C47 & Waco

[daveh]

Roy,

We went to France at the end of June and visited the museum in Sainte-Mère-Église, famous for the Airborne assault June 1944.

The photos of the C47 elsewhere are from this museum. This might be of interest to you:


I have altered the levels of various sections to make them more visible. I would normally straighten it up more, but at quarter to five in the morning here, I can't be bothered!

I'll put the rest of the photos of the C47 and the Waco up sometime.

Dave.

[olroy2044]

Thanks, Dave! Definitely interesting. The C-47 fuselage under the Chinook is especially interesting to me. We tried to obtain permission for a California Air National Guard unit flying Chinooks to air lift our Lockheed T-33 from Sacramento up here to Chico for us. The Guard was willing, but the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) said, "No!"


Spoil sports!!!

Roy

[PeterW]

I never got a chance to fly in a Dakota when I was in the RAF, but in the early 1960s I flew with a small independent airline (I think they had three planes, one of which carried air freight) from Kent down to the Channel Islands. The plane was an ex-RAF Dakota converted to DC3 specification inside.

Lovely old aeroplane.

Pter Wallage

[Deleted]

Back in the late 1950s I flew on a DC3 from Boise to Coeur d' Alene, Idaho-- a distance of about 350 miles as a crow flies. I'm sure the plane was a "civilianized" C-47. The flight turned out to be a "Milk Run." We landed on Ontario, Oregon, about 40 miles from Boise, then in Baker, LaGrande, and Pendleton, Oregon, then in Walla Walla, Washington, Lewiston, Idaho, Pullman, Washington and finally Coeur d' Alene. The "flight" was about five hours! The plane wasn't pressurized and every time we went up and back down you had to swallow and yawn to try to unplug your ears. That pretty much cured me of flying until the airline introduced the Fairchild (Fokker) F-27 propjets with pressurized cabins a few years later. Which reminds me of the joke about the Dutch WWII fighter pilot who said, "No! No! Those Fokkers were Messerschmitts!"

W,

[John Parry]

I spent my first five years in Pendleton Wayne. Doesn't matter - it was all demolished in the slum clearance progam!

[PeterW]

Wayne,

The plane wasn't pressurized and every time we went up and back down you had to swallow and yawn to try to unplug your ears. That pretty much cured me of flying until the airline introduced the Fairchild (Fokker) F-27 propjets with pressurized cabins a few years later

Until my job took me all over Europe, and a few places beyond, in the 1960s and 1970s I'd never flown in a pressurised cigar tube.

Most of my my RAF flying was because the station commander (He that must be obeyed) at a Maintenance Unit to which I was posted decreed that unless the plane was a single-seater whichever groundcrew member signed off a plane as airworthy after an overhaul flew with the pilot on the proving flight. A powerful incentive not to miss anything!

You don't get pressurised cabins on things like Wellingtons, Lancasters, Halifaxes and the like.

After the war I became quite friendly with an ex-Luftwaffe type who also did a lot of flying even though he wasn't classed as aircrew. He was a despatcher on paratroop JU 52s who stood by the door in the fuselage, made sure the rip-lines were anchored and then thumped the paratrooper on the shoulder as a sign to jump.

When we'd had a few beers he liked to tell the, probably apochryphal, story about the keen young Prussian Captain who was blasting away at a slow-moving, slow-speaking German farm-bred paratrooper. "Pay attention to detail. Stay alert and keep your wits about you. That's the secret of kicking ass." When the green light came on the officer shrugged a parachute on his shoulders, pushed his way to the door and jumped out.

The slow-moving para ambled his way towards the door, looked at the two parachutes he was holding, one in each hand, and drawled, "Well, look at that. Can't trust anyone these days. That Captain just stole my back-pack."

PeterW

[John Parry]

Peter

I've got a lovely photograph somewhere of my great-grandfather and great-grandmother (Nana and Papa) boarding a DC3 at Ringway bound for the Isle of Man. Their expressions were so smug - "Look at us" LOL

Regards - John

[daveh]

It seems a shame to put more photos up: your stories are much more interesting than the photos.

However here are some of the Waco glider:

[daveh]

C47:

[nikonbob]

Dave

Thanks for posting these and getting some great stories started. Hard to believe that they actually experimented with towing a Waco across the Atlantic with a Dakota to increase freight capacity. That must have been a wild ride. The good old DC3/Dakota is still active around here. When I started work for the paper mill in the early 70's they had both a Dakota and a Canso/Catalina as company planes.

Bob

[olroy2044]

Dave

NEAT PICTURES! I can't even imagine what it must have like to be flying one of those gliders, knowing that when the rope was cut loose, you had ONE shot at a safe landing, no matter what. Those glider pilots received only rudimentary pilot training. Going into a hot LZ must have been horrifying. Roy

[daveh]

Roy,

I knew someone who landed in the Arnhem area in a glider (Operation Market Garden - September 1944). As he said "I was one of the lucky ones who didn't get killed on landing". I know there were many there that landed on fairly boggy land, and went, as we say @rse about face (somersaulted).

It never seemed a sensible mode of transport to me.

Bob, Britain used to have conscription, so everyone did a couple of years in the forces. It finished probably when I was about ten years old - so I was never fortunate/unfortunate enough to have to sign up. As you say, wonderful stories.

Dave

[nikonbob]

Dave

I think they have only dragged conscription out over here during WWII.

Bob