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Corpus T-34 Down
- Thread starter Ken_gone_flying
- Start date
Coasties... small hands, smell like cabbage.
By the way, this is not an official navy website. You toolbags try and keep your tools in the bags.
By the way, this is not an official navy website. You toolbags try and keep your tools in the bags.
Wasn't there an incident a logn time ago when one guy bailed out of a T-34 and the other pilot didn't know about it until well after the fact?
I vaguely recall a story where a bird came through the windscreen and exploded all over the front cockpit after hitting the stud in the face and knocking him out (I think it was one of his first fam flights). The IP thought the student was dead and couldn't see well enough to land from the back because of all the blood and guts so he bailed out. From what I remember I think the the stud came to and actually flew back and landed the plane. I heard that story a few lost brain cells ago so I could be off on some of the details.
Something like that happened in Kingsville in a T-45, except the IP landed the jet from the back seat without being able to see much other than blood on the glass that separates the canopy front and back. Not sure if something like that happened in a T-34
That would be an awkward debrief. "Sooo sir do I get one above?"
I *think* you may have remembered hearing about the accident narrative of the VA-44 TA-4J in Dec. '69. I was an IP in the squadron at the time. Low level nav ("Sandblower"), over the Okeefenokee Swamp in SE Georgia. Late afternoon, @ 200', 360kts, took a mallard duck on the side of the canopy adjacent to the IP's head (rear seat). The canopy shattered and the duck smashed IP's face, shattering his visor, gouging out one eyeball, and severely lacerating the other.
Blinded, with ICS inop... thinking it had been a mid-air, the IP ejected. Not sure what was with the sudden ejection, the RP orbited his downed IP notifying center, and calmly initiating and directing the SAR until relieved, then returned landing safely at Cecil Field. After a 6-hour period of search & transit, the injured pilot was rescued by a swamp vehicle and transported to the NAS Jax hospital. The IP, a RNZAF Squadron Leader (O-4) exchange pilot, was also the OinC of the RNZAF Pilot and maint contingent undergoing training in the A-4 at VA-44, prior to integrating their newly acquired A-4K aircraft into 75 Squadron. I had been assigned as the Donaldson family sponsor Officer upon their arrival, and we had become close friends.
The severely injured IP SqdnLdr W. "Ross" Donaldson, had been slated to be the first A-4 CO of 75 Sqdn, but of course, that was cancelled because he could never again fly single seat aircraft. I visited Ross in New Zealand in 1979, 5 years after I retired from USN, while on a 6-month tour of Australia and NZ. He had remained on active duty, and some 11 years after his tragic mishap, had risen to Group Captain (O-6), and was then CO of RNZAF Base Blenheim, on the South Island. Ross kindly hosted me at his BOQ for a month while I toured NZ. He retired from the RNZAF in 1980, and sadly, passed away to cancer in '92.
RIP Ross, my "Kiwi" Squadronmate, we'll share a NZ LION Lager upon my arrival!
*SqdnLdr Donaldson and his "personal' VA-44 TA-4J,
note 'Kiwi'symbol and nameplate under canopy.
BzB
There wasn't a debrief - IP was airlifted direct to the hospital.
He also lost an eye - reason you have eye pro.
Something almost identical happened in the T-34 out of Whiting, the IP was in the front seat and was knocked out by a bird on takeoff for a night training flight and the student flew the plane until short final when the IP woke up, took over and landed the plane. The IP lost much of his vision in one eye, he was Coast Guard and the student was a Marine who got a meritorious Air Medal for his actions.
A few more details from this thread a few years ago.