Don Ornbaum

[DH82EH]

The links are a couple of years old (2012 thread)
I'm sorry I missed this thread the first time 'round.
Sounds like a real interesting man.

Andy

[Fouga23]

Internet archive to the rescue:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130316212 ... mike.shtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20130121025 ... m/ornbaum/

[Roger Cain]

Internet archive to the rescue:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130316212 ... mike.shtml
https://web.archive.org/web/20130121025 ... m/ornbaum/

Very Cool Fouga23, I didn't know this existed.

[Stoney]

excerpt from an article I wrote many years ago about Catch 22

One day when I was flying #4, I saw #3 hit the wake of #2 and go sliding out to the right. #3 corrected back to the
left and hit the wake again, this time sliding to the left and aimed right at the control tower. He only missed it by
raising his left wing. After we landed we heard what it was like from the view point of one of our pilots at the
base of the tower. "I watched it coming at me and was dumbfounded. The pilot saw that he might hit the tower and
lifted the left wing, then I was knocked to the ground by a little feller and he left foot prints on my chest..just
like in the cartoons". That pilot was Don Ornbaum.

[airnutz]

From my story I wrote about Catch 22
One day when I was flying #4, I saw #3 hit the wake of #2
and go sliding out to the right. #3 corrected back to the
left and hit the wake again, this time sliding to the left
and aimed right at the control tower. He only missed it by
raising his left wing. After we landed we heard what it
was like from the view point of one of our pilots at the
base of the tower. "I watched it coming at me and was
dumbfounded. The pilot saw that he might hit the tower and
lifted the left wing, then I was knocked to the ground by
a little feller and he left foot prints on my chest..just
like in the cartoons". The pilot speaking was 6'5" and
265lbs.

That pilot was Don

Yup, Stoney...close to what you wrote on page one of this thread back in 2012! 6'5", run over by some little fella...

Last edited by airnutz on Sun Aug 17, 2014 9:50 am, edited 2 times in total.

[Stoney]

How soon I forget, must be old age

[airnutz]

Ahhh...but the story was the same! Thanx, and keep 'em comin'!

[Mark Allen M]

Love to hear more about this guy. Military history and so on. I believe he passed away in August 2002?
Interesting fellow.

[Larry Kraus]

While going through so old negatives, I ran across some from an interesting day in Fresno in September 1980. I was based in West Yellowstone, Montana in B-17 Tanker 68. The base was getting ready to close for the winter (in September?) and there were plenty of fires in California, so I was dispatched to Porterville. Of course, by the time we put on extra fuel for the 4-5 hour flight, it was too late to get to PTV before my 14 hour duty day would have been exceeded. In their infinite wisdom, the dispatcher decided that I could get my 8 hours of "beauty sleep" (his words) and still take-off at 0300 the next morning. I did so (shaking my head at the stupidity) and took off into the literal black hole that is the West Yellwstone Airport at 0300 on a moonless night.

We got to Porterville before 0800 local time and the tanker base was completely deserted. So my co-pilot and I found a coulpe of bunks in the standby trailer and waited for developments. We eventually were sent to a fire near the Friant VOR which is a bit northeast of Fresno Air Teminal. By the time I landed at Fresno for a reload, my duty day was coming up on 14 hours again. So I parked the airplane. Don Ornbaum was flying Tanker 61 (ex-Eastern Airlines DC-7B N838D). We both worked for TBM Inc. and Don invited me to go along for a load to the fire and to read the analyzer for him. I had flown the previous fire season as co-pilot to Laddie Lash on DC-7 Tanker 67 out of Redmond. Oregon, so I knew the airplane.



Don Ornbaum and Chuck Sheridan are taxi-ing out from the Fresno Tanker Base in T61



Don is in the left seat setting up max power on the runway at Fresno



Here's a shot enroute to the fire



A few shots of the fire which was not in a very convenient location







This one is a bit shakey because of low loight among other things, but shows the drop run. It looks dangerous, but the rate of climb indicator is pegged down, so we had a lot of energy for a somewhat uphill run.



This is a better quality picture of a second run. The rate of climb instrument is just to the right of Don's right hand. After this run, I decided that I had better things to do with my spare time than to ride around in an air tanker.



I spend a couple of hours taking pictures at the Fresno Tanker Base following that trip. Here's Don going out again behing Bob Forbes in B-17 Tanker 65.

[phil65]

I love these stories and photo's.
Glad to hear you're back on the mend...

Phil

[Chris Brame]

Thanks Larry! Can't get enough of your tanker stories. What was your altitude in that fourth photo?

[Larry Kraus]

Chris, I'd guess about 700-800 ft as an altitude in that picture. I also noticed that I actually posted exterior shots of T61's sister ship T60 by mistake. T60 still exists although it's in Erickson's new paint scheme. Tanker 61 crashed fatally in 1990 with Chuck Sheridan flying. At any rate both airplanes were originally Eastern Airlines DC-7B's. T61 was N848D and T60 is N838D. The pictures of T60 were at Fresno on the same day as my flight with Don. Here are a few pictures of the outside of the correct airplane at Fresno.









This is what T60 looks like today. It takes some getting used to. On the plus side, the airplane definitely needed new paint and this is quality work. More importantly, the boss likes it.

[MacHarvard]

In the photo of tanker 61 with the unique airstair, there is a T-6 sitting to the rear of the aircraft. I am curious to know if anyone has any idea what aircraft this is, or has any information on it? I just realized it has a three bladed prop.

cheers
Doug

[T J Johansen]

On what kind of contract does tanker 60 operate these days?

T J

[sledge39]

[quote="MacHarvard"]In the photo of tanker 61 with the unique airstair, there is a T-6 sitting to the rear of the aircraft. I am curious to know if anyone has any idea what aircraft this is, or has any information on it? I just realized it has a three bladed prop.

It's SNJ-6 N9800C 44-82408 registered to Moore Aviation/TBM Inc, Tulare, CA, 1963-1982.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/texanreg ... 12227.html

...I remember Ken Stubbs flying down to Chino in it to work on B-17 N3702G "Tanker 61" ...1969...

Discussion of 3-blade prop on T-6

viewtopic.php?p=441638

Google "SNJ-6 N9800C photos" without the quotes
.

Last edited by sledge39 on Wed Aug 12, 2015 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.