Story I posted sometime ago and I thought I would post something of a different story about something which happened a long time ago!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a young man, "superman" in my mind, bullet proof and all that that other stuff that young people tend to think of themselves, I took a job with a young freight outfit, flying out of Lakefront in New Orleans, La flying surplus C-45's and C-47's. We hauled cargo just about anywhere you could think of in the America's, both North and South. I made several trips to the Panama canal, Mexico City and other points South.
On this trip, I was hauling aluminum sheets and ingots to Nassau in the Bahamas'. Our "Gooneys" had floor rollers install, of course, for better and easier handing of cargo, loading and unloading. On this morning after arriving, filing a flight plan, pre flighting the old bird, a oil leak here, a oil leak there, oh, what the heck, just about 400 miles of open water to Tampa, should be no problem. (he, he). Then for some reason, something W.W. Taylor, an old "hump" C-46 and B-25 pilot once told me flashed into my mind, "there are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots"! Aw, what the heck, I know that I am smarter than that old guy! (he, he).
As I climbed the ladder to board, I immediately saw something I did not like! They had loaded the aluminum sheeting in the front of the cargo area, behind the cockpit and loaded the pallets of ingots in the rear, with about 10 foot of space behind the last 2 pallets and the door to the "head". I looked at them for a minute and told Jim, my co-pilot, "tell you what, if the tail doesn't come up by itself at 70 knots, we abort"!
We had some weight and balance charts to work with and as I worked up the CG location, it appeared to be OK, just a few degrees forward of the most rear position. That is based on those ground guys giving us the correct weigh of the sheeting and the ingots! Oh, well, if you want eat, you got to have money and to make money with this outfit, you had to fly, so off we go.
The tail came up at about 60 knots, so everything looked like "Roses", as I guess the load placement is OK.
Having filed direct Tampa, direct Fort Lauderdale, direct Nassau, should be about 7 hours total flight time and weather was supposed to CAVU all the way. climbing out to 11,000 feet, clearing departure area and in contact with center, everything looked "Roses". Sometimes "dumb and happy" equals scared and uh, oh, have messed up my underwear", and that certainly turned out to be the case this time around. I had a few mishaps before flying some the junk I had been flying, a wheels up landing in a C-45 because of a un-safe light on right main, but feathered right engine on long final, and left one across the fence, cranking it until prop was more or less level, so as to not hurt the prop or engine, made a normal landing, wiped out some antennas on the bottom, skinned up the belly a little, but no big thing. Got an extra $50.00 from company for not screwing up the props or engines on that one. Lost oil pressure on left engine of 47 going into Mexico City, but no big deal either, that's why they put two engines on these things (or so I have been told).
About an 1 and 1/2 hours out of Lakefront, we came up on one those gaggle of thunderstorms that the gulf of Mexico is famous for at night and it had not settled down yet, so we were going to have to deviate around some stuff in front of us! On this bird, we had a good AVQ-47 RCA radar, which worked real good, so didn't see a problem. Hunt as I might, I could not see an area where we could stay at least 10 miles from a cell, as I was supposed to do, but did see a area which there was about 6 miles between cells, but I didn't like the looks of the tops of those guys, but what the heck, (no old pilots, or something like that flashed in my mind again), we slowed the bird down to 140 knots and I told Jim, if it gets to rough, we will go down to 120 and lower gear!
In we go, a lot of heavy, heavy rain, window on my side leaking a little bit, some bumps but nothing to bad, then all of a sudden the big one, first big jolt pitched the nose up and of course I pushed forward on elevator to get it back down, then a second really bad jolt and we popped out the other side of the cell area, with the nose up about 10 degrees or so and about 40 degrees off heading. I pushed forward again on yoke to level us back out, but almost at once I notice that I am applying almost full down elevator to get the nose down. Uh, oh, this aren't right "Tater", so you better figure out what is going on!
I sent Jim back to the back and the last two pallets had broken loose and sled all the way back to the "head" door and because there was about 6 feet of floor space behind the last rollers and these two were about completely off the rollers and me and him and about 3 or 4 more was not going to push that 800 lb pallet back in place. Well, OK, we are still flying, I still have a little nose down trim left after trimming for straight and level flight, so shouldn't be a problem. (again, old, bold pilots flashed through my mind)
Then I got to thinking, we are burning about 60 gallons of fuel per hour or 360 lbs per hour or there abouts and as your burn fuel, your CG moves to the rear! With only a few degrees of nose down trim left, wonder how long it would take before I could no longer keep it straight and level, hands off and be able to land this thing? I had already been having to inch the trim forward to keep the nose down as it was so I thought, "Tater", you better get this thing on the ground ASAP! Where though is another matter, Lake City is not far away, but would have no help in repositioning the cargo, Tampa still about an hour away, but do I have a hour left of trim for a safe landing? Tallassee is only about 45 minutes or so away if I turn North right now and we should be able to get some help with the cargo and be on our way. By now, I had declared an emergency to ATC, so they knew what was going on. I told them I was diverting to Tallassee and would like direct please. They promptly cleared me and had me contact Valdosta approach.
I was still having to apply down nose trim and I was almost all the way forward, so I begin to do some things to find out what my options were! I first reduced the power as I wanted to get lower anyway, so that helped a little but not much. I could still trim it at 6,000 feet for straight and level, hands off, but really wondered when I approached at 100 knots, what was this thing going to handled like?
I slowed down, dropped the gear, applied some flap and as we got below 120 knots, this thing was getting "squirrelly" so now I was getting nervous about the landing for sure. I still have about 15 minutes or so to the airport, but do I take a chance of crashing and burning(always wondered if I could get out this window on my side) or should I turn around and while I have control, put it into the gulf? That way, we probably wouldn't burn, but doubt if we could get the life raft of the emergency hatch on left side but as I thought about it for 30 seconds or so, I decided we would be better off with the crash equipment if needed at Tallassee, so on we pushed.
As I thought about it and in light of the tests which I had just ran, decided the best landing would be a flaps up, wheels down, of course, hold 130 knots on final, they had 9,000 feet of runway then, get on the "binders" real quick and should be able to stop OK.
As was the norm for that time of year, fog was all over the place in the pan handle area, so an approach down to 800 feet should not be a problem, if we had no control problems, as I was now out of nose down trim and was having to hold a little forward pressure on yoke all the time, to maintain level flight at 3,000 feet. I told Jim not to pump down the gear for lock, until we passed the outer marker, then down gear, then we would try just a little flap to see what would happen and then, I guessed by now, crash straight ahead and hope for the best. I told Jim to open his window by the marker and I opened mine to. We saw the "rabbit" and I was holding almost full forward elevator but felt like I had enough left to handle everything. 130 knots on the nose, gear down and runway coming up. Touch down wasn't anything to brag about, but got it planted and stepped on the binders and as we slowed to about a 100, the tail came down and then things got really interesting as I was having trouble keeping it straight and of course those red trucks, bless their guys hearts, are tearing down on us because I am sure it looked like we going off the runway at one time.
Morale of this story: Don't trust nylon tiedown straps, if you have an emergency involoving control of the aircraft, while you are high enough, find out how its going to act as you slow down for landings.
After getting out and noticing Jim walking away with his seat of his pants wet, I asked him, Did you have a lot of water coming though on your side, "laughing he said no".
Guess I knew then he was nervous to. He only had about 140 hours total fight time and only about 15 hours in the C-47. Don't you dare for one minute that you think ole "Tater" wasn't nervous to, but I didn't wet my pants! We rearranged the cargo, refiled and finish making the trip!
