Warbird Information Exchange

I came across this puzzling photo, of a F11F-1

The aircraft in the background,is that tracks??? or maybe my old eyes!

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When I was young "sex was safe & flying was dangerous".

Looks like the put it up on blocks when they stripped the wheels. Must be a tough neighborhood.

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

Speaking of which, are there any airworthy Tigers still around - or just museum static displays?

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Duggy, do you have a higher-resolution copy of that image? Can't quite read the BuNo - you list it as 141861 but it's hard to tell. I want to pass along an update on this one for the Forgotten Jets site.

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All right, Mister Dorfmann, start pullin'!
Pilot: "Flap switch works hard in down position."
Mechanic: "Flap switch checked OK. Pilot needs more P.T." - Flight report, TB-17G 42-102875 (Hobbs AAF)

Me thinks it's sitting on blocks and chained down at the L/G like the other one. The shadow of the wing on the starboard side of the aircraft gives the illusion there is something bigger there.

Looks like blocks to me.

We all know the USAF tried tracks on several types...the B-50, C-97 and C-82 specifically...part of SAC planning for deployment in the late 40s.

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

Open question........was it/is it common to remove the wheel and park (store?) aircraft on blocks back then? In my time we never left an aircraft on blocks. I do not recall reading in the AFTO's or NAVAIR's anything on removing wheels for short term or long term storage on the ramp. Another possibility would be the wheels (parts) where needed for Bravo aircraft?

Just guessing, it's possible that aircraft needed immediate service to wheel/tires/ brakes, or?, and they needed the hangar space for more critical projects or didn't have the hangar available.

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DBF

Maybe, this is what happened to the wheels and tires? During the late 1970's and through the 80's, we ran out of tailwheel tires for our B-17 air tankers. New ones could be special ordered from Goodyear, but the cost for setting up the molds and making batches of less than several hundred were prohibitive. Aero Union came up with an STC to substitue the mainmount (wheel and tire) from F11F's in place of the original tire. While better than nothing, there was no give to the sidewall in these tires and with any wieght on the tailwheel in a crosswind, the tailwheel lock would pop loose after a couple of good sideloads and the tire would turn 90 degrees and leave all of the tread in a long zipper looking wear pattern on the runway. Chuck Ott and I managed to destroy one just taxi-ing with a gusty crosswind at Alamogordo before we could get stopped. So, we carried a couple of spares and a jack in the airplane at all times.

Here's one spare in the back of Evergreen's Tanker 22 at Alamogordo in 1983.



This picture from Sledge 39 gives a good view of how narrow that tailwheel tire was. The recommended tire pressure was 150 psi, which didn't help with flexing what little sidewall there was in the tire.

Sorry I do not have a better version, & thanks everyone for the replies, most interesting.
Regards Duggy.

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When I was young "sex was safe & flying was dangerous".

Larry..
Great story! That's the type of warbird stories I like to hear.

Two questions....
I'd be interested in learning what made them think of using a F11F wheel (talk about thinking outside the box) and where/how did they get them?

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Remember the vets, the wonderful planes they flew and their sacrifices for a future many of them did not live to see.
Note political free signature.
I figure if you wanted my opinion on items unrelated to this forum, you'd ask for it.

John, I'll ask a few friends who worked in maintenance at that time about those subjects when I get a chance. My guess is that a significant number of the F11F main mounts were included in a government surplus auction lot that Aero Union bought. They were after P-2 inventories around that time and may have been looking into P-3's. Most of the surplus auction lots include any number of varied items and you can't pick and choose. Aero Union had some pretty clever and resourceful folks working for them and somebody put 2 and 2 together.

I thought that there was room on the B-17 tailwheel fork for two of those tires, which might have given a better footprint, but one worked, sort of....As imperfect a solution as it was, something had to be done. The last real B-17 tailwheel tire that I used had cracks in the sidewall wide enough that you could lay the side of your finger into them while parked with the airplane loaded. I never had a real B-17 tailwheel tire blow out, but it was known to happen as they got in that condition.