending package.

Another time a pilot had bought a new house from another pilot, and was cleaning out the garage. He had moved several boxes of stuff out into the back yard, and looked up to see us circling. He immediately knew what it was and ran to a particular box and tore it open. The signal then ceased. He turned and waved, we wagged our wings and went home. Another "find".

A pilot living on the north side of Atlanta set an older ELT on top of his water heater. In putting more stuff up there, he unknowingly knocked the ELT off, and it fell unseen behind the heater. The antenna was resting against some water pipes, and the signal was being amplified by the piping. Some time later, there was a knock at the door, and a CAP ground team asked him if he had an ELT in the house. Another "find".

There are many more stories, and a lot of these search missions are in the wee hours. We never know when we get a call from the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center whether its real thing or another false alarm, but we go anyway.

I was a Mission Coordinator for about 6 years, and spent untold hours tracking down errant ELTs. Most of the time it was on false alarms, but the 3 or 4 times we actually found a downed aircraft with survivors aboard made it all worthwhile.

Walt

Thank goodness for the CAP!