Sharing our Links to the Past
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TID-BITS OF LOCKHEED HISTORY AS TOLD BY FIRMAN C. GRAY (6-6-57) Every year we would get the Lockheed airplanes that were to participate in the Bendix race and prepare them for this flight. This one year, we had five around at different locations in the factory, the terminal or any outhouse we had on the field--with a different crew assigned to each individual airplane. Each pilot had some secret gadget or some piece of equipment that was going to win the race for him. Lee Shonehare [Leland F. Shoenhair] produced some red fluid that he would add after the tanks were filled. We found out that he called this stuff after some girl by the name of Ethel, We tried some of it in our cars, but it did nothing for us but burn up our spark plugs. We decided it didn't have much future for automobiles.
One day Jimmie Doolittle [James H. Doolittle] brought his Orion in for service. Among the things to be done were that someone had used the cabin in an emergency, and he wanted it deodorised. We did everything we could, but did not have much luck. In desperation, I gave some money to Harvey Christian and asked him to get me a bottle of perfume from Burbank. Later, I could not understand why Jimmie chased me all over the plant. It smelled different at least, and was the best we could get for l5 cents.
We occasionally equipped a Vega with pontoons. The procedure was to fly the plane to Terminal Island and install the pontoons, do our flying and then reverse the operation. Tod Oviatt knows about this: On one occasion, the CAA pilot had made a flight and socked it down pretty hard. We hauled the plane out, but could find nothing wrong. Next morning we got ready for another flight and, as a CAA pilot had not shown up, we had our pilot and a mechanic take the plane about half a mile off shore and wait until he received a signal from us to return. In about 20 minutes, we noticed one wing tip down and realized the plane was slowly sinking. We frantically tore up and down the beach trying to get the attention of the crew but, as they were both back in the cabin asleep, we had no luck. Finally they realized something was wrong and we got some action. In those days, you hand-cranked the engine and on this occasion, the mechanic stood on the half submerged pontoon endeavoring to make a start. By the time they had the engine running, they had been kicked into the swells on the beach and, by the time we had installed our auxiliary handling wheels, the tail had been smashed by the waves and we were all half drowned.
During the womens' race one year, Herb Fay's [Herbert J. Fahy] wife cracked her plane up at Yuma, Arizona. Herb flew a Vega down, and he cracked it up on the desert landing strip. We loaded a Vega with lots of wood and had Marshal Headle--who had only just arrived and had never flown a Vega before--fly myself and Bill Morris down. We got lost over Mexico, but eventually arrived. The downed airplane had eight or ten feet broken off one wing and a smashed landing gear. We sent for Mop Basolo and a crew of wood butchers and went to work. It was 130 degrees in the day time and cooled off to 127 at night, It was pretty bad until we learned to drink three or four gallons of water a day and perspire. We worked day and night because you couldn't sleep anyway. One night I dropped on the sand and went to sleep and when someone stumbled over me, I awoke to find I was covered with bugs from head to foot. I guess the bugs thought I was dead. Speaking of Lockheed firsts--the first retractable landing gear was a contraption installed in the wing on the Altair. It was operated by cables, pulleys and a little winch in the cockpit, Eventually we got it to work good enough to fly. The Army became interested in it and decided to buy it. Captain Ira [C.] Eaker came to Lockheed to take delivery and when he arrived, he wanted to go to San Diego. However, I guess he hadn't made a $20.00 down payment, so I went along with him to retain possession and to help him with the gear if necessary. The trip down was uneventful until we got set to land without the gear down. I kicked the Captain in the seat and admonished him in soothing words it might be better if it was down. During our stay at North Island, we aroused a lot of interest, with subsequent pictures and writeups in Popular Mechanics, and so forth. When we were ready to return, the engine caught fire on starting. With the help of the Navy and a half dozen bottles of Foamite, we stopped that. After scraping the Foamite from the wing and engine, we took off and eventually arrived over Union Air Terminal. We circled low, with the gear down, to make a turn into the factory. We had a couple of back fires and the Captain really set her down on the terminal. He asked, "What should we do now?" and I suggested we switch to another tank and hedge hop into the factory field. We took off from a standing start and clipped the trees into the factory, making a hard landing on the very end, bouncing 30 feet into the air, coming straight down hard to a stop. We then taxied up to a ramp where Carl Squire, Harvey and the rest greeted us with silent enthusiasm. Later it was said that this airplane was landed at Cleveland air races with the wheels up. I guess he had no kicking partner.
On a service trip to Seattle, Dick Von Hake [Richard A. Von Hake] and I waited for three days for the fog and smoke to clear so that we could return to Burbank. Finally, when we could see the end of the field, we took off. We got lost up a blind canyon and Dick got sick, so we ended up at O1ympia. After an hour, Dick got better; and, as we didn't like the town, we discussed with the lone attendant at the field how to get out of there. It was simple--you took off, followed the railroad and, when you got to a "Y" in the tracks, you took the right hand branch. As all this required flying at a low altitude, we were cautioned to look out for tall trees. We eventually made it to Portland. Next morning, we took off and, when we arrived over Eugene, Oregon, we decided to land and check on the weather ahead. It was O.K., so we took off again and, as evening came on over Bakersfield, we realized our gas supply was not all that could be desired. While we were "hemming and hawing", we got over the ridge and decided to coast in. Next morning, we found we had three gallons of gas to spare--non-stop Portland to Burbank.
On one occasion, Amelia Earhart had her Vega in for service. One of our regular fixes was repairing broken tail skid ring. It required crawling over the baggage ccmpartment into the fuselage and working in a reclining position. On this occasion, I had Fred Jones, a depression bankrupt builder from Santa Monica and a really good guy and gentleman, workng on this repair. Amelia was always interested in the work on her plane, and while I was showing her around, she expressed the desire to see how we made the repair on the tail skid ring. I told her to go ahead, showed her how to crawl in the back, and told Fred to show her the repairs he was making. She crawled in and out and we continued on our inspection. Poor Fred didn't get over blushing for a week.
Incidentally, Fred Jones was the one who sent us Streamline--an alligator from the wilds of Louisiana when he went down there to work for Wadell Williams. Tod Oviatt bought Tailspin to keep Streamline company, and we constructed a pool for them out by the hangar. One day Contact climbed the fence and did battle with both alligators until we caught them at it. This was the second occasion that Contact had to do with bath water.
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