Warbird Information Exchange

That's awesome..... seriously.

I'm starting to think that perhaps Hellcat might be Tom Cruise.

Clint Eastwood .... .... can we be friends now?

I'm quite certain we would get along in person fabulously (for real) . I think I'm going to bring the Parrot to Chino for the POF Airshow.[/i]

Well friend, If you do I'll try to come shake you hand and say hello. But as I said in another thread, I try to keep my distance from warbird owners and pilots .... out of respect .... ... you guys have too much to deal with at airshows.

Good job of keeping up with my EGO!!! ... you put me in my place a few times ... I'm wiping the blood off my chin and going to bed .... Cheers friend.

A friend of mine salvaged the a/c and showed me pictures of the crash and I saw it in the salvage yard.
I came down flat (spin?) with no forward motion. There was a nice healthy tree between the booms. I recall that neither engine was running. One blade speared into the ground and didn't have a scratch on it. The drop tanks were smashed flat and I mean paper thin. The gondola was burned rather badly from what I was told the fire was electrical fed by gas fumes. The nose gear leg was forced up into the cockpit from impacting upon a large tree stump catapulting the seat through the canopy about 20' away from the a/c. I recall them mentioning the lack of fuel in the a/c. The report says failed to switch to a full tank but I clearly heard talk of no gas onboard.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Hellcat, no personal insults please. To answer you as best possible. Jeff was a very long time experienced warbird pilot. He was a writer, checkout the many books and articles by him like the T-6 one Pilot Maker. He sort of had two specialties, old photos of what he called the "Great Brown Shoe War" that his Dad had flown P-38 and P-51s in: also he flew dozens of all types of warbirds that other people owned and wrote interesting pilot reports on them, a few like P-40, P-38 he made into videos. I have no doubt he was qualified to fly many fighters, because he did it for years. Many owners trusted Jeff, not just for a quick hop in their plane, but to take it cross country and to airshows. He flew rare and expensive types like Spit XVIII, CAF Zero, P-51B when it was Pete's. Some allege he had some problems. I can only say I never personally saw anything other than first rate and Conservative flying from him. I don't claim he or any pilot was perfect, but I never saw him doing real low acro, and never heard him brag about how great he was. Above all, I thought he was a first class person; a religous family man, but with a sense of humor. I roomed with Jeff one year at Sun N Fun. He was generous and friendly to all, never had his nose in the air, and MOST IMPORTANT TO ME ANYWAY, I NEVER ONCE SAW HIM FEEL THE NEED TO BELITTLE ANYONE ELSE. There are a lot of macho guys in warbirds, a lot of type A's who can tell you how everyone else is doing it wrong. I think you an see that on WIX where discussion can become narrow minded and heated, even among good guys. (note, I am talking in general, not John Curtis or Jack,etc.) Jeff as I knew him was a gentleman, almost feminine that way.
Now to the facts? as they seem to be. Ownership: A Ca. man, Pruet? had two 38 projects that he sent to be restored. As payment the restorer got to keep one of them. Jeff had permission to fly this one and did for 7 hours total, no problems, and he made a video of it. So obviously he could fly a P-38. How well can be debated, get the video and judge for yourself, but at that time I don't recall anyone saying he was not qualified or legal.Now the other 38, the one he crashed was still owned by Pruet, no the restorer yet Jeff flew it, apparently with permission of the restotrer, as they flew both planes together. AFTER the crash the owner claims Jeff didn"t have his permission. Was the other pilot an agent of the owner, did he have the right to give Jeff permission? It hard for us to know, but either way Jeff did not just go out and steal a plane. Now the legal issue is also grey. Jeff had an FAA, UNLIMITED license, it states plainly he is legal to fly ALL MAKES AND MODELS OF PISTON POWERED AIRPALNES. But Catch 22, after the fact a separate FAA ruling says this particular P-38 just because it was registered Limited not Experimental, requires more paperwork. It won't fly any different if Ltd than EX., and there is no dual control P-38 to checkout in, but you still need to keep the lawyers in the FAA fully employed. Hope I have the facts right and this helps make it clear as chochalate milk. You should click on to read the accident report.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Well I guess I am dumb as a rock but I have been around warbirds all 30 of my years on this earth and I am unable to read between these lines. I would love to know what isn't being said.

Bill;
Thanks for your lengthy post. I hope some of it sinks in with the readers here.

Regardless of skill level, accidents happen and it's only afterwards that the lawyers and everyone else piles on and it becomes a terrible mess. Anytime we lose somebody, it's a tragedy.

I don't want to call anybody any names, or dig up info from the past and smear somebody who's not around to defend themselves.

Jeff was a friend of mine I flew with him and I even worked on two of his video projects.

Accidents happen and I miss him...often.

I miss Gerry Beck.

I miss Jim Leroy.

I won''t go on, but rehashing it every six months or so makes some of these threads seem like the tabloids.

It's over, and if we learned a little bit from accidents that can help people in the future, the in the end, that's the only good that comes out of events like these.

Blue skies,
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

Aw!! Bill, if I were "personally" going to insult anyone here, you would clearly know it. Remember, I've personally been told many times to acquire a "thick skin", so I guess I'm saying the same thing. JCP and I were just having a little heated debate last night and I actually enjoyed it. read all out posts, yes they got heated a bit, but as long as you can shake hands at the end. I'm good with that.

My simple question is why would anyone ever bring up a sensitive subject or conversation in an "open forum" on the internet if they really didn't want to discuss it or share it with several hundreds of thousands of people all over the world? If there is ever a place to state "none of your business" or "too sensitive to talk about" ..... an open forum on the internet is NOT the place. And I'm really not pointing a finger at anyone or anything, just a general statement here. I'm not here to make enemy's or to insult people, and if I ever did, I'm truly sorry, but I've been bashed and slammed a few times and I've battle it out, but again, as long as you can be "civil" at the end ... It's all good.

Remember again what John Wayne always said: "apologies are a sign of weakness" ... ... guess I'm weak

Bill,
No ones ever said Jeff wasn't a nice guy. In fact he was very nice. we helped each other out a lot with our research. He, has I told you, had solicited me in helping him fly Evergreen's P-38 then under restoration.
I put to you that Jeff was also a very smart man. Smart enough to know the P-38L was in the limited catagory. Smart enough to know he held a experimental all piston ticket, smart enough to know to that experimental doesn't equal limited and he needed a type rating to legally fly the airplane, smart enough to know that he didn't know the owner. Has to the cause I'll leave it to the experts but the but line on the report does say PILOT ERROR. I don't see how you can fault the FAA lawyers here has they weren't responsibles for the decisions Jeff made. Lawsuits did follow but the saddest fact was that Jeff's family suffered the most. Besides losing him , his insurance company refused (and rightly so) to pay off because he wasn't legal to fly the airplane. From my perspective every decision Jeff made was wrong and he died and a lot of others suffered because of it.

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Don't touch my junk!!

Jack, nowhere did I say FAA lawyers were at fault, A free Pony if you can find that quote from me. My point about the difference between legally flying a P-38 in Exp category and not being legal in Ltd category is a fine point, a legal distinction. It has nothing to do with how they fly, stall speeds, single engine speed, fuel flow, etc. It is all a distinction made by the lawyers. Jeff may have known this, maybe should have known, but it would surprise me. I would assume a 38 is EX and if anything the Ltd category would be a little less restrictive. The accident report, it says for Jeff's unlimited license, "All makes and models of piston powered airplanes". Is a P-38 is a piston powered plane? .. Do you know if he was legal in the other 38, is it Ex or Ltd.? Or any of them Ex. ? Another example, I got a license in Canada to fly the Russell Mk IX. It was specifically limited to that MKIX. If I was to fly Mike Potters XVI I'd need another license. This is a distinction by legal category, a fine point that has nothing to do with flying the planes nor the skill or training involved. Of course, we did the correct paperwork then for the CAA and the insurance, and Jeff should have. Do you think Jeff would have lived any longer if he had the correct paperwork in his pocket when the engine quit? Could he have waved the paperwork out the window like a rudder to stop the spin?
As for as permission by the owner, we or I aren't sure what agreement the owner had with the man in control of the planes. All we know is after the fact, after the crash with a lot of $$$$$$ at stake, he says there was no permission. I'd like see how the ins was on the plane, was Jeff listed? I don't believe I ever said Jeff did not make a mistake and run out of fuel and also get too slow.
And by the way, you know I would never cast aspersions on any lawyer or any FAA lawyer. Why, I love em like they were my own president. I never refer to them as "Snakes" like a famous P-51 pilot does.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

both were licensed in the limited catagory

The pilot possessed a letter of authorization (LOA) provided by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and dated July 21, 1987, (refer to ATTACHMENT L-I). The LOA opens by stating that "this letter authorizes you to act as pilot-in-command in the following experimental category aircraft."
"ALL MAKES AND MODELS OF HIGH PERFORMANCE PISTON POWERED AIRCRAFT."

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Don't touch my junk!!

Blame no but maybe a rabbit punch

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Don't touch my junk!!

Jack, in that part of my post I wrote 26 lines, only one of them is about keeping FAA lawyers busy. It was supposed to be some humor in a grim topic. I don't understand why you keep writing about that sentence.
Right or wrong, I thought I was actually raising some points of substance there for discussion.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Just hoping for a pony Bill.
A couple points from the accident report which jogged my memory.
According to the current owner, N7973 was being reconditioned to flying status by Erickson Sky Crane of Tillamook, Oregon, and the intent was to place the aircraft in the Smithsonian Museum.

N7973 was observed to make a number of low passes (with N2114L) over the airport, one of which included an aileron roll.

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Don't touch my junk!!