{"id":59,"date":"2010-08-09T15:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T19:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joeclarksblog.wordpress.com\/?p=59"},"modified":"2011-06-24T18:00:16","modified_gmt":"2011-06-24T22:00:16","slug":"real-pilots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/?p=59","title":{"rendered":"Real\u00a0Pilots"},"content":{"rendered":"
My wife took on one of the most daunting of all tasks: cleaning the garage.\u00a0 For me, there were risks involved.\u00a0 For instance, she might find photographs which could be incriminating, such as the one she found of me with my arm around that blonde.\u00a0 Oh, well\u2026\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
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While the possibility exists of her finding more incriminating evidence of my past life before we married, there is also the pleasure in her going through my souvenirs.\u00a0 She really wants to throw out a lot of stuff and she will come to me with something which makes no sense to her, but when I see it, I grab it, turn it over my hands, remember great times, and say, \u201cAh\u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>

T-28B Tail<\/p><\/div>\n

The latest mystical memento she brought from some box in the garage was my dzus key.\u00a0 I explain to her it was the way by which one could tell real<\/em> airplane pilots from ordinary pilots.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I hold the dzus key and tell her how we used them.\u00a0 I give details about the T-28B Trojan I first flew in the Navy. \u00a0The Trojan had multiple panels secured with dzus screws.\u00a0 We, who flew the Trojan, were issued dzus keys to help access the contents of these panels during our preflight inspections.\u00a0 \u201cThe T-34 Mentor pilots did not have dzus keys and we \u201928 pilots did.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I throw it away?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u00a0 This is very special,\u201d I explain.\u00a0 \u201cWe have to find a good place for this.\u201d \u00a0Not the answer she was looking for, and I notice her eyes trying to roll back into her head as she leaves the office.\u00a0 She really wants to get rid of a lot of stuff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But not my dzus key!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Holding the dzus key brings my mind back to the days at Whiting Field near Milton, Florida.\u00a0 There was nothing better than being a brand new ensign learning how to fly the Navy way in a huge T-28B Trojan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What a magnificent airplane!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The airplane grossed out at about 8250 pounds with two crewmen and a full bag of gas–178 gallons.\u00a0 A Wright Cyclone engine, Model R1820-86, producing 1425 horsepower for takeoff or at military power gave her the power to do almost anything in the sky. \u00a0What a kick in the pants!\u00a0 The amazing thing about the engine is that it could blow through the entire fuel capacity in about one hour.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

At altitude, fuel flow could be brought down to a manageable 40 gallons per hour giving the crew somewhat decent range, cruise speed, and endurance numbers, if you wanted to fly cross-country.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

My Dzus Key<\/p><\/div>\n

The Trojan did well in cross-country flying, but her forte was in maneuvering flight.\u00a0 For as large a plane as she was, she was nimble.\u00a0 The aeronautical engineers designed the flight controls very well; they were perfectly balanced and relatively light throughout their range of motion as well as the aircraft\u2019s speed envelope.\u00a0 One thing I really enjoyed doing with the airplane was spins.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

You would do your clearing turns, bring the nose up, and throttle back.\u00a0 Then, right at the stall break, feed in a bootful of rudder.\u00a0 The next thing you knew you would be over on your back with the nose falling through toward the ground.\u00a0 A moment later, she would stabilize in the upright position with the canopy bow just about at the horizon.\u00a0 When it came time to recover, full opposite rudder and forward stick would stop the rotation and break the stall and get you flying again in about half of a heart beat.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

No, I could never throw away my dzus key.\u00a0 It is my talisman to the T-28B and the days I flew real<\/em> airplanes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

-30-\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2010 J. Clark<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife took on one of the most daunting of all tasks: cleaning the garage.\u00a0 For me, there were risks involved.\u00a0 For instance, she might find photographs which could be incriminating, such as the one she found of me with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,8,9],"tags":[885,1041,1215,2312,2353,2393,2505,2950,2985,2986,3298,3432,3433,4262,4327],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-flying-2","category-life-in-general","category-personal","tag-cleaning-the-garage","tag-cross-country-flying","tag-dzus-key","tag-maneuvering-flight","tag-mementos","tag-milton-florida","tag-navy","tag-r1820-86","tag-real-airplane-pilots","tag-real-airplanes","tag-souvenirs","tag-t-28b-trojan","tag-t-34-mentor","tag-whiting-field","tag-wright-cyclone-engine"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3035,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeclarksblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}