Albatros to Oshkosh

Two years ago, I made a firm vow not to return to the annual EAA fly-in at Oshkosh - too big, too long, too, too, too. However, 24 months had erased the pain of endless walking and I found myself strapping into an Aerovodochody L-39C Albatros on the morning of 26 July at Van Nuys Airport. The exRussian Air Force jet belongs to Warren Wood (who has developed the very successful Jet Prop conversion of the Piper Malibu) and he wanted the aircraft displayed at Oshkosh so Bruce Guberman and I were elected to take the machine east. Mindful of hauling around what seemed like 200 pounds of camera gear, I made the very conscious decision to take one camera and a couple lenses. I also vowed not to do any air-to-air and just wander around and look at planes, talk to friends and check out exhibits.

Because the L-39C does not meet noise requirements at the soundsensitive field, we had to wait to 7 am to launch. Right on the dot we had clearance and the Ukraine Progress (one just has to love those Soviet names) turbofan was soon forcing the Albatros down Runway 34L for climbout and left turn. It was already hot and the L-39C was completely full of fuel (332 US gallons) thus rate of climb was a miserly 1820 fpm at 180 knots. We filed IFR after clearing crowded Los Angeles airspace and proceed to climb to 23,000 feet, burning 187 gallons per hour in the climb configuration. Once at altitude, power came back to 97 percent to stabilize a fuel flow of 130 gph with a ground speed of 350 knots and a cabin altitude of 13,000 feet.

Sitting under the big bubble canopy, one finds the early morning sun quite blinding but the air was smooth and there was little traffic in the area. In 37 minutes we were passing Las Vegas and watching for the extensive airline traffic going in and out of the resort, We also had an excellent view of the mighty Boulder Dam and about this time the tip tank light on the panel came on indicating the tanks were now empty and we were running on mains. The tips hold 26.5 per wing and we now had approximately 258 gallons left to reach our first stop which was Grand Junction, Colorado.

We had time to try out the newly installed autopilot which had been giving some trouble and soon found that, yes, it was still troublesome and not really functioning, This long leg gave us some time to admire the rapidly changing scenery and watch for various airfields and strips scattered over the countryside. When one is flying an experimental jet (or any other aircraft) it is always wise to spot likely landing areas, However, the L-39C is amazingly bullet-proof. Just pour in the gas (lots of it), light the fire and go,

Salt Lake Center switched us over to Denver Center and we were able to pick up the Grand Junction tower on 118.1 from some distance out. Listening to the tower chatter, it was evident that the main business of the day was fire bombers going in and out from the tanker base on the field. At this point, several huge fires were raging out of control and this was a sad preview of the huge fires that would be spreading over the America west during the month (as an aside, the California Department of Forestry hired one of the mighty Martin Mars to travel south to aid in the battle and the aircraft operated from several reservoirs around the state for a couple of weeks doing great damage to California fires. To attack the massive Montana fires, Conair's DC- and Lockheed Electra fire bombers were called into service from Canada while the last fire fighting Catalina in the United States was also in full operation from its Washington base - a veritable collection of vintage iron in full employment).

Eight minutes out, we established a 1500-1800 fpm descent while holding 320 knots. The tower cleared us for a straight-in on Runway 11 and we followed Tanker 64, a Hercules returning from a fire drop. We rolled out and headed to FBO for refueling, It had taken 265 gallons to get to Grand Junction. While the plane was being fueled, I strolled over to the nearby tankers, several of which were down for their maintenance day. A Herk was having a tire changed - not an easy task while Ardco's Douglas C-54 Skymaster Tanker 152 (see Air Classics August 2000) was having some engine work. After talking to some friends from Hawkins & Powers, who had a Herk and Neptune working the fires, I ran into Capt. Gary Towle from Tanker 152. Gary gave an idea of the intensity of operations when he said he had flown 43 hours in the past week - that's a lot when you're baking in the bucking cockpit of an aircraft over five decades old and flying into the heart of a fierce forest fire. Ardco (Aerial Retardant Delivery Company) operates three C-54s, one of which is unique in the fact it has been converted to mount B-25 QECs with Wright R-2600s.

After loading 263 gallons ($2.20 per gallon, prices would vary on the trip), it was time to get airborne. We had checked weather and it did not look good - a huge line of thunderstorms was building along the route. It was hot and density altitude put us at 10,000 feet so the L-39C was held on the runway a bit longer than normal to give a bit of airspeed margin.