The only two things which I feared most, in all the years of my flying were "fire and ice", with thunderstorms a distant third! Most of the time, I never purposely flew into known "icing" conditions without having equipment on the aircraft to deal with it! Some aircraft are better equipped to deal with ice than others. Light twins for example, usually have only "prop" deicing equipment as standard equipment, but I have flown a lot of light twins which had "boots" on the wing and tail leading edges. Used to fly a Beech Baron "B" model, which had all the boots you could ask for, the thing even had a flight director, a Collins FD-104, which worked great.
The ferry company I was flying for asked me to deliver a surplus C-47 from Mexico City to Gander. Newfoundland. where a international crew would pick it up and deliver it the rest of the way to Saudi Arabia in the mid East. I guess it was to be used in the oil fields someway!
First of course, that seemingly never ending "paper trail", which back then, was extensive, if you are delivering a surplus military aircraft across international boundaries'. Thank goodness for "Ruth", at the home office and other than "field" paper work, which I had to do, made the process a lot simpler. My work consisted of making sure all log books were in order, all inspections required completed, flight plan in hand for customs and etc.
Everything looked in good order and other than clearing out the bird nests in the engines and wheel wells, its time to fire her up and get started. I took us two days to get the thing fired up and running to my satisfaction before we were able to get airborne on the first leg. After much study and etc, I decided on as much a direct route as we could go, even with the approach of a cold front, which looked like we would be passing in front or the East side of the front on our way up, the only questionable area's were from Washington to Boston, then we would be on the "back side" of the front!
Route of flight would look like this: Mexico City to Corpus Christy to Houston, to Knoxville, to Washington then Boston, the direct Gander! Made sure I had all the Jepp charts I needed, plus some VFR maps, you know, just in case of radio failure. You might know, the only thing working was a Norco system, but it had ILS capability so what the heck, I would "pee" on a spark plug in those days for 1200.00 dollars!
After double checking everything and the smoking engines settling down after burning off the oil in the bottom cylinders, lined it up on the runway, locked the tail wheel and away we went! As we rolled down the runway, it kept trying to veer to the right and "Foxy Knoxie", my trusty side kick, who sometimes passed as a co-pilot, announced, "Boss, the right engine tach is showing about a 100RPM less than the left". By now, its getting "light" on its feet and I said OK, we will figure it out when we get airborne. It never did "match" up with the left engine, because we flew it all the way with the prop levers "split" just a bit, so was no real problem, other than me having to "tune" the props by ear, instead of prop sync. You always want that steady drone, not that osculating sound left and right all the time! I would drive you nuts!
First leg was no big deal, just getting used to all the little noises and vibrations of any aircraft which you were not familiar with, but still, I had this "nagging" little notion in the back of my mind, which told me something was amiss with that right engine! Was it the tach, or was there some reason it would turn the "R's" at full increase and full throttle like the left did.
About 2 hours into the flight, I begin to notice that the right main fuel gauge was decreasing faster than the left main. I always burned the mains down to about 40%, then burned the outers because a DC-3 or C-47 was much more stable with less fuel in the mains than in the outer fuel tanks. I got to watching the fuel flow and fuel pressure gauges and nothing appeared to be a problem, yet, why are we losing more fuel, if this dang gauge is right, out of the right main? OK, so we are going to check this out at Corpus Christy and try to figure out what is up!
Landed, cleared customs, could find nothing wrong visibly with right main, at least nothing which was apparent, such as a fuel leak. But the darn thing did take 35 or 40 galleons more than the left main to fill back up, so what the heck is going on? Then I got to thinking, I remember when I was checking the logs, the right windshield was replaced due to a bird strike and had been leaking water in rain showers! Maybe that was the problem, everything behind the instrument panel has gotten wet at one time, so now, I understand why only one radio is working, but that shouldn't have anything to do with the difference in fuel burn! That's almost an hours difference at cruise power settings between the two engines. As I stood there, pondering the situation, "Tater", you better be right on this decision. I could see my1200.00 dollars beginning to disappear and I said to Knoxie, lets go to New Orleans, and check it again and see what happens. The weather was really good and good bit of daylight left, so off we went again.
If you have ever done much flying late in the day, it looks darker in the direction if you are flying to the East and with approaching darkness, now we learn that there are thunderstorms in the Lakefront area. We had an old Bendix radar, don't remember the model, but I remember it had about a 4 inche display and I had flown behind one these before and if you saw anything on it, you better turn around and go the other way!! About all it was good for was to fill a hole in the instrument panel!!
Contact approach control, vectors for ILS runway 36, which is the main runway. They now have a second runway of about 3,000 feet, which most general aviation aircraft use, but I don't think it was there when this trip happened. I just don't remember!
We had flown on the mains for about 1 hour, then used the aux, or outer fuel cells until approach time, so when we landed, had it fueled up and again, it took 45 galleons or so more than the left main. So, with my trusty flashlight, umbrella in hand, I walk around this fuel tank area to see where in the heck is that fuel going? Its raining, so I really couldn't see all that great, even with the flashlight. Again, I am standing there pondering what to do next, stay the night and go on tomorrow or fly this thing like "skipping" a rock over water, landing every so often to refuel? Lets go I said, so off we went again, its late December and I want get this thing to Gander before that front catches us over the Appalachian mountains after we departed Knoxville, Tenn. We takeoff about 8:00PM, as I recall, which meant Knoxville about 1AM, but we were going to have a "tail" wind for most of this leg at 11,000 feet.
It was still IFR when we took off and climbing out, we would run into a "bump" every now and then, but after about 8,000 everything settle down and we were VFR on "Top" all the way to Chattanooga, Tenn, where, once again, we start entering cloud layers and I told Jim, "that doggone front is moving faster than forecast because look at what they just told us to expect at KNX, an ILS, its down to 1100 overcast, 2,000 broken, with rain showers and 1/2 mile visibility! We had burned our outers down to 20 galleon each and switched to mains some time back and I was figuring in my mind, I will have 80 galleon left in left main, does that mean I will still have 40 galleons left in the right main for landing! Sure, the smarter than anybody else, bullet proof mind set took over all sense of returning to Chattanooga, spending the night and finding out what was going on with that fuel loss. So, on we go, coming up on the outer marker now and wouldn't you know it, the right engine starts dying!! Oh dang, "Tater", now you are in a mess as you picked up a good little load of rime ice while descending for the approach, so now what, if you miss the approach and have to go around, on one engine, will this old tired horse float long enough to execute the missed approach and come back again for landing? We crossed the middle marker and nothing in sight and I had a sinking feeling that we were going to have to go around. So, again, smarter than anybody else and bullet proof mind took over and we kept descending! Boss we are at DH, Knoxie said real LOUD and I replied, we are landing here, keep your head out front and let me know when you see something! "Boss, we are at 100 feet, for gosh sakes, pull up!! So I told him, go full power good engine and start right engine on right aux, which he did in record time I guess, because with one engine, were climbing about 250 FPM and as soon as the right engine came on line, it jumped to about 750 FPM! Around we went, shot the approach with no problem that time and landed.
Turns out there is a return line from carb to right main, which picks up the over flow to the engine at high power settings and is attached to the side of the main at the top side had come loose at some time in the past and fuel was being pumped right into the right wing, which it would run to rear spar area, then because of the dihedral of the wing, would then go to the wheel well area and exit the aircraft. They later found fuel all the way back in the fuselage area, back where the baggage compartment was, so no telling how long this event had been occurring.
I had eluded "fate" again! How long can I be lucky, because one little spark in the wrong place and we would have been a "Roman Candle" that night!
What should I have done? I should have never left Corpus Christy until we knew what was going on with that fuel loss! But again, mind set of young, smarter than everybody else and bullet proof took over and common sense went right out the window!!!!!
