"Oops, No Fuel" - A Pilot's Tale of a C-46

This particular entry has nothing to do with Ireland, actually. You see, my father - now 87 and a retired United Airlines Captain - this morning told me a story. It's a keeper and I wanted to share it with you all. Too, I'm fortunate to have a number of friends who are airline pilots and in many ways this is for them.

You see, these friends of mine fly those big jetliners made of aluminium metal tubes across the wide oceans to global points of interest. While they really are professionally-trained pilots (honest!) I suspect they spend much of their time on trips playing whist because the aircraft is usually on autopilot and controlled by computers much more powerful than those that steered the Apollo Moon Shots across the vacuum of space. In other words, and unless something goes quite wrong (which very rarely happens) they don't have a whole lot to do.

Sixty years ago that wasn't the case. Back in 1953, my father was a budding new co-pilot for the now defunct Resort Airlines. In those days he flew a C-46 (see pic), also a metal tube, that was driven through the air by two large Pratt & Whitney engines which spun a couple of large metal props. The objective of any flight was to reach the final destination by making certain those propellers kept spinning 'round n 'round.

Like any aircraft (except for those new-fangled solar powered babies which soar silently through the sky), the C-46 engines were powered by aviation gasoline. This particular aircraft had three fuel tanks: a mid-sized one at the front of the airplane, a smaller one at the rear, and the main tank in the center.

Dad tells me that keeping the engines supplied with fuel was a rather critical manual procedure (unless you wanted the engines to stop running): use the forward tank first until it went dry. Then, before the engines stopped spinning, switch to the rear tank until that one went dry. And when both were empty, switch to the final main tank to safely complete the rest of the flight.

Switching tanks was a manual task. Each engine had a separate fuel control wheel. So for instance, spin the wheel for the left (port) engine a bit and you'd switch to a new tank. Spin the wheel for the right (starboard) tank in the same manner for a similar result. And both pilots - the captain and the co-pilot - had this same set of fuel controls so each could easily access them. All the pilots had to do was remember which tank was filled with what, and who was responsible for switching which engine when the time came, and it worked just fine.

But then there was the trip Dad told me about, flying from Boise Idaho to Kansas City . This was a Cargo flight so no passengers or crew (other than our erstwhile pilots) were on board.The night flight took his C-46 over America's gigantic Rocky Mountains. A C-46 wasn't pressurized which meant they couldn't fly above 10,000 feet. So they had to be sorta careful 'cause the mountain peaks weren't too very far below.

Anyway, Dad the co-pilot and his Captain were having a merry little flight over the mountains. The props were spinning 'round and 'round as they should be. It was time for a fuel change (they were running the engines  on the front fuel tank which was approaching empty) so Dad switched both engines to the rear tank. No problem. When:

Both engines went deathly silent due to fuel starvation and the props, with nothing better to do, turned freely in the breeze which was absolutely not the plan. The C-46 was now a flying brick. Flustered, and unbeknownst to each other, both pilots reached for their respective fuel wheels at the same time. The problem? Neither realized the other was switching tanks. So Dad moved the fuel wheels for both engines up a notch. The Captain did the same thing. And the engines sputtered to life. They grinned at each other in great relief and joked about it. Which is when...

The engines died again. They had not yet recovered the altitude they'd lost the first time the engines stopped running, and neither could figure out what had happened. What they didn't realize was: when switching tanks the last time, and in all the confusion, they'd managed to switch both engines to the front tank - which, of course, was empty.

After much swearing, praying, and wondering just how close a rocky peak might be to the aircraft's underbelly, they finally discovered their mistake. They switched the engines to the full main tank. Both engines caught. The props started spinning around again, and they completed the rest of the flight to Kansas City without another word said between them, thanking their lucky stars all the way.

Until today Dad never told me this story. And I don't wonder. If he and his Captain hadn't realized their mistake, I might not be here. And as for my airline pilot buddies: thank God for those little computers is all I can say. At least you can keep on playing whist knowing you'll never have to remember to manually switch tanks.

Happy Landings!

A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland 2015 / 2016 Kindle Edition Now Available!
If this blog interests you, then you might want to know more about living and working in Ireland. Are you thinking of traveling to Ireland, moving to Ireland, working in Ireland? Do you want to understand what makes the Irish tick, how you can get a job here, and how to survive in this wonderful country? If so, consider purchasing the 2015 Kindle edition of A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland. Over 11,000 have already done so! Now over 85,000 words long, this book could make the perfect gift for those interested in this wonderful country. Simply click on any of the above links to purchase the new 2015 Kindle edition. You can also download free apps to read the Kindle version on any PC or Mac. 

"Oops, No Fuel" - A Pilot's Tale of a C-46

This particular entry has nothing to do with Ireland, actually. You see, my father - now 87 and a retired United Airlines Captain - this morning told me a story. It's a keeper and I wanted to share it with you all. Too, I'm fortunate to have a number of friends who are airline pilots and in many ways this is for them.

You see, these friends of mine fly those big jetliners made of aluminium metal tubes across the wide oceans to global points of interest. While they really are professionally-trained pilots (honest!) I suspect they spend much of their time on trips playing whist because the aircraft is usually on autopilot and controlled by computers much more powerful than those that steered the Apollo Moon Shots across the vacuum of space. In other words, and unless something goes quite wrong (which very rarely happens) they don't have a whole lot to do.

Sixty years ago that wasn't the case. Back in 1953, my father was a budding new co-pilot for the now defunct Resort Airlines. In those days he flew a C-46 (see pic), also a metal tube, that was driven through the air by two large Pratt & Whitney engines which spun a couple of large metal props. The objective of any flight was to reach the final destination by making certain those propellers kept spinning 'round n 'round.

Like any aircraft (except for those new-fangled solar powered babies which soar silently through the sky), the C-46 engines were powered by aviation gasoline. This particular aircraft had three fuel tanks: a mid-sized one at the front of the airplane, a smaller one at the rear, and the main tank in the center.

Dad tells me that keeping the engines supplied with fuel was a rather critical manual procedure (unless you wanted the engines to stop running): use the forward tank first until it went dry. Then, before the engines stopped spinning, switch to the rear tank until that one went dry. And when both were empty, switch to the final main tank to safely complete the rest of the flight.

Switching tanks was a manual task. Each engine had a separate fuel control wheel. So for instance, spin the wheel for the left (port) engine a bit and you'd switch to a new tank. Spin the wheel for the right (starboard) tank in the same manner for a similar result. And both pilots - the captain and the co-pilot - had this same set of fuel controls so each could easily access them. All the pilots had to do was remember which tank was filled with what, and who was responsible for switching which engine when the time came, and it worked just fine.

But then there was the trip Dad told me about, flying from Boise Idaho to Kansas City. The night flight took his C-46 over America's gigantic Rocky Mountains. A C-46 wasn't pressurized which meant they couldn't fly above 10,000 feet. So they had to be sorta careful 'cause the mountain peaks weren't too very far below.

Anyway, Dad the co-pilot and his Captain were having a merry little flight over the mountains. The props were spinning 'round and 'round as they should be. It was time for a fuel change (they were running the engines  on the front fuel tank which was approaching empty) so Dad switched both engines to the rear tank. No problem. When:

Both engines went deathly silent due to fuel starvation and the props, with nothing better to do, turned freely in the breeze which was absolutely not the plan. The C-46 was now a flying brick. Flustered, and unbeknownst to each other, both pilots reached for their respective fuel wheels at the same time. The problem? Neither realized the other was switching tanks. So Dad moved the fuel wheels for both engines up a notch. The Captain did the same thing. And the engines sputtered to life. They grinned at each other in great relief and joked about it. Which is when...

The engines died again. They had not yet recovered the altitude they'd lost the first time the engines stopped running, and neither could figure out what had happened. What they didn't realize was: when switching tanks the last time, and in all the confusion, they'd managed to switch both engines to the front tank - which, of course, was empty.

After much swearing, praying, and wondering just how close a rocky peak might be to the aircraft's underbelly, they finally discovered their mistake. They switched the engines to the full main tank. Both engines caught. The props started spinning around again, and they completed the rest of the flight to Kansas City without another word said between them, thanking their lucky stars all the way.

Until today Dad never told me this story. And I don't wonder. If he and his Captain hadn't realized their mistake, I might not be here. And as for my airline pilot buddies: thank God for those little computers is all I can say. At least you can keep on playing whist knowing you'll never have to remember to manually switch tanks.

Happy Landings!

A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland 2015 / 2016 Kindle Edition Now Available!
If this blog interests you, then you might want to know more about living and working in Ireland. Are you thinking of traveling to Ireland, moving to Ireland, working in Ireland? Do you want to understand what makes the Irish tick, how you can get a job here, and how to survive in this wonderful country? If so, consider purchasing the 2015 Kindle edition of A Survivor's Guide to Living in Ireland. Over 11,000 have already done so! Now over 85,000 words long, this book could make the perfect gift for those interested in this wonderful country. Simply click on any of the above links to purchase the new 2015 Kindle edition. You can also download free apps to read the Kindle version on any PC or Mac. 

Why There's No Bad Guy in Ireland

See the family. See Tom. See Mom and Dad and sister Cindy. It's 1961 Seattle, and this photo is taken only a few miles from the Boeing Aircraft plant. Back in those days, and as a first grader in nearby St Philomena's School, we'd get lessons in hiding under desks as Russian missiles rained down. On the television, and every now and then, the broadcasters would test their Civil Defense System. I can still see the grainy black and white photo of the CD logo in the back of my mind, and the announcer saying, "This is only a test of the Emergency Broadcast System!"

Then, a wild whistle would emanate from the old speakers on our RCA set. Later on, and a bit older, I realized that it sounded distinctly like the whistle of a melting phone in the Cold War film "Fail Safe" - the sound that the phone made as it was melted in the heat of a thermo nuclear explosion. Ah the joys of childhood!

Growing up in Cold War America had its pluses of course. We could make fun of Kruzchav and the Russians and get away with it. Hollywood was constantly coming out with new films that scared us all silly (think of those great 'B' movies: "Invaders from Mars" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still".) Both films pitted good guys against bad - even Red against Blue (Invaders from Mars). But occasionally, one wondered who was the bad guy and who was the good (the Robot Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still was no bad guy, let me tell you. He had a cool heat ray, didn't he?) And living in Seattle as we did, we occasionally got to see some of the very latest 1960s Western technology (think the Space Needle and the MonoRail - those beat the Rooskie stuff any day.)

In the United States in those days, we knew who the bad guys were, and we had Superman to help us out when those bad guys dared to show up.

In Ireland back then, they had no such bad guy to pick fun at. There were the English, of course. Seems to me that there had always been the English. Four hundred years of servitude makes one think that the Irish would have thrown them out sooner than they did, but that didn't happen until the 1920s. And even then, the Irish were divided in a bloody Civil War over the whole mess. For hundreds of years, the Irish were trapped in a country occupied by an oppressor who didn't do a whole lot for the society. The English banned Mass and the Irish language. They shipped hundreds off to penal servitude - or worse! - emigration to Australia. The English did their best to transform this little country and its people into a jewel in the British Crown. All that happened, of course, was a feeling of resentment that eventually gave vent to war.

And when the Irish at last threw off the yoke of the oppressor, the government did their level best to isolate the country from the rest of the world. Censorship limited imports. The Catholic Church limited free thinking. Films such as "The Man from Aran" portrayed the typical Irishman as a solitary man, alone against the elements, but winning none-the-less. The average Irishman, suffering the slings and arrows of a stagnant economy in those early days of the Republic, must have laughed at the idea of an Irish "Superman", knowing that they didn't have a hero to save them. Only Eamon De Valera, and all he was doing was refusing to mix with the rest of the world which caused only more hardship on an already marginalised economy and people.

Of course, Ireland and the Irish are no longer isolated. Even at the height of recession, this country has one of the highest per capita export industries in the world.

And yet, one thing the country still doesn't have: bad guys to poke fun at and a Superman to save the country. I guess Ireland would have had to go through a Cold War to experience those. Who knows? At the rate the country is going, we may experience a Cold War yet.