My T-33 partner had just finished our second night as an Air Defense Exercise Target out of CFB Moosejaw, Canada. It was just short of 0300 in the am when we landed and parked on the transient aircraft ramp. We were expecting to put the jet to bed and do so ourselves. Much to our amazement a fuel truck pulled up in front of us and a half dozen Canadian Forces troops surround our jet and start servicing it. Totally amazing and never to be expected south of the boarder. These Canadians always treated us like royalty. The crew lead asks us if we want to launch for home. We look at each other and say why not? We’re only about six hours into our max authorized twelve hour crew duty day and it’s a less than three hour flight down to Pete Field at Colorado Springs. Why not?! We’ll get home essentially a day earlier and have a rare three day weekend in front of us.
While the Canucks are servicing the jet, we go into base ops, check weather at home (only 200 miles visibility, calm wind, and temperature easily 80 degrees warmer than here), and file our flight plan.
We step outside for the short walk to the now ready T Bird which has a running electric power cart hooked up to the receptacle aft of the right wing root. The temperature is incredibly cold and the wind just makes it more so. Any exposed skin is burning from the intense cold. It’s my turn in the front seat. So, I do a very expeditious walk around while my pal climbs in the back seat and hunkers down out of the wind while strapping in.
I hop in and do the same while lowering the canopy. A quick cockpit set up, raise the canopy, give the crew chief the start engine signal, and hit the starter. In the short 20 minutes that the jet was on the ramp it has become cold soaked and cranky. The start sequence is going, but slowly. As the RPM gets up to the proper speed, I introduce fuel and the igniters take over. We have fire as the engine lights off. With the start completed and idle RPM finally achieved, I give the crew chief a power disconnect signal, salute him, and wave him off to the ops building. He and everyone else disappeared inside instantly. All those guys out in that biting cold at nearly 4 o’clock in the morning to launch us. Impressive royal treatment Canuks!
Call for taxi and start forward. It takes more thrust than normal to get her moving because of the cold, icy ramp and both main tires are cold with flat spots where they stuck to the ramp. As we turn out of the ramp onto the taxiway, the synchronized hard flat spots on the mains become unsynchronized and present a wobbling ride to the end of the runway. We do the checks and call for taxi. The tower controller actually answers at just after 4 am. Impressive again Canuks!. We just figured on taxing out and leaving unannounced.
I line us up on the runway and pour the coals to it. We lift off in very short order due the bitter cold and gale force wind. I raise the gear lever to the up position and you quessed it! They don’t retract! The gear indicators have DWN, Barber pole (in transit), and UP displays. Normally upon raising the gear handle, the indicators would show DWN..Barber pole..UP in rapid sequence. There was nothing rapid at all going on this morning. The hydraulic fluid was frozen and not cycling the gear. Crap! We are going to have to go back and land if something doesn’t chance. We contemplate the situation and decide to cycle the gear handle to the down position, wait a couple of potatoes, and the back to the up position. So, I do the cycle and at first nothing. Then there’s a faint DWN..Barber pole flicker in one of the mains, then the other then, then the nose gear. I take up our departure heading, hoping for the best. The hydraulic fluid is now starting to flow, sort of. We are getting full cycling of the indicators in all three windows. It’s obvious the gear have started to move but were not up. As we continue to climb, there’s more movement, although slow and erratic. I’m careful to keep the airspeed well below the max gear extension and extended speeds. Now it’s a concern if these things are going to retract all the way as we climb into even colder air.
The very last thing we want to do is go back to Moosejaw and force those Canuks to get out of bed, or the bar, and come back out on the ramp. We decide to cycle the gear handle again. I do so, and that somehow encouraged the hydraulic fluid to move. All three gear indicators were ever so slowly moving from Barber Pole to UP. All three are now showing UP and stay there. One more “Never had that happen before” event for the memory bank.
We climb up to 35,000 and continue heading south toward the border. Further south, we check in with Denver Center and I ask for direct to Pete Field. The controller gives us “cleared as requested” and an initial heading since the Korean War Vintage jet has no advanced long range navigation gear. Sunrise is in progress and its a crystal clear morning with amazing visibility. As I peer over the nose, I can see the morning light starting to reflect off of buildings in Denver, about 200 miles south. Farther south, I can make out Pete Field and runway 17/35 that we will land on. I ask the controller which way Pete Field was landing and he replies “North”. I’ve been getting tired and bored and start doing some mental math about our glide distance. In the schoolhouse at Tyndall, we were taught SFOs (Simulated Flameout) patterns. We also practiced them constantly anywhere we could get approve from a controller. So, I pitch a bet to my bud. “I’ll bet I can pull the power to idle up here and glide all the way to downwind and land north without touching the power”.
In practice SFOs we did them at idle and were required for safety purposes to burst the throttle slightly to ensure there wasn’t a surprise at a low unrecoverable altitude. So, we agreed to do the throttle burst on downwind abeam the approach end of 17. That way if the engine didn’t respond, I could turn in shorter to the runway and make it safely. We agreed on an outlandish bet requiring some sort of beer activity.
If memory serves me, my calculated descent point was about 130 miles north of Pete Field. I asked the Denver Center Controller for descent at pilot’s discretion. He approved. We reached my calculated point and I reduced power to idle, set up best glide speed, and started a lazy descent. Getting in closer, we were switched over to Colorado Springs Approach control and I requested a downwind SFO from present position. Approved. At this point we were in the vicinity of the Black Forrest north of Pete Field.
Closer into the airport, Approach switched us over to Tower frequency. I check in and he clears us to land on runway 35. I’ve intentionally maintained a higher altitude than needed so I would have options closer in. As we get to the high downwind leg, I configure gear down and flaps for the SFO. Some gentle S turns to bleed off excess altitude and we arrive at the downwind abeam point. I do they agreed upon throttle burst and the engine responds normally. Back to the idle stop and start the base turn slightly high. We roll out on final and I use a combination of S turn and speed increase to assure my target touchdown zone in the first third of the runway. Still at idle, we float across the runway approach overrun, touchdown, and rollout. The Tower controller gives us turnoff instructions and I push up power to make it upslope to the assigned taxiway. We taxi in to the ramp, park, chock, shutdown, safe the seats, and climb down to the ramp.
It’s a bit past 7 in the morning and time to drag bags home, take a long nap, meet up at the O Club for Happy Hour, and start collecting on my bet. My back seater is fit to be tied that I actually pulled that off.
