This is a brief story about an incident in T-28A's back in the "day", so to speak. It involves a flight of 4 students on a short cross country training flight! The T-28 was a great trainer, safe, sable and easy to fly. The early models up to the D, as I recall, had a R-1300 engine, but the last ones produce had a R-1820, which give it lifting power for ords and such....many were used later the Vietnam war and was quite successful in its assigned roll of ground support.
This a pic of a restored T-28A, dolled up a little bit, ones we had were all silver.
This was to be a "4" legged x-country, solo, with each pilot a flight lead on the different legs. My leg was to be the second leg.
Up at 4:30AM for quick breakfast, pilot brief at 5:15AM, with scheduled takeoff at 0600 hours. Weather brief showed a "weak" cold front laying across our route of flight, but no weather which should be a problem. Flight on all 4 legs were assigned 16,000 foot altitude, so that meant having to wear the oxygen mask the whole trip. All information recorded on knee board and ready to go!
We all, by this time, had assumed some kind of call sign, which usually stuck with you though out your career, mine was "earlytango", Jamie was "Bugeye", Billy's was "bullyboy", and Jack was "hawkeye".
After preflight and convering with crew chief about any write-ups on the maint logs, we were ready to go. A standard 2 ship element on takeoff with a left turn out to on course heading, 10 second delay between element takeoffs.
I was "hawkeye's wing on first leg, on his 8 O'clock position, "bullyboy" was at his 4 O'clock and "Bugeye" was at "bullyboys" 4 O'clock, in a more or less standard "finger 4" formation. We climbed out in a slightly "open" formation of about 75 feet or so between aircraft. If we encountered clouds, then we closed up to about 20 feet, so as to keep your lead in sight at all times. When in the clouds in formation, you don't have time to do much of a instrument scan as you have to keep that lead man in sight at all times and make every move it makes. While climbing out at 180MPH IAS, we entered a thin layer of clouds at 9,000 feet, with tops at 12,000 feet. (Where did this come from, wasn't forcasted). Clear on top and we made our first stop at Dobbins AFB in Atlanta, Ga for reorganizing flight sections, brief inspection of aircraft for oil leaks or anything unusal, which might effect safety of flight. Everything checked out OK and we were ready for leg #2, which I was now the flight lead, with "Bugeye" my wing at 8 O'clock, "bullyboy" at my 4 and Hawkeye at his 4.
ATC had assigned us to maintain 4,000 to Lst Mnt beacon the climb to assigned altitude of 16,000 feet. Takeoff in the 28 was pretty easy, you just had to understand that as you gained speed, you had to relax the amount of right rudder you were inputting to keep the thing straight on takeoff. There was a "haze" layer in the area just west of takeoff base from 1500MSL to about 3,000MSL then nice and clear on up. After takeoff and the "doughnuts" in the wells, I had to correct to the left to 260 degree heading for incoming traffic clearance. I glanced to my left to clear and uh, oh, there is "bugeye", no more than about 15 feet away and he was "jinkin" around like a cat on a hot tin roof! What the heck is his problem? OK, "tater", relax now and lead like you are supposed to do, nice cool calm voice on the radio and all this time "bugeye" is making me real nervious! This guy is having trouble formation flying, need to make a note of that for his instructor.
The contract civilian instructor pilots we had at the time was a pretty good bunch of seasoned vets, some from flying in WW2. If anything was mentioned about a student pilot, they would work him tirelessly until he had the problem solved. I think the name of the company was Hawthorne flight school or something like that, I just can't remember for sure.
As we climbed out on our assigned heading of 265 degrees towards BMG, as we passed though 8,000, which was the tops of a thin layered haze line, I could see up ahead, some really dark looking and foreboding looking clouds. Well, so much for the "weak" cold front, I didn't see anything which looked weak about that.
The last thing you want to do as a flight lead is deviate from the flight plan, unless it is an emergency, so come on "tater", get the brain power going and lead! Call up ATC, ask about the weather ahead and can they help us through this mess up ahead. Report from them not to good, moderate turbulence report by air carriers from 12 to 20,000 feet! Oh great, here we are assigned right smack in the middle of that! "Comet1",(our flight call sign), turn right 300, looks like a weak area of rain ahead that way!
All this time, with the turns and so etc, Bugeye is doing a fair job of station keeping, but still jinking around more than he should be. Last thing I want to do is go into a turbulent area, IFR, with this guy 20 feet away! Now I am getting nervous, but a job to do, now do it!
Oh crap, lots of green, purple looking stuff up ahead, don't want to go into that for sure, tops look around 25 to 30 thousand, so maybe they will let us go SW to see if we can find a "saddleback" or a weak looking place to go through this mess. OK by ATC, turn left heading 210 and fly parallel to this stuff. By now we are scrapping up against the leading edges of clouds, but by and large staying VFR. A little rain shower up ahead, but no problem! Uh, oh, that is not rain, its small hail and almost at once the sounds coming off the bird sound like 100 chickens sliding off a tin roof. It lasted about 3 or 4 seconds and we were out of it.
Bullyboy calls and says, "where is Bugeye? During all the excitement of my first hail shaft I had forgot all about him. I look around and he is no where to be seen!
Called ATC, advised them one of our flight had disappeared and his location was unknown! About that time we locate a "saddleback", ask for ATC clearence on that heading and wa la, we were throught the boomers and headed for second stop but we had to find out about Bugeye.
After about 10 minutes and letting down into BMG, we were advised of a primary contact just west of Carroll county airport, SW of Atlanta. Unknown to us at the time, it was Bugeye and he landed at the first runway he spotted which was Carroll county. We had emergency contact phone numbers, he called and said he was resigning from flight training! It was the next day, because of the cold front, they flew an instructor up and returned him to Spence. Never did know what happened to him, but just a case of someone being afraid of flying. The brief hail shaft we flew through must have un-nerved him and he decided to give it up.
The rest of the trip was un-eventful and was good training for all of us!
