- Today on Pilots, Props and Planes.

We're in central California, at the former Castle Air Force Base.

We're visiting the Castle Air Museum.

(upbeat music) Funding for Pilots, Props and Planes is provided by (upbeat music) Reedley College is proud to be a part of the aviation industry, providing advanced education in all aspects of flight science, aviation mechanics and professional pilot training.

Go Tigers!

(Plane whooshing) (bright music) - Today, We're at the magnificent Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California.

A home to more than 70 vintage aircraft ranging from the earliest days of World War II up into the modern Jet Fighter era.

Joining me on the show is Joe Pruzzo.

Joe is the executive director of the Castle Air Museum and Joe, welcome to the show and thank you for having us - Well, thank you, we're honored for, to have you here.

It's a great to, to have the notoriety - Tell us a little bit about the Castle Air Museum.

- The museum started as an outgrowth of the Air Force heritage program as directed by the Air Force chief of staff, and hence opened in 1981 with five aircraft.

- And it's an outdoor museum that houses more than 70 different aircraft - Correct?

Correct.

- Certainly one of the most well known aircraft of the second world war, the Boeing B-17 flying fortress airplane behind us here.

Not only does this airplane have a significant history in the war, but to the base here, I believe there's an additional history to it too.

And the way that this airplane is configured - The B-17, of course, probably one of the most recognizable aircraft of World War II nearly 13,000 built this B-17 is the first aircraft into the museum.

One that opened and dedicated.

And this is really one of the cornerstone aircraft of the museum because it's replicating the aircraft that General Frederick Walker castle flew, and the aircraft he flew on the day of his of his loss in on Christmas Eve, 1944.

- And he is for whom this base is named - Correct, whom this base was named.

The museum was named for received a congressional medal of honor posthumously which we have on display here in our indoor facility General Castle was leading a formation of bombers 2000 in quantity toward target area Germany on Christmas Eve, 1944.

They happened to be over Belgium.

He was flying a brand new airplane and then the airplane had the last four numbers on the tail were three fours or treble four unfortunately one engine failed to perform, he had to drop to the rear of the formation.

And when that happened, he became easy prey for Nazi fighters and they shot the airplane up pretty bad.

One engine on fire, just really everything shot up on it.

So, he ordered the crew to bail out the crew got out but before the general could get out or his pilot the airplane exploded and they both were lost.

(sad music) B-17 very was well known for its ruggedness.

It could come back with portions of the vertical stabilizer missing or tremendous amounts of damage and still fly.

That's one thing that kind of endeared it to its crews that it could take a licking and a real punishment and still bring you home.

Really interesting, Boeing in Seattle, this was a design that actually came out of the mid 1930s.

It started as the 299, and fortunately it was, you know, in production when the war broke out.

So, we had a, a heavy bomber platform that could that could do some damage to our, our access adversaries - And the first four engine heavy bomber platform.

- Yes, it was - Of the Second world war to B-24 liberator another fine four engine bomber from World War II, a contemporary to the B 17.

And this airplane besides being a veteran of world war II with regard to the museum has a future history that you can look forward to - Yes, it does.

This airplane is slated to be completely restored, redone.

And that, by that, I mean, sanded, primed, painted, if there's any metal corrosion replaced.

And of course the turret the Plexiglas takes a beating in the summertime.

So we have to replace that as well.

This particular B-24 is the only B-24 you will see on static display on the west coast B 24's were the most numerous produced American combat airplane of world war II or, or airplane period.

If you can imagine there was over 18,000 of these built.

Today they're brought up 20 known in existence.

This being one of 'em that includes the two that are flying.

- And there's only two that are flying - Correct, Collings Foundation in the commemorative air force.

When this aircraft was located by the air force it was located in La Paz, Bolivia, and it was parked off on the, off the side, on the airport there.

Well, the air force decided we would like to obtain it for the Castle Air Museum.

So, what happened over the next several years is quite fascinating.

When it was taken apart by people in Bolivia that the Air Force contracted the biggest section that came was the nose and the rest came in wooden crates that said Castle Air Museum, didn't say what it was part of the airplane it was, where it went or anything like that.

We had to figure that out.

So, what you're seeing behind me here came in from 1981 to 89, it took that long to restore it to this condition.

You're looking at about 38,000 volunteer hours.

The gun turrets were located in various scrapyards.

There is a story we're all familiar with Huntington Lake up above Fresno at about 7,000 feet way back during the war there was a B-24 that crashed into Huntington lake that was stationed at Hammerfield, which is now Fresno Yosemite International Airport.

The tail turret, and some of the cowling parts came off that airplane, that airplane still is at the bottom there B-24 is also very significant because Castle Air Force base was the 93rd Bomb Wing.

This aircraft is replicated in the 93rd bomb group colors, which is the ancestral unit.

- You come to a museum like this and everybody's gotta have a favorite airplane.

And, and it's really it's hard to say what is a favorite airplane but I have a list of them.

And one of them on the list is the airplane behind us.

The Convair B 36 the largest piston engine airplane ever built.

- Actually the design roots to this airplane go back to 1939.

And the Army Air Corps at the time was really concerned about Great Britain falling unto into Nazi hands.

So, they wanted on, on the drawing board, an airplane capable of leaving the east coast of the United States having 10,000 pounds of bombs flying to central Europe and returning without ever landing or refueling.

Well, as it was Great Britain thankfully did not fall into Nazi hands.

So this was put on the back burner till after the war.

It first flew in 1946, and it could fly 10,000 miles with 10,000 pounds of bombs.

The wing tips tip to tip is 230 feet.

Not quite the length of a football field, but close.

Originally had the six reciprocating engines on it with 3,800 horsepower each.

It was too slow.

So the response was, we're gonna put four jets on the on the tips two on each wing tip.

So I gave it a, an over target speed of about probably close to 480 miles an hour.

- Really?

- Yeah, so at everything at max power.

Now this particular airplane here, some of these were were fitted for aerial reconnaissance.

So, this was an RB-36H the R being Reconnaissance.

So, that meant they had a shortened Bombay, but they had a camera compartment which had seven individuals in it.

The wings at the root are seven feet thick which allowed for one other or two flight engineers for one to actually crawl out in the wing while it was airborne and inspect for any fuel leaks or anything of that nature.

So the crew on this particular airplane was 22.

The normal bomber version was 16.

It could carry actually it could carry 84, 500 pound bombs, and it could carry nuclear weapons as well.

- And there is a nuclear weapon right there.

- There is, there is, this was America's big stick If you will.

During the early years of the cold war, late, very late forties and throughout the, you know, mid fifties.

Yes, you pointed out to the weapon right there.

Now the department of energy produced 200 of those.

They're a mark 17 and there are Thermo nuclear weapon.

Now those weigh 42,500 pounds, B-36 with a full bomber configuration could carry two max.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

And they actually, once they were dropped had a 64 foot diameter parachute which slowed the fall of the bomb.

So, the airplane at altitude could get away.

This particular airplane, this is one of four left in existence.

This is the only B-36.

You'll see on the west coast.

It's the only reconnaissance version it's still in existence.

This particular airplane was retrieved in 1989 from what was Chanute Air Force Base in Southern Illinois.

And it arrived here, didn't fly here.

It was taken apart and it arrived here on 11 railroad cars.

- Wow!

Gives you a little idea of the immense if we have project.

The structure of the aircraft, the wing spar which is the main, you know, structure support for the wing, fuselage wings are all aluminum which is a good thing.

The skin, however, in the 50's, late 40's and 50's magnesium was almost a, a medal of choice to skin an airplane because it was lighter than aluminum, And it was stronger.

The only Achilles heel is don't get it near fire because if you ever see a picture of a, B 36 crash all the magnesium sections are melted.

They, they burns like wildfire.

Now all of that, you see up there that's magnesium.

So that all has to be taken off and reskined with what they call Alclad aircraft aluminum.

There, there are reports of some of these being able to be a loft for 40 hours.

You can imagine that, they had rest bunks in the rear, they had a galley.

And of course, how you got it was pressurized.

How you got from the front section to the back section.

If you ever watched the movie Strategic Air Command with Jimmy Stewart, they talk about the Holland tunnel.

Well, you laid down on what you can kind of equate to a mechanics creeper on rails, and it's about 80 feet.

You went to the back or you went forward.

Now an interesting little story about that is we had some folks here when the aircraft arrived that actually flew B-36's and the story was, well, how we initiated a new crew member is we would get him in the tunnel and say we needed him forward or after.

And the pilot would pitch up pitch down.

So kind of sadistic, but a, you know, that's that's all the fun of being in the Air Force and, and you know, have some fun with people, but ... - Good story.

- Exactly - Joe, this museum is phenomenal.

- Well, thank you.

We, we strive for that.

- We simply don't have the time to look at every airplane but this one airplane behind us we've gotta talk about, this is what Castle Air Force Base is really known the most for, the B-52 You're absolutely correct.

And the B-52 will be, well, a lot of folks may not know is Castle Air Force Base was the first air base Air Force Base in 1955 to receive the B-52 first operational bomb wing was here at Castle Air Force Base through the years last B-52 left prior base closure in may of 1994.

So, it really was the end of an era but the any one pilot navigator, electronic warfare officer who flew on or was associated with the B-52 came through castle.

This was the training wing for all the Strategic Air command, along with the KC-135 tankers, which were the air refueling arm of the Strategic Air Command.

And basically the B-52 behind me, this D model here.

Now, keep in mind we had the original turbo jets that use the distilled water for added thrust on takeoff.

So, when you see those pictures of the black awkward smoke coming out it's 'cause they had distilled water injection in there as well.

Now with the H model, which is still flying, and it has the shorter tail, the big fans they can fly 10,000 of miles unrefueled.

This could fly approximately 6,000 depending on the load.

- So, still flying - Still flying - After more than 50 years.

- Well, yeah, first one flew in 1952.

So, almost 70 years.

- Almost 70 years, 3 generations of pilots, have flown in this aircraft - Exactly, you know, the old saying is, is, you know, fly the the grandson flies the airplane that his grandfather flew and it'll probably be great grandsons or great granddaughters that fly this airplane.

There are, you know, now there are female flight crews that fly the Buff.

The airplane, the wingspan 185 feet.

Now get this is actually greater than the wright brother's first flight.

And this, this flew 49 years, the first time after the wright brother's first flight.

Think about that.

- And more than 70 years later, it's still flying - Exactly as evidenced by the stress wrinkles.

- Exactly.

A lot of people ask why is a skin so wrinkled?

Well, it's designed for that.

Those are stress wrinkles designed by the aerodynamic forces on it.

And by the loads carried by it, the airplane this particular airplane, a D model had a crew of six and still had a tail gunner in the back with a greenhouse and a tail turret.

So, the tail gunners would always say, we flew backwards or we flew around the world backwards.

But when we got to Vietnam it became a very fortuitous position to have because they could call out surface to air missile launches.

The tail gunner position unfortunately with the air crews has become redundant and obsolete with the advent new air defense weapons and things of that nature, fighters don't get in close anymore.

Although during the Vietnam war, a D model, two D models shot down a MIG-21 'cause they got a little too close with 450 calibre machine guns.

So, those fighter pilots might be a little embarrassed, they get shot down by a big beast like this.

Nowadays we have a crew of five on the H model, like I said which has the big turbo fans, the shorter tail improve performance.

So, tail gunners went into the sunset back in the early nineties.

So, so anyway, that's that part of the crew is, is no longer but five people still on a B-52 that can deliver precision guided munitions, heaven forbid, nuclear weapons, conventional weapons anywhere in the world on a moment's notice.

There are two bases that still fly the 52 which is Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

At one time, California had five, B-52 bases.

We had Beale, we had Mather, we had Travis, we had castle and, and March in Riverside.

- Is that right?

- It's correct.

And at one time, these were all painted white on the bottom and bare metal on the upper surfaces.

Then when this conflict in Southeast Asia came along they took on especially the D models, this black underside and camouflage top, and they were outfitted.

They would rotate, they'd come back stateside to support the nuclear deterrence mission and go on alert.

And then when they'd go over they would revert to the conventional, so they could carry if, if you see there's a couple bombs on display under the nose there, the skinny one is a 500 pound, the thicker one is a 750 pound.

The skinny 500 pounders, these were modified to carry 84 internally.

And then they'd carry on these racks you see under the wings here instead of the missile which was the nuclear deterrent part they'd carry a multiple ejector rack and carry twelve, 750's under each wing, Basically one B-52 carried the dooms, the equivalent of probably the majority of the world war II destruction.

- Interesting (plane whooshing) - As you have learned through the course of today's show it takes a very dedicated group of volunteers to keep these aircraft in the condition that they're in to restore them to maintain them and to show them to the thousands of people that visit the Castle Air Museum.

One of those volunteers is with us now to tell us a little bit about the airplane behind us.

And I'd like to introduce Larry McFarland.

Larry, thank you for joining us.

And before we start talking about the airplane behind us I wanna thank you for your service as a veteran of the Vietnam era conflict.

Thank you for your service to your country.

It's an honor to meet you.

- Thank you very much.

- Among the many aircraft that you have flown in your career include the C-123 provider the Fairchild C-123.

Can you tell us a little bit about this airplane?

- First off the, the C-123, when it was developed it was kind of a new, I guess you could say a new philosophy or whatever, in that we really the cargo planes were basically troop transports and you know, the C-47 and things like that.

But the 123, the air force or the military at that time wanted an airplane that could do short field takeoff and landings.

could haul people, could haul cargo.

It didn't need a prepared runway necessary.

And in fact, during the testing at Eglin, all of the tests and and basically proof flights to convince the military that it was a good airplane, were all done out on the range at Eglin, no prepared runway.

It was just, they, they just picked a spot and said take off and land from here, the 123 going back to world War II, the the first kind of mission that they tried with it or thought about was a troop transport.

It was actually a glider.

So when you look at this airplane, most airplanes have fuel in the wings.

There is nothing in the wings, but structure, all the fuel is carried in the tanks behind the engine.

And those were even digestible, you know, so it was totally totally different that way.

It's very low to the ground, which made loading and unloading very simple.

And so, and it had pretty good performance before the airplanes went to Vietnam, they put the jet engines on, but essentially it almost doubled the thrust for takeoff, which made it excellent.

So this airplane, if you had 2000 feet of surface somewhere you could get in and out.

So, going back to the beginning, there's still round plate on the nose was originally used and thought of as a glider, because there were no engines on it.

And so they were gonna load it with troops and take it up to the enemy's line, cut it loose and land.

And the, then the army troops get out.

The problem with that was nobody knew how to fly it.

So then to put the engines on it, and this is over a period of years and everything, you know, and it's, it progressed through the years to be one of the most versatile airplanes that the Air Force had.

- (voice over)Here at the Castle Air Museum.

We have looked at the legacy of military aviation from pre-World war II through the Vietnam era.

Now in my scrapbook, we're gonna go back to the first world war and take a look at a military trainer that taught thousands of young Air Cadets to fly.

And later on became a well known Barnstorming airplane.

The Curtis JN-4, better known as "the Jenny" - The Jenny was manufactured and delivered in March of 1918 built by the Curtiss factory in Buffalo.

And it was one of 30 delivered to the us Navy.

- I test flew this airplane May 15th, two year ago and we've probably put a total of somewhere in the neighborhood of about I personally have put about 30 hours on it.

I fly a lot of vintage stuff, a lot of different kinds of I ferry airplanes, antique airplanes around the country.

And a lot of this it's just I've been doing it for 20 years.

- Took at Oshkosh actually flew it from Brodhead, Wisconsin in Oshkosh distance of over a hundred miles.

And she was awarded grand champion in antique class there.

it's a terrible flying airplane, but in comparison to today's airplanes.

But at the time it was state of the art - On takeoff, the airplane 1,450 RPM as max RPM the tail comes right up immediately.

By the time you get the thrown all the way, open the tails off the ground, it rolls 350,400 feet and then kind of wallows off the ground and you keep the nose down and let it accelerate and let it fly.

It'll fly below its almost below its control speed actually control effectiveness, speed.

Climbs, Well, with the his cell, it does quite a bit better than an OX-5.

I believe we did a flight to 3000 feet from the ground.

And if I remember correctly, it was nine minutes.

The airplane cruises, 65, 70 miles an hour, or somewhere in that range lands at below 30 and three point attitude just hangs in the air.

It lands really slow.

Doesn't really have any tendency to go around in a circle.

It wants to go in a straight long line, as long as you're not pushing a lot of cross wind, it's a relatively straightforward airplane.

You just has no built in stability.

You have to fly at all the time.

And if you're doing anything, trying to do anything precise with it like flying in formation, it's literally it will wear your arms out and otherwise it's a it's a nice airplane.

It's more of an honor to fly it than it is a pleasure to fly - Funding for Pilots, Props and Planes is provided by - Reedley college nestled against the Sierra in central California offers a full spectrum of flight science, aviation mechanics and professional pilot education in an affordable community college setting.

Go Tigers!

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