Airdrop

Flight Journal, Feb 2003

THAT MAY BE ME

The article in Flight Journal's December 2002 issue by Boots Blesse was a good one. I was in the 335th squadron, 4th Fighter Interceptor Group in '52-'53. I knew Boots then and later at Nellis Air Force Base, after Korea. In fact, the last time I flew an F-86, I was on his wing on a search mission at Nellis. Our flying safety officer disappeared on a test flight. He was found years later by a surveyor in a desert ravine.

What really got my attention in Boots' article was the picture of the F-86s on page 32. Karl Dittmer, the photographer of this shot, was in my squadron. Somehow, the serial number on the lead aircraft seemed familiar. I looked through my photos of my Korean tour, and lo and behold, I found pictures of 963. The reason the number stuck in my mind was because that was the airplane I was shot up in one day. Enclosed is a picture of 963 that shows the battle damage sustained in a dogfight with MiGs. A second photo shows me standing alongside my tailpipe with two cannonball holes in it. Some of the shrapnel spiraled up the pipe and broke pieces off two blades of the turbine wheel; synchronicity strikes again.

It may be me in Dittmer's photo in 963 on page 32.

Lee A. Brewer

Friday Harbor, WA

SHUTTERBUG

Budd Davisson's editorials are always thought-provoking, and his "With the Click of the Shutter" column in the October 2002 issue carried extra impact.

The shot of the cable-barrier-- entangled Skyraider on the editorial page sent me searching through my own photos from that era. I served as a jet-engine mechanic during the 1950s aboard the Kearsarge in the Pacific and the Randolph in the Mediterranean.

As you'll note, this AD wasn't quite so fortunate!

Bill Hannan

Magalia, CA

KERMIT'S B-26 IS CORRECT

J.T. Morgan's correction to the photo of Kermit Weeks' B-26 that appeared in the June 2002 issue contains an error. He stated that if the insignia has a red ball in the center, it should be on both wings-top and bottom. This statement is true only in certain cases.

In 1940, all uncamouflaged U.S. Army airplanes had red-centered stars on both wings, as did the only two camouflaged models in service: the Curtiss P40 and the Douglas A-20A. This pair also carried the distinctive U.S. Army rudder stripes, also seen on the uncamouflaged models. The only B-26s to carry stars on both wings, then, were the few uncamouflaged prototypes.

In February 1941, tactical U.S. Army models-including production B-26s-- were ordered into the same olive drab and gray camouflage then seen on the P-40s and the A20-As. At the same time, on camouflaged planes only, the rudder stripes were deleted, a red-center star was added to each side of the fuselage, and the stars on the upper right and lower left wings were deleted.

The rudder stripes and red centers of the stars were deleted from uncamouflaged models under an order of May 15, 1942. Early in 1943, the fuselage star was added to uncamouflaged models, and the upper right and lower left wing stars were deleted.

Peter M. Bowers

Seattle, WA

Peter, thank you for your incredible wealth of aircraft knowledge and for setting the record straight. RP

IN APPRECIATION

Thank you for the article, "Pearl Harbor's Lost P-36," in the October 2002 issue. I enjoyed it and have been promoting Flight Journal as much

as possible.

I also want to inform you that I am the proud owner of my brother Gordon Sterling's [the missing pilot's] 1941 Buick Special, 4-door sedan, which he purchased in Montgomery, Alabama, in May 1941 after he graduated from flight school and earned his wings.

With this car, I attend local car cruises/shows and display the original Hawaii license plate and registration dated June 1941, with his Wheeler Field address. I also point out the large bullet hole in the right side of the windshield; the car was shot in the Wheeler Field parking lot that fateful day.

The Buick was shipped to San Francisco and transported via railroad boxcar to Connecticut, where my family lived at the time. At the age of 55, my mother learned to drive it and got her driver's license. The car's odometer only recently reached 48,000 miles.

John E. Sterling

Livonia, MI

TRUTH VS. MYTH

In the August 2002 article about Steve Hinton, Steve is quoted as saying that the most difficult flying he ever had to do was flying the Gee Bee Z replica in the movie "The Rocketeer." He stated that "... the Gee Bee with its original airfoil deserves the reputation that it has."

In the first place, who says that the Model Z even has a "reputation"? Only Lowell Bayles and designer Bob Hall were said to have ever flown the original, and neither had a bad word to say about it. It easily won every race it was ever entered in, and after the National Air Races, Bayles put on an aerobatic exhibition with it to celebrate its return to Springfield.

Second, the Model Z replica used in the movie was bought from builder Bill Turner, who did not use the original airfoil; it is not even built to scale.

Compared with the Granvilles' original Model Z, Turner's ship has a fuselage that's two feet longer and wings that are two inches thicker, three feet longer and have a six-inch greater chord. It's hard to see how Hinton could have inferred anything about the flight characteristics of the 1931 Thompson trophy-winning ship by flying the 1970s "replica" that has since been retired to museum display work.