[ARC5] More Moron-ities.

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

I had a slightly different experience with a group which had just bought a B-24 from the Indian 
Airforce and had it flying at a very small air-show in Topeka, Kansas in 1979.

The pilots and ground crew I talked with seemed to be very interested in completely restoring 
the plane, right down to operating radios and the intercom system. I talked with them for an 
hour or so about it.

In addition, they asked me if I could help them repair/refurbish/get-operating some sort of 
tube-based control for the side-mounted turbochargers with which they were having constant 
problems with blown tubes.

Unfortunately, at that time in my life, I couldn't get involved in it.

There were several other very interesting planes there: the P-38, White Lightning (with 
operating turbo-chargers), a P-51, a P-47 (which they didn't fly that day), and a couple of 
others I can't now remember.

White Lightning was completely silent when warming up the engines. The ground crew I 
talked with told me that they had to be VERY careful to not walk into a prop. You literally 
could not hear the engines running at all. I was within 10 feet of it while it warmed up and I 
could hear absolutely nothing. I was amazed!

I was also completely amazed at just how incredibly small the B-24 was. When it was sittiing 
alongside the P-51, it looked like a midget. I kept thinking, "And THIS little thing was one of 
our premier heavy bombers!!!!" It must have taken incredible courage just to get the thing off 
the ground with a full bomb load.

The crew let a bunch of us walk through it. The bomb bay doors were rolled up. Enough of us 
got on the catwalk that the tail tipped down quite a bit, but didn't hit the ground. The ground 
crew told us that they did not have the support that was normally put under the tail when the 
plane was on the ground, and that we had to be more careful.

Anyway, the B-24 and the P-51 made a couple of simulated bomb runs over the field later in 
the day, and White Lightning made two passes, one low, one high over the field. All you could 
hear was some very low level prop noise. It really was "Whistling Death".

Ken W7EKB