A B-25 came to Springfield, MO This Week...

[lathesmith]

And a beautiful old bomber she is! Maid in the Shade flew 18 missions during WWII, and was just recently restored to her former glory. I love these old planes, they are mechanical works of art as well as being a beautiful part of history. Thanks to all those who flew these, and those like her, back in the day, that must have been quite an experience!

[rondog]

Oh yeah, they're awesome! Here in Denver I've seen three B-17's, a B-24, and a B-29 in the last couple of years. I love warbirds!

[Frank46]

You can count me as a lover of the old girls. I do have a question though. Sometimes in movies you see guys rotating the propeller around by hand. Question is why are they doing it?. Frank

[Duckiller]

I believe they did that to draw fuel into the engine ,ie prime it.

[GabbyM]

My grandfather was a Chaplin for a bomber squadron flying B-25's out of England. I used to think it was B-17's because when you got your information from the woman folk of the family they didn't know the difference and the Boeing B-17 was so famous they thought bombers were B-17's. My Grandfather passed away when I was 17. Squadron was the colored unit. Bomber side of the Tuskegee airmen. Have a few letters here from the period. One is to a Jewish doctor ( I used to think it was a Jewish Rabi) who Grandpa shared quarters with for a while. He writes. These men have a little less than no interest in religion. We must remember men that these were just boys of college age. They were immersed in a decadent life style with lonely and somewhat desperate English widows. Plus way to much alcohol. By the time we got to England there were millions of widows. It's a high drama story which I believe hasn't been told true due the fact most of us would find it to sad to watch much less enjoy at a cinema. We here in the USA think we had it hard during the depression. Brits had the blitz and WWII in there lap. With no guarantee of victory. WE think we like the sound of a big piston bomber flying over. Just think of yourself as a Brit in 1943 hearing them head East at 2 a.m.

The ground crews of Grandpas Unit died in the sinking of a freight barge in the English channel. It's a famous sinking where IIRC 780 men died. Maybe more.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Pre-engine start propeller rotaion was to clear the lower cylinders of accumulated oil. These were radial engines so during the non running time oil would seep down past the rings and collect in the cylinder heads. By rotating the prop by hand the piston was moved through complete strokes collecting and redistributing the oil into the rings and the excess out the exaust.
If you were to try an enginge start on a cold radial engine and the lower pistons were oil filled you would have the inertia of the motor trying to push the piston through a solid mass. Nasty outcome. Bent and or broken engine internals.
Mike in Peru

[Boz330]

What Mike said. It is more to determine if there is oil in the cylinders. If on a compression stroke you would be hard pressed to get the prop through that stroke since a liquid will not compress. You would need to pull the plug and drain the oil. If you did try to start it, the head or whole jug would probably be blown off of the engine.
I have several thousand hours in a DHC-2 Beaver and that was the order of the day each morning as part of the pre-flight to pull the prop through. Actually never found any in almost 30 years of flying it. Put with an engine overhaul probably topping $30,000 you don't want to take a chance. The last one we had done was in 2000' and it was $25,000+ then. Everything aviation does nothing but get more expensive especially since some of these engines haven't been made since the late 40s.

Bob

[Cactus Farmer]

I live near the Commerative (Confederate) Air Force headquarters and I consider myself very lucky to get to see these warbirds in the air quite often. I still get the warm fuzzys seeing these majestic machines. My FIL was a bombadeer in the south pacific. 13th Air Force. B-24s.
He won the DFC for a mission to bomb the refineries where the Japs got their fuel. We still have his papers and silk escape map.
Truely the greatest generation...........would we have the cajones to do what they did........

[1Shirt]

Old planes are sort of like vintage wines! JUST GREAT!!!
1Shirt!

[Echo]

I believe they did that to draw fuel into the engine ,ie prime it.

No, it's to pump out the oil that has migrated into the lower cylinders - if they didn't do it, a fluid lock could develop and blow a cylinder off.

Hmmm - Mike beat me to it - Never Mind...

[Echo]

You can count me as a lover of the old girls.

A big Plus One for loving the old girls...

[richhodg66]

That's the plane that first struck Japan. I love the old planes too, just flew in a B-17 a month or so back. Thanks for sharing.

[lathesmith]

You guys definitely have it right about the oil, if you look at the tarmac under the engines there you can see plenty of it on the concrete. They had rags stuffed in the lower vents to soak some of it up, it helped some. Like Boz said, many of these machines are 70+ years old, I'm sure that finding parts is getting pretty spotty, I would guess on some of these old machines they have to make quite a bit of stuff to keep them going. There were 9,000-odd of these built, but only around 25 left in the world that are still flying. I do appreciate what these guys are doing, keeping these actual machines going helps remind us younger folk that it all actually happened.

lathesmith

[lathesmith]

You're right Gabby, many of the guys that went up in these machines were just kids, it's hard to imagine facing what they faced on a weekly basis. There were a few old-timers who had went up in these during the war out there when I went, and one lady there said she had a part in doing something to nearly every B-25 built. Amazing connections!

lathesmith

[GOPHER SLAYER]

We live about thirty miles from March Air Base which is now mostly a museum although the military still fly in and out of there. We saw our son fly out of there when he was going to Iraq or Afghanistan. There are dozons of old planes on display both from WWII, Veitnam and all the conflicts since. It is fasinating to walk aroud these old birds and read their history especially the SR71 Blackbird. The field is next to the 215 Freeway so you can even get a good view from your car while driving by.

[rondog]

We live about thirty miles from March Air Base which is now mostly a museum although the military still fly in and out of there. We saw our son fly out of there when he was going to Iraq or Afghanistan. There are dozons of old planes on display both from WWII, Veitnam and all the conflicts since. It is fasinating to walk aroud these old birds and read their history especially the SR71 Blackbird. The field is next to the 215 Freeway so you can even get a good view from your car while driving by.

Is that the place where they're all outside, rotting in the sun? In the mid-90's I stopped at some "museum" like that in So. Cal. where all the planes were just sitting out there on the tarmac, rotting away and in terrible condition. Made me sick. Historic aircraft deserve more than that, they should all be indoors. Lord knows there's a few hundred gigantic vacant hangars in this country.

[rondog]

You can count me as a lover of the old girls. I do have a question though. Sometimes in movies you see guys rotating the propeller around by hand. Question is why are they doing it?. Frank

That's done to insure that there's no oil in the cylinders. Radial engines can drain oil into the cylinders when they're sitting, especially hot oil, it can leak past the piston rings. If this happens, something called "hydraulic lock" can occur when the engine is cranked, and it can bend a connecting rod, blow out a spark plug, or even blow a jug off the crankcase. Oil/liquids don't compress, and something has to give. Bad news.

Rotating the prop through slowly by hand allows the ground crew to find this. If the engine suddenly resists the rotating, it's time to stop and investigate. You'll see this particularly on films of B-29's. If a cylinder is found with oil in it, then they'd pull the plugs on that cylinder and drain it. Usually one of the cylinders at the bottom of the engine.

<edit> Sorry, I didn't see the other responses saying the same thing!

Here's a video of mine, just because. You'll notice they crank each engine through several times before they turn on the fuel and ignition, this is also a check for H/L. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZc9xe-2_78

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrYaURY6aPs

[Hardcast416taylor]

Imagine piloting one of these gals off the flight deck of a carrier! I understand those 4 side .50`s and more (4 I think) mounted in the nose along with the few that had an artillery piece mounted in the bomb bay for coastal shipping runs were a sight to behold with all that firepower being unleashed on a target.Robert

[jaysouth]

I was fishing on the Cumberland river just west of Nashville on Friday. Some lucky soul has a F-51D that he keeps at Tune field in Nashville. On Friday, he was flying up and down the river doing barrel rolls and power dives.

The plane has the distinctive 'D Day stripes' on the wings and tail'. I have seen him several times and know the sound of the Rolls-Allison engine before I can see the plane.

But I do wish he would slow down, the rivets and welds on that fantastic fighter plane are almost 70 years old. On the other hand, maybe he plans on going out in a blaze of 106 octane aviation gasoline.

[357Mag]

Howdy -

My Dad was command pilot on 70 B-25 missions during WWII. He flew out of an airfield on the East side of Corsica, with the 310 Bomb Group;
428th Bomb Squadron. 68 missions were flown over Italy, the last 2 combat mission he flew over Avignon, France.

Pop had quite the WWII experience ( which G.I. didn't ):
- Pop volunteered for WWII duty BEFORE Pearl Harbor. Right after that attack, Pop helped stand fire watch each night... atop buildings at his base in California;
armed w/ a bucket of water; and a bucket of sand. For a while there, many thought the Japs were comin' all the way over !

- While undergoing " Link Trainer " instruction at a base in California, Jimmy Stewart walked in; and shook hands with all present. Jimmy went on, to a B-24 outfit.

- Pop learned & practiced "Skip bombing" @ Eglin AFB, FL.... where Col Jimmy Doolittle's men learned & practiced how to take lightened B-25s airborne in just 425ft !

- While in-transit taking a new B-25G overseas, his last stop before crossing the Atlantic was at Natal, Brazil. There were 10's of thousands of U.S. service members
there on that base; at the time. Pop bumped into one guy, and turning to apologize... found that it was a third cousin from back in Indiana.

- In March 1944, Dad went on sorties where they had to fly around Mt. Vesuvius in full eruption. Don't get to do that much... combat or not !

- On his 26th birthday, he flew 2 sorties near Anzio Beach.

- He got to meet the Pope, who was seeing handfuls of G.I.s at-a-time.

- Dad's last 2 sorties were to Avignon, France. " Fool me once ": the German's were ready for the B-25s that showed up for a second bombing run... w/ their "88s".
They shot-out his right engine.. putting a hole the size of a card table completely through the wing. On one engine and flying " dead reckoning ", Pop had to nurse
his plane & crew all the way back from France to Corsica.... a distance of some 300mi ( I believe ). Flying single-engine, it would have taken his B-25 well more
than an hour... not to mention contending w/ the ME-109s that tried to finish the boys; after they came off the target already smokin'.

Amongst Pop's WWII decorations were the " Distinguished Flying Cross ", 7 awards of the " Air Medal "; and the " Europe, Africa & Middle East Campaign Medal "
w/ 2 stars.

Pop was a natural-born pilot, that loved to fly ! We surprised him with a B-25 ride in Jun 1985, after he had not been up flying in one for 40 years !
It was a great moment ! As he flew repeated passes over the Flint, MI airshow complete w/ pyrotechnics...... I cried like an orphan.
And I knew.... HE was flying it !!

Pop succumbed to colon cancer Feb 28th 1987, not reaching his 69th birthday in June.

I cannot express to you, my love and admiration for my Dad !!!


With regards,
357Mag
37years w/ the 122nd Fighter Wing, Indiana Air National Guard

[dilly]

Can this still be seen? Was it just for one day? Where can I find more information about it?

[lathesmith]

dilly, this B-25 was only in town through today(Monday). This one is flown by the CAF, you can do a google search and find out more about these guys, they have several aircraft. There are other outfits that occasionally hit Springfield with historic aircraft, you might check around.

357, those are some interesting and amazing stories, hopefully you and your family were able to preserve some of your dad's history.
It really sucks to lose your dad to cancer. I had the same unfortunate experience a few years ago, I can definitely relate to that, unfortunately.