Here’s a few stories I thought you maybe interested in, regarding the times
when I was exposed to the Mitchells while I was growing up.
Due to the fact that my father was involved with the Mitchells for such
along time 1974-1991, I was witness to a lot of different experiences that
most kids my age would never see or do.
One such time was in the summer of 1978 when I was 14 years old. My father
was employed by Northwestern Air Lease at this time and was flying CF-DKU
(this was the first year for this Mitchell to fly as an Air Tanker)
Because my father had to go North every summer (fire season) the only way
I got to see him during these years was to go up North also. Therefore
this particular summer my father had me fly up to Fort Smith
(commercially) to spend a month with him and ride the jockey seat behind
the co-pilot during fire calls. I can’t remember how many hours I got in
flying on fires but I do know that the month went by pretty quick as does
anything when you are having fun. Terry’s son Brian and Paul Holden were
flying CF-OND and Terry was flying CF-MWC. This particular story involves
losing an engine on CF-OND. I can’t remember if this happened during a
practice or on an actual fire call. Paul didn’t have a lot of round engine
time and was piloting CF-OND. On the track back to the airport, Paul blew
a jug (piston) on the starboard engine and didn’t recognize the symptoms
or was inexperienced on shutting down the engine and featuring it.
Needless to say, by the time they taxied up to the ramp the engine was so
badly contaminated with metal that CF-OND would require an engine change.
Terry called back to his partner Neil in Edmonton and had Neil’s son Rob
bring up another engine. Within 3 days Rob was there and the work began.
Because I was the youngest and probably the most naïve person around, all
the crew would play practical jokes on me while the work progressed on the
engine change. One such incident happened when we had finally removed the
old engine and we were stripping all the accessories off of it to put on
the new engine. Brian had me disconnect the hydraulic lines and the way my
body was situated I was directly below the lines. Well, when he saw that I
finally disconnected my side of the lines he blew air through it and I was
instantly covered in red hydraulic oil. Everyone had a good laugh but it
was all in good fun.
Within 3-4 days we had the new engine hung and we were ready for a test
flight. Now this is where things look funny looking back at it 24 years
later but at the time no one considered safety an issue. Because some of
the crew had their families up in Fort Smith too, everyone figured we
should all climb into CF-OND and go for a preliminary test flight. So,
here we go, five kids (including myself) and 6-7 adults all pile into this
old Mitchell for a test flight with a new engine that hasn’t proven
itself.
As you may know CF-OND has a glass nose, so all us kids climbed into the
nose section and had a great view. When we finally got airborne, instead
of getting any kind of altitude in case something happened with the new
engine, we flew at tree top level which I must say was a great thrill for
me while watching the trees go whipping by.
Luckily everything worked as expected and we returned to the airport. My father
wasn’t around at this time but I’m sure he probably wouldn’t have let me
go on a test flight seeing that his Air Force training would have kicked
in about potential problems that could have arisen.
By: Emerson - 7th February 2006 at 09:00
More Pictures of CF-OND
CF-OND
By: Peter - 6th February 2006 at 20:48
Neat stories.. makes for a refreshing read! Interesting to see the old RCAF colors on OND
By: Emerson - 5th February 2006 at 22:43
B-25 dropping a Load
C-GUNO
By: Emerson - 5th February 2006 at 22:37
B-25 over Fort Smith, N.W.T.
CF-MWC
By: Rocketeer - 5th February 2006 at 21:46
Fantastic experiences thanx for sharing them!
By: Emerson - 5th February 2006 at 19:51
Engine failure
Here’s another little story I thought you would get a kick out of. In 1978, I went up to Fort Smith to hang out with my father.
That particular year was average for the amount of fires that were fought (fire bombed)
This year, as I may have mentioned, was the first for CF-DKU. G+M Aircraft had Terry take DKU up to Smith on spec. (Meaning if any fires broke out that required more than 2 planes then DKU got some air time) The contract with the gov’t was only for two planes. Therefore, if MWC or OND didn’t fly at all, they still got money for sitting on the tarmac.
This first year for DKU as an Air Tanker was more of a trial period and if she got any flying time in, that was considered a bonus.
At the end of this particular season (end of August) things were winding down and Terry figured he would fly DKU back south to Edmonton and leave MWC & OND in Smith for a few more days to see if he could get anymore flying time in on them. Well, no sooner did Terry leave the Airport with DKU and my father said “let’s get the **** out of here”
There were only the 3 of us left (Myself, my father & Terry’s son Brian) all the rest of the crew either went back with Terry or with the bird dog plane.
So, we raced back to the living quarters and packed up our gear and loaded MWC with our stuff. It was getting to be early evening by the time we got airborne. Brian was riding shotgun so I figured I would just settle in with a book up in the nose. The nose on MWC was solid therefore you couldn’t see outside. I had seen enough aerial views by this time and it didn’t matter to me anymore if I could see outside or not. (Novelty had worn off)
We had been airborne for about 40 minutes and I could feel the plane bank. Wondering what was going on, I climbed back up to the cockpit. I didn’t have an internal communication headset on, so I tapped my father’s shoulder with a look on my face “what’s going on?” He pointed out to the port engine and when I looked I saw the propeller stationary and the blades featured back. Using body language he motioned for me to sit down and strap in. Because we were 40 minutes out, he elected to return to Fort Smith. Because I was only 14 years old, I didn’t grasp the situation at hand and we were flying level enough that I went back to reading my book. It must of felt like 20 hours for my father on the trip back, but to me it didn’t seem to take no time at all. When we started our final approach on the airstrip our descent was very steep and it almost felt like we were coming in at a 45 degree angle.(keeping our airspeed up to prevent stalling) I couldn’t help myself, but I had to look out and I could see a Boeing 737 waiting on the side of the tarmac as we touched down. As we maneuvered MWC back to our end of the airport my father told me that the Captain of the 737 had radioed him and congratulated him on the smooth landing. After shutting down the starboard engine I was told that we had blown a cylinder and piston and to prevent metal contamination to the engine my father elected to shut it down. After all this excitement, my father still insisted that he wanted to get home. So we threw our gear into OND and took off without delay and we had an uneventful flight home. A few days later my father and Brian had to drive back to Smith to replace the damaged cylinder and piston and fly it back to St.Albert.
By: Emerson - 5th February 2006 at 18:16
CF-OND
Present view of CF-OND
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February 5, 2006 at 6:04 pm