July 2013
I had wrangled myself an invitation to see and fly a particularly historic C-47A…
(Note: The parenthetical passages are from Ernest K. Gann’s novel, “Island in the Sky.”)
Last time we were together (May 2013) I wrote about aviation books that have meant a great deal to me. One novel was not only a great inspiration in my teenage and very early years of learning to fly, it was also the emotional engine that caused me to reach out so many years later and finally live the dream that those magic words on that novel’s printed page had evoked and nurtured.
The novel was Ernest K. Gann’s “Island in the Sky.” I instantly loved the book, but I absolutely adored the movie that followed it. The novel (1944) and subsequent movie (1953) chronicled the story of a World War II transport downed in the Canadian wintertime wilderness, and the film is chock-full of fabulous flying scenes.
If the storyline wasn’t enough, the movie starred John Wayne (as Dooley, the aircraft commander of the Corsair), James Arness, Andy Devine and a gaggle of Army Air Corps C-47 transports. To my mind, it was quite a flick.
Armed with all that, I had wrangled myself an invitation to see and fly a particularly historic C-47A a dozen-plus years ago that was owned and operated by the Valiant Air Command in Titusville, Fla.
With my host Bob James leading the way, we completed a comprehensive walkaround while I learned the history and details about Tico Belle. It was finally time to climb on board and fly.
The inside of the C-47A’s cabin was cavernous and, because of the spartan interior, the roundness of the airframe was very apparent. The passageway to the cockpit was a narrow slit down the middle of lots of gear and airframe structure. Like many of the transport ships of that era—and also of Dooley’s Corsair from the movie—the wartime crew complement was normally five: pilot, copilot, flight engineer, radio operator and navigator.
The navigator’s desk was on the aft end of the flight deck, left side. The astrodome was in the roofline of the narrow center aisle, where the navigator would take his sextant shots at the stars. On the floor was the drift meter, where he could, when possible, take ground sightings to figure out the wind.
The radio operator sat at his own small console opposite the navigator’s station, with controls for the dynamo—the device for turning DC current into AC for the radios—and the Morse code key. Each of those men had their own little slit of a window for looking out, where they could see just a hint of the respective engine cowl and wingtip.
The pilot’s end of the ship was another narrow squeeze. There was enough hardware scattered around the cockpit—levers, valves, piping—to make the interior look more like a steam locomotive than an airplane.
Once I slid into the copilot’s seat, though, it was comfortable enough. The side windows slid back and usually stayed that way in warm weather—and sometimes in cold weather, when it was time to reach outside to scrape the ice off the windshields, or just to get a clear look outside instead of staring ahead at the opaque glass that winter flying inside of frozen clouds would often bring.
Each pilot had a big, round control wheel of his own, but they shared the pedestal controls. Handles for the props were on the left, throttles in the center, mixtures on the right. Lots of other knobs and gadgets protruded here and there. What little labeling was in evidence had been mostly worn off by the rubbing of countless hands over nearly countless hours. There was an elevator trim wheel on either side of the pedestal controls and a magnetic compass at the center post where the cockpit’s two large glass windshield panels met.
We started engines, two 1,200 hp Pratt & Whitneys, and they loped to life in short order. Once we had cleared the hangar line, Bob James, in the left seat, gave me some clues for taxiing this big tailwheel machine.
I took over from the right seat, since the job could be done equally well (or equally poorly) from either side. Lock the tailwheel when you want to go straight ahead; use brakes and differential engine power when you don’t.
After the runup, we finished the checklist and were ready to go. Since it was a warm day, we would run with the side windows slid mostly open—although closing them didn’t make much difference in the noise level. The headsets and intercom between us were obviously good things to have.
James would make the first takeoff and landing himself as a demonstration of how to handle the ship. Takeoff speed target was 85 knots; we would be climbing at 95.
Flaps up, controls free, fuel on the mains, onto the runway centerline and lock the tailwheel. Throttles up smoothly, we rolled straight ahead with the tailwheel held down for a short while, then James pushed forward on the control column to put the C-47 up on its main gear.
Thirty knots later he pulled back on the yoke and Tico Belle lifted itself off and into a steady climb. When the gear was up and locked, I took the airplane and continued the climb, then did some turns and descents.
Roll control was slow, and it took lots of wheel movement to get it, but it was more of a friendly wallow than anything adverse. Ditto for rudder and elevator.
We headed back to the airport, where James demonstrated the first approach and landing to a full stop. Taxiing clear, I took control of Tico Belle.
(The most valuable of Dooley’s weapons was his experience in the air… he was flying in an aluminum cocoon, as separate from earthly things as if he had yet to be born… the ship could be a living, useful thing only as long as it could be mastered.)
Lined up with the runway, tailwheel locked, a moderate quartering crosswind. I fed in the engine power slowly, carefully, and danced on the rudder pedals to keep Tico Belle tracking true. The sense of this airplane being very much a rudder-controlled machine—at least on or near the ground—was very strong. I pushed the tail up, then soon hauled back and we were airborne.
Around the pattern at 100 knots the C-47 wasn’t hostile, but did call for lots of anticipation on my part if something needed to be changed. Airspeed on final approach, in particular, wasn’t affected as much by power changes as by flap changes.
Close to the ground, I broke the descent slightly at 767 cockpit height, then pushed forward to pin the mains. A slight bounce and we were on, then throttles back and ease the tailwheel down, more dancing on the rudders, small stabs at the wheel brakes, and I cleared the runway at the end.
After a few more takeoffs and landings I felt pretty comfortable, although this big tailwheel transport was not the sort of airplane you could force into doing something that it didn’t want to do. There were evil ramifications in getting the tail up too soon or too late on takeoff, or trying to force it down too soon on landing.
The bottom line was that the Tico Belle—and the Corsair, and all their sister ships—had much stronger personalities than most modern aircraft. If the ship ever took a notion that it didn’t like something the pilot was trying to do, the airplane would let you know about it immediately, in no uncertain terms.
As if to punctuate my own impressions, I learned soon afterward that, unfortunately, just a week after I had flown Tico Belle, it was considerably damaged by a different crew returning from an airshow. The accident occurred on the very runway that we had operated on.
As the NTSB reported, the airplane “collided with runway 27… upon touchdown the airplane bounced about three feet into the air. On the second landing the airplane veered left. On the third landing the airplane was pointing about 80 degrees nose right of runway heading.”
Damage was extensive, but the Tico Belle was brought back to flying condition again after several years of volunteer work and the necessary financial contributions needed for the extensive restoration. In all, it took eight years to get Tico Belle to be a flyable portion of the Valiant Air Command fleet once again.
You can read all about the airplane at the Valiant Air Command’s website; you can visit the museum in Florida to see it (and all of Valiant Air Command’s other displays); and you can even hitch a ride on this famous C-47A. They tell me that once every month a demonstration/sightseeing flight is scheduled out of Titusville. (See Resources at the end of the column for contact information. —Ed.)
For more details about Ernest K. Gann’s movie, go to my own website at ThomasBlockNovels.com where I have a dedicated section for “Airline movies we’ve loved.” That page has a clickable link to lead you to the actual 1953 movie trailer for “Island in the Sky” (watch it; I know you’ll enjoy it) and it might motivate you to get a copy of the movie itself, which is available through Amazon and other sources.
My time at the controls of Tico Belle was everything that I had hoped for, and it’s a great memory to have. One of my bucket list items had been checked off, and it’s a satisfying feeling to finally feel like a small but real part of the great aviation book and movie that had meant so much to me for the past 60-plus years. If you feel the same, hop down to Titusville, see Tico Belle for yourself and hitch a ride.
Just tell them that the Flyer, Dooley and Yours Truly sent you.
Editor-at-large Thomas Block has flown nearly 30,000 hours since his first hour of dual in 1959. In addition to his 36-year career as a U.S. Airways pilot, he has been an aviation magazine writer since 1969, and a best-selling novelist. Over the past 30 years he has owned more than a dozen personal airplanes of varying types.
Resources
Valiant Air Command Warbird Museum
(321) 268-1941
vacwarbirds.org
