Fourth Quarter (Oct - Dec) 2004
Volume 17, Number 4
The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
Editorial
F
or the first time in recent memory,
we had aircraft at El Paso’s Amigo Airsho this year. We sent both
our North American AT-6F Texan and
our PT-17 Stearman to the show. Chief
Pilot Jack Bell and Stearman expert Bill
Whitney, respectively, flew these historic
aircraft on the short hop from Santa Teresa to the Airsho venue at Biggs Field and
back. What made it really special was
that some Museum volunteers got to ride
along. Ray Davis, Ed Murray, Manny Papadakis and Roy Sinclair floated a few
feet above the ground wearing huge grins
even after their flights were over. Also,
our AT-6F with Jack and Roy aboard escorted the Commemorative Air Force’s
Boeing B-17G Sentimental Journey part
of the way back from the show.
Our Oral History Project is rolling, in
part due to our collaboration with Kristine Navarro, Director of the Oral History
Institute at the University of Texas in El
Paso. We have interviewed veterans Emmet Cook and Joe Russo and are nearly
ready to submit their packets to the
Library of Congress’ Veterans’ History
Project. Interview tapes will be available
for researchers at UTEP and at the Museum. Several other veterans have contacted us and we will soon interview them.
Thanks to volunteers Bill Messersmith
and Jim Parker for sticking with this
project. We still need transcribers to type
the contents of the interview tapes. If you
can help or if you know of someone who
might want to participate in this rewarding effort to preserve aviation history,
please call Bill or Jim at the Museum.
Featured Aircraft
T
he Globe Swift was born in Fort
Worth, Texas, in early 1940. The
very first low-wing, two-place,
retractable-gear monoplane bearing the
name Swift was built by machinist and
former Army aircraft mechanic Rufus
Summerfield “Pop” Johnson as a “homebuilt.” Johnson supposedly took trial delivery of a Culver Cadet, measured its
parts and then returned it to Culver—
“Sorry, I’m not interested in buying it.”
Then he built a prototype of a better aircraft, based on the Cadet, and sought a
financier and manufacturer. He contacted
S The first production Globe Swift GC-1A,
flown by Chief Test Pilot Ted Yarborough,
flies over downtown Fort Worth in December 1946. Photo courtesy of Emmet Cook.
Contents
Editorial......................................1
Featured Aircraft........................1
From the Director.......................2
Tailspins with Parker..................4
Historical Perspectives ..............4
MiG-21PFM Refurbishment .......5
Veterans’ Voices........................6
More Classic Cars .....................6
Membership Application ............7
Corporate Youth Sponsors ........7
Featured Aircraft (Continued on Page 2)
1
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
From the Director
F
or years I’ve said “We could not
afford it if we had to hire people
to come in and do the jobs that
volunteers do.” The MiG-21PFM refurbishment project (see Page 5) shows the
truth in this statement. After months of
hard work by the staff and at least seven
volunteers, the MiG is again in its “dress
greens.” Thanks to the tremendous care
and attention to detail that the team dedicated to this project, our MiG-21PFM is
now surely one of the finest examples of
the type anywhere in the world.
The MiG project proves how much volunteers mean to the Museum. When we
had to end our monthly “mini-airshows”
in 1996, the number of active volunteers
declined dramatically. That’s understandable. The thrill and pleasure that they felt
when they saw our magnificent warbirds
fly was a strong draw. When we stopped
flying regularly, many volunteers lost the
incentive to come out and work. We have
recruited some new volunteers over the
years, and today a few committed people
show up at the Museum week after week
to do what needs to be done. We appreciate their help. We would accomplish far
less without them.
However, I believe we still need some
“new blood” in the volunteer program. If
you would like to get involved, or if you
know of someone who would like to join
us for a day or two per week, or even
less, please let someone at the Museum
know. We’ll take any skills—it’s the attitude that’s most important.
Skip Trammell
Plane Talk
Published by War Eagles Air Museum
8012 Airport Road
Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008
(505) 589-2000
Newsletter Editor: Terry Sunday
Contributing Author: Jim C. Parker
E-mail address:
[email protected]
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 1)
businessman John Kennedy, a local entrepreneur who was the founder and president of Globe Laboratories and Globe
Aircraft Company of Fort Worth.
According to Emmet Cook, a War Eagles
Air Museum Volunteer and one of three
original Globe test pilots, “…Globe Laboratories made serum for cattle…my father, George Cook, through his work on
the Southwest Livestock Show and Rodeo, knew Mr. Kennedy well. In 1939 or
‘40, Kennedy decided that he wanted to
build airplanes, and converted his horse
farm stalls into a first-class manufacturing building. He got together with ‘Pop’
Johnson and began planning the type of
airplane they wanted to build. But the
war interrupted their work.”
Globe Aircraft was a key subcontractor
during the war, making 600 license-built
Beech AT-10 Wichitas. Seeking business
to carry them through when the war ended, Kennedy and Johnson made a deal:
Globe Aircraft Company would build the
Swift, and Johnson would take a job with
the company. Johnson and Globe’s Chief
Engineer K.H. “Bud” Knox readied the
Swift for production. By the end of the
war, and after two more prototypes had
been built (one all-wood and one woodand-metal), a final all-metal version of
the Swift emerged as the favored alternative for production.
Emmet recalls, “After the war I was stationed in Midland, Texas. My sister, Edna Cook, was Mr. Kennedy’s secretary.
She called and told me Globe wanted to
offer me a job. They offered me a hell of
a lot more money than I was making as a
First Lieutenant, so I got out and went to
work for Globe.
“Ted Yarborough was the chief test pilot.
Louis Donne and I were the other two.
My job was to fly each Swift right off of
the assembly line to check the instruments and do power-on and power-off
stalls to see whether or not it would fall
off on a wing.”
As Emmet recalls, “The first Swift canopies were a ‘Mickey Mouse’ design. The
2
Fourth Quarter 2004
side panels would pop out in steep banks
when there was some torque on the fuselage. They slid up and down. When they
were all the way up there was just not
enough of them left in the fuselage at the
bottom to hold them in place. Also, the
landing gear and flap switches on the instrument panel were too close together.
These problems were later corrected on
production models.”
The first Swift model GC-1A, serial number 2, registration NX33336, came off
the production line in late 1945. It was
used for flight tests and certification. The
Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), issued Type Certificate
number A-766 for the 85-horsepower
GC-1A on May 7, 1946. Total GC-1A
production eventually reached 408. At a
price of $3,495, they initially sold well.
Emmet continues: “The photo at the beginning of this article shows NX33336 in
flight over downtown Fort Worth in December 1945, piloted by Globe’s Chief
Test Pilot Ted Yarborough. It is still flying today, somewhere in Florida.”
The February 1946 issue of Aviation ran
the same photo, but incorrectly identified
Emmet Cook as the pilot. Emmet insists
that Yarborough was flying NX33336
when the photo was taken.
Featured Aircraft (Continued on page 3)
Globe Swift GC-1B
Characteristics
Powerplant
125-hp Continental 6-cylinder
Seats
2 side-by-side
Maximum Speed
153 mph
Cruising Speed
140 mph
Service Ceiling
16,000 feet
Range
600 miles
Length
20' 9"
Wingspan
29' 4"
Weight (empty)
1,125 pounds
Weight (gross)
1,710 pounds
Fourth Quarter 2004
Featured Aircraft (Continued from page 2)
To say the early 85-hp Swifts were underpowered would be an understatement.
Boosting the power to 125 horsepower
and the price to $3,995, Globe earned a
Type Certificate for the GC-1B on September 22, 1946. A national advertising
blitz (“the new all-metal Swift!”) from
1944 through 1946 was credited with creating a huge backlog of orders for the attractive little airplane. To help meet orders, Globe contracted some production to
newly formed TEMCO (Texas Engineering and Manufacturing Company) of
nearby Grand Prairie, Texas. TEMCO
began producing GC-1Bs in May 1946,
and in just over six months the two companies turned out a total of 833 GC-1Bs.
Here’s Emmet again: “The Swifts sold
very well for a time. Then, all of a sudden, they just started stacking up, not being sold. Globe’s bad habit of charging
cost plus 10 percent, which they learned
while making AT-10s for Beech, had
caught up with them.”
When production caught up with orders,
the ramps at both plants filled up with
unsold Swifts. Kennedy soon closed the
doors of the Globe Aircraft Company to
avoid what we would call today a “hostile takeover.” Owing TEMCO lots of
money, Kennedy offered the only asset
he had—the right to produce the Swift.
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
▼ This beautiful Swift cutaway is courtesy of Denis Arbeau.
For much more Swift information, visit the Swift Home Page
at http://www.napanet.net/~arbeau/swift/.
“TEMCO got the patents and took control of Swift production. They built lots of
things, from popcorn machines to Swifts.
They didn’t make many Swifts after they
took over,” Emmet recalls. From 1946
through 1951, TEMCO made only 260
Swifts. The last one rolled out of the plant
on August 23, 1951.
As for “Pop” Johnson, he didn’t like
some of the changes Globe made to “his”
design, so he quit in 1947. He formed the
Johnson Aircraft Corporation in Grand
Prairie, and soon built the Texas Bullet
and the Johnson Rocket. The Bullet first
flew on January 23, 1949, and the Rocket
took to the air for the first time in April
1951. After a few relocations, some corporate name changes and a bit of trouble
with the IRS, Johnson and his aircraft
companies faded into obscurity. A few
Bullets and Rockets still exist today.
War Eagles Air Museum’s Swift GC-1B,
serial number 1054, N80649, was built in
1946. The first signature in the Aircraft
Logbook is that of Emmet Cook, who
took it for its first test flight. Museum
founder John MacGuire bought it in 1995
from James Smith of Marysville, Washington. It is an unusual GC-1B in having
a 180-hp Continental engine rather than a
145-hp Continental as fitted to most latemodel -1Bs. Fully airworthy and in need
of only a battery, a thorough inspection
and an Annual, the tiny silver Swift waits
proudly on display in the Museum for the
day when it may again take to the air.
War Eagles Air Museum
On The Web
C
“The Globe Swift was a really neat, fast
little airplane,” Emmet muses, “with a
fully retractable electro-hydraulic landing
gear system and a manual crank backup.
Somebody in the U.S. has the jigs, and
you can still get parts...I was one of
Globe’s last employees. I flew for a little
while for TEMCO delivering Swifts as
far away as St. Louis, but I didn’t stay
with them very long.”
heck War Eagles’ website for
more information on the Museum’s aircraft and automobile collections, special event schedules, “fun and games” and more. We
thank Bruce Quackenbush and Joe
Jones of Artwork Studios in Denver
for designing and maintaining our
highly acclaimed website.
3
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
Tailspins
with
Parker
W
hether you learned to fly as a
civilian or in the military, I’m
sure you have memories of
your early experiences—some good and
probably some bad, like this one...
In August 1957, I was in a group of 82
U.S. Army Lieutenants who reported for
flight training at Camp Gary in San Marcos, Texas. A civilian contractor operated
the Army’s flight school there. Ex-Air
Force pilots were the Instructor Pilots
(IPs), and the check pilots were Army.
The school used Cessna L-19 Bird Dogs.
Each IP taught three or four students. We
flew in the mornings and attended ground
school in the afternoons for a week, and
then reversed that schedule for the next
week. Thus we all had the opportunity to
experience the summer thermals and wild
gusts from afternoon cumulus build-ups.
There was something very peculiar about
this program, but exactly what it was did
not dawn on us until much later.
From the git-go, I felt like I wasn’t good
enough to be an Army pilot. My IP was a
good guy, generally, except when we
were in the air. Up there, he had nothing
but negative comments for me. “Lieutenant,” he’d say, “you’re fifty feet off your
altitude. What are you going to do about
that? Now look at your compass. You’re
five degrees off heading. My God, can’t
you fly straight and level even for a minute?” This usually went on for the whole
flight. During all my maneuvers—stalls,
spins, forced landings, whatever—he was
always on my butt unmercifully. My
stress level was way up, but so was that
of all the students.
Tailspins (Continued on page 8)
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
T
Fourth Quarter 2004
Historical
he Republic
F-84F Thunderstreak in
front of War Eagles
Air Museum is usually the first aircraft
visitors see. But
most, unfortunately,
pay it little attention.
The F-84, in many
variants, was one of the most diverse
aircraft ever made. It bears the awesome
significance of being the only aircraft in
the Museum’s collection that was equipped to carry nuclear weapons. Perhaps
the most remarkable aspect of the F-84 is
that it entered Air Force service despite
failing all of its initial performance requirements. If not for its notable career in
the Korean War and as an export aircraft,
the F-84 would be a prime subject for
criticism as a waste of Defense Department funding and a failure of the budget
process. However, despite some serious
development problems, the F-84 became
a legendary aircraft that will forever
command my respect and admiration.
Perspectives
by Robert Haynes
The story of the F-84 is really a story of
two airplanes: the straight-wing F-84
Thunderjet and the swept-wing F-84
Thunderstreak. Republic Aviation Corporation in Farmingdale, Long Island,
New York, developed the Thunderjet in
the final months of World War II. The
prototype flew in February 1946. In September of the same year, the F-84 earned
the first of many laurels when it set a
new speed record of 611 miles per hour.
Yet its performance still did not meet the
Air Force’s requirements. Engine and airframe improvements, such as JATO (JetAssisted Takeoff) rockets for extra takeoff power and fins on the wingtip fuel
tanks to increase stability, led to an acceptable aircraft that the Air Force decided to order.
The Thunderjet could also refuel in-flight
via either the probe-and-drogue method
or the Boeing “flying boom” system.
This capability meant that F-84s could
fly to any target in the world at any time.
Carrying tactical nuclear gravity bombs
and with virtually unlimited range, the
F-84 was a formidable weapon indeed.
More modifications were in store, however. In June 1950, the F-84F Thunderstreak took to the air for the first time,
with swept-back wings and a more powerful engine that gave vastly improved
performance. Foreign air forces were especially interested in the Thunderstreak,
and many went into service in NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty Organization) nations. Those in French service saw combat during the Suez Crisis in 1956, while
Turkish Thunderstreaks flew on into the
1970’s.
In the 1950’s, the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds precision aerobatic team used
both versions of the rugged, reliable Republic fighter. In May 1952, a significant
“first” occurred when nine F-84s, returning to Japan after bombing an industrial
complex in Sariwon, North Korea, took
on fuel from aerial tankers in the world’s
first combat in-flight refueling. Many
F-84s were modified into RF-84s for
photo-reconnaissance missions. Some of
these, with the designation RF-84F Thunderflash, were carried into action beneath
S A straight-wing Republic F-84G Thunderjet with wingtip and underwing fuel
tanks takes off in this undated photograph.
4
Historical Perspectives
(Continued on page 8)
Fourth Quarter 2004
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
MiG-21PFM
Refurbishment
Project Finished
T
hanks to months of dedicated
work by an enthusiastic team of
volunteers and staff, War Eagles
Air Museum’s Soviet-era MiG-21PFM
jet fighter is now one of the finest examples of the type on display anywhere.
The Mikoyan and Gurevich Opytno-Konstruktorskoe Buro (Experimental Design
Bureau), or OKB MiG, is one of the Soviet Union’s premier aircraft manufacturers. In the 1950s, the Soviets had three
MiG fighters in service—the MiG-15,
MiG-17 and MiG-19. But the Kremlin
wanted more. In 1953, lessons from the
Korean War highlighted the need for a
higher performance aircraft capable of
Mach 2 speeds at over 65,000 feet altitude. MiG engineers created an unusual
design featuring a 57-degree delta wing
with a swept horizontal tail (most deltawinged aircraft have no horizontal tail).
After testing several different prototypes,
the designers settled on the model called
E-6, which test pilot Vladimir A. Nefedov first flew in January 1956. In mid1959, after a successful development program, the new aircraft, renamed MiG-21,
began to roll out of the Gorky factory by
the thousands.
Versions of the MiG-21 (NATO codename Fishbed) served in the air forces of
47 nations in Europe, Asia, Africa and
Central America. They flew in more wars
than any other airplane in history. Total
production, in the Soviet Union and elsewhere under license, was between 10,000
and 13,000. The only modern aircraft
made in greater numbers is the U.S.
Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport. The
MiG-21 was in front-line service in the
Voenno Vozdushnye Sili (VVS, or Soviet
Air Force) for more than 30 years, and
some nations still use them today. Simple, reliable and easy to maintain, the
MiG-21 was arguably the most successful jet aircraft of all time.
S The MiG-21PFM, resplendent in its new paint job, is shown here with all of the enthusiastic
volunteers and staff members who worked on the project. Front row, l. to r.: Terry Sunday,
Carl Wright, Rich Rollins, Jack Bell, Bill Whitney (Chief Painter), Colonel Johannes K. Perk
(Deputy Commander of the German Air Force Command, United States and Canada). Back
row, l. to r.: Fernie Olivares, Skip Trammell (WEAM Director), Ray Davis, Ed Murray, Frank
Harrison, Dan Taylor. Not shown in the photo: Danny Calderon, Herman Häberling, Damon
Loveless, John Mendoza, Jim Parker, Dario Toffenetti. Photo by Chuck Crepas.
The Museum’s MiG-21PFM is a secondgeneration model with a side-opening
canopy (rather than front-hinged), underwing rocket pods and a radar system for
all-weather intercepts. It was in service
with the Luftverteidigung (Air Defense
Force) of the Nationale Volksarmee der
Deutsche Demokratische Republik (National People’s Army {NVA} of the German Democratic Republic {DDR}) when
East and West Germany reunified on October 3, 1990. War Eagles got the aircraft
in 1995 thanks to the efforts of Luftwaffe
Brigadegeneral Günther Lutz, Commander of the German Air Force in the United States and Canada. Stationed at Fort
Bliss in El Paso, Texas, BG Lutz overcame all bureaucratic obstacles and convinced the German Government to donate the aircraft to the Museum, complete
with a zero-time Tumansky R-11F2-300
turbojet engine. Interestingly, the aircraft
arrived painted in West German camouflage and markings. When restoration got
underway in early 2004, its original East
German markings were revealed as the
sanding crew removed the outer layers of
paint. The Museum staff decided to restore the aircraft to the way it appeared
when it was in East German service.
5
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
As with most such projects, this one took
longer and required more effort than originally thought. With an obligation to assure historical accuracy, the team had to
do everything right. A lot of effort went
into choosing the right shades of paint to
match the original East German camouflage pattern. The large national insignia,
which are complicated four-color hammer-and-sickle designs, presented special
challenges. They finally were laboriously
painted by hand. More than 80 German
and Russian informational markings covered the aircraft. All were painstakingly
reproduced as stencils. The final protective finish involved precision mixing of
three components to achieve exactly the
right sheen. When you come out to the
Museum and see the result of months of
staff and volunteer work, we hope you
will agree that it was all worth it.
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
Veterans’ Voices
T
hanks to War Eagles’ Chief Pilot
Jack Bell, we are pleased to reprint this story told by retired Air
Force Colonel William Favor, Jr., from
the February 1995 issue of The Roadrunner, the El Paso Order of the Daedalians
newsletter. But first, here’s a little background on one of the best-known aircraft
of World War II—North American Aviation’s B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.
On January 25, 1939, the U.S. Army Air
Corps announced a competition for a new
medium bomber. With war clouds gathering, the Service did not want to wait for
prototypes. So the Army awarded immediate production contracts to North American Aviation for the B-25 and to the
Glenn L. Martin Company for the B-26.
Named Mitchell in honor of famed airpower proponent General William “Billy” Mitchell, the first B-25 took to the air
on August 19, 1940. The aircraft proved
to be rugged, flexible and reliable, and
was adapted to serve many roles in every
theatre of combat during World War II.
Over 11,000 Mitchells of many different
models were built, more than any other
American twin-engine combat airplane.
The B-25’s most noteworthy mission, of
course, was the famous Doolittle Raid on
Tokyo. On April 18, 1942, Lt. Col. James
H. “Jimmy” Doolittle led a group of 16
B-25Bs off the flight deck of the aircraft
carrier USS Hornet (CV 8) to bomb
Tokyo in the first U.S. bombing attack on
Japan of the war.
Now Col. Favor picks up the story:
“This happened in my squadron early in
1943 when we were flying B 25s from
Guadalcanal. As many of us tend to forget, there were many very dedicated airmen besides pilots in the air during combat. This story is about a bombardier/
navigator who arrived on one of our first
replacement crews. In medium bombers,
all the B/Ns had dual duties and acted in
both positions. In our group, most of
them were also Battle of Leyte Gulf copilots, as we did not have enough pilots
to fill all the right seats.
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
Fourth Quarter 2004
“Abe was the B/N
on his first mission with our
flight
leader.
Starting the bomb
run over Kahila
on Bougainville
Island, Abe, in the
nose, reached for
the bombardier's
control panel to
open the bomb
bay doors when a
Jap AA shell
came through the
floor and took
out the control
panel and the S This undated photo from the Internet shows an early model North
American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, probably on a training flight.
little finger of
Abe’s left hand.
The plane was not otherwise damaged
weeks and his third Purple Heart. He reand the bomb run was completed. The
turned to duty and was scheduled for his
crew patched Abe up and took him to the
fourth mission. He refused to go. He said,
field hospital upon landing. He was
“Someone up there has me boresighted
sewed up and given the Purple Heart. In
and I’m not going.” He was told that was
about three weeks, he returned to duty.
desertion in the face of the enemy and he
could be placed before a firing squad. He
“On his second mission, he was in the
said, “OK, at least it will be on the
nose during a Jap Zero attack. Abe was
ground.” He had to be forcibly placed on
sitting on the floor, firing a flexible .50a transport plane and sent back to our
caliber, when the Zero made an overhead
rear echelon in Fiji. The last we heard, he
split into the formation. Abe was hit with
was sent back to the states for court marthree shots; one just above his knee, one
tial. Many of us wondered what we’d
in his waist and one in his armpit. Lots of
have done in the same situation.”
blood and pain, but fortunately all were
flesh wounds. So it was back to the hospital for three weeks and Purple Heart #2.
“Abe returned to duty with two missions
under his belt and two Purple Hearts. At
this time, no one really wanted to fly
with him, but finally they scheduled him
with the Squadron Operations Officer. It
was a strafing and skip bombing mission
at Buka Island near Bougainville. Abe’s
crew was making a run on a small destroyer. He was sitting on the floor, firing
his .50-caliber, when a Jap 20mm shell
came in the nose, went over his shoulder,
hit the armor plate in front of the pilot
and exploded. The back of Abe’s flight
jacket was blown off and he got over 30
shell splinters in his back, neck and head.
“The entire nose was covered in blood,
but none of the wounds were life-threatening. So, again to the hospital for three
6
More Classic Cars
Join Collection
R
ecently War Eagles Air Museum
proudly accepted a generous donation from a local supporter as
part of the disposition of an estate. The
donation is a very impressive collection
of 12 classic British cars. Mainly vintage
MG sports cars (TCs, TDs, TFs, As and
Bs), the collection also includes a 1963
Morgan Plus 4, a 1959 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II and a very rare Bertone-bodied 1956 Arnolt MG. Restoration and refurbishment of this collection will provide plenty of work to keep volunteers
and staff busy for years. Look for some
of these cars to be on display soon.
Fourth Quarter 2004
Plane Talk—The Newsletter of the War Eagles Air Museum
Membership Application
War Eagles Air Museum
The War Eagles Air Museum collects, restores and displays historic aircraft, mainly from the World War II and Korean War time
periods, to encourage awareness and appreciation of military aviation history through exhibits, educational programs and special
events. The Museum is a nonprofit organization as defined by the United States Internal Revenue Code. Operated by staff and
volunteers, the Museum is supported by funds obtained from admissions, memberships and contributions. All dues and contributions
are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
War Eagles Air Museum memberships are available in six categories. All memberships include the following privileges:
Free admission to the Museum and all exhibits.
Free admission to all special events.
10% general admission discounts for all guests of a current Member.
10% discount on all Member purchases in the Gift Shop.
In addition, a Family Membership includes free admission for spouses and all children under 18 living at home.
To become a Member of the War Eagles Air Museum, please fill in the information requested below and note the category of membership you desire. Mail this form, along with a check payable to “War Eagles Air Museum” for the annual fee shown, to:
War Eagles Air Museum
8012 Airport Road
Santa Teresa, NM 88008
Membership Categories
NAME (Please print)___________________________________________________
STREET ____________________________________________________________
CITY ______________________________ STATE _____ ZIP _________—______
TELEPHONE (Optional) _____—_____—____________
E-MAIL ADDRESS (Optional) ___________________________________________
Individual
$15
Family
$25
Participating
$50
Supporting
$100
Benefactor
$1,000
Life
$5,000
Will be kept private and used only for War Eagles Air Museum mailings.
W
ar Eagles Air Museum sincerely thanks the following organizations for their
2004 support of the Corporate Youth
Sponsors Program. Because of their
support, student groups in the El Paso/
Juarez area can learn about the contributions of military aviation to America’s history. For many students, visits
to the Museum made possible by donations from these sponsors kindle interest in aviation and related fields as
possible career choices.
War Eagles Air Museum Corporate Youth Sponsors
Bronze
Alamo Industries, Inc.
Silver
Gold
Platinum
Baker Glass
Jon T. Hansen
Jobe Concrete
Products
C. F. Jordan, L.P.
Robert F. Foster, Inc.
William Gardner
El Paso Southwest
Aircraft Sales
El Paso Electric Co.
Frank and Susan
Borman
7
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
War Eagles Air Museum
Santa Teresa Airport
8012 Airport Road
Santa Teresa, New Mexico 88008
(505) 589-2000
Historical Perspectives
(Continued from page 4)
huge Convair B-36 Peacemaker strategic
bombers. Because of concerns that F-84s
in Germany would not be able to take off
or land if the Soviets bombed their airfields, Thunderjets were also used in an
unusual test program called ZELMAL
(Zero-length Launch, Mat Landing). This
short-lived program involved strapping a
big rocket motor underneath the fuselage,
blasting the plane into the air from a Matador missile trailer and then, for landing,
snatching it from the air onto an inflated
rubber mat.
Tailspins (Continued from page 4)
One morning I was out flying when over
the radio came a conversation that another IP was having with his student. One of
them had left his radio on TRANSMIT
rather than switching it to INTERCOM.
Whatever was said in that cockpit went
out for all the world to hear. The IP was
cursing his student’s flying abilities with
every word in the profane dictionary. He
went up one page and down the other.
I felt a sudden surge of confidence in my
own flying skills.
We who heard this tirade later converged
on the poor student and explained to him
that he did not have to tolerate such verbal abuse. We advised him to get another
instructor immediately.
This very brief sketch of the history of
the F-84 barely scratches the surface. A
thorough treatment would fill volumes.
But I hope this snapshot will convince
visitors who would otherwise just drive
past our F-84F Thunderstreak to stop and
spend a little time with one of the most
significant aircraft in the War Eagles Air
Museum collection.
The Army didn’t need pilots in 1957; the
Army didn’t even like pilots, having recently lost a battle when the Air Force
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com
8
He looked confused and said, “But aren’t
they all like that?”
split off as a separate Service. We finally
realized that what was peculiar about that
training was that it was designed to apply
the maximum mental stress at all times.
Students who made it through would be
less likely to have breakdowns under the
pressures and stresses of combat—or so
the training methodology rationalized.
Of the 82 Lieutenants in Class 58-3, only
40 of us made it through and earned our
wings at Fort Rucker in early 1958.
Now, that unfortunate Lieutenant should
have known better than to let his instructor curse him, and he should have done
something about it quick-time. But then
again, we all wear blinders to some degree. Years later, I used the same line,
“But aren’t they all like that?” in response to advice from my marriage counselor before getting a divorce from my
first wife, who was schizophrenic…
For more information, visit:
www.war-eagles-air-museum.com