This gent never gave up on his goal…
Over the years, Wuerker learned to fly, joined the Civil Air Patrol and even built his own helicopter. That just fed his childhood urge to fly a World War II torpedo bomber.
He finally did something about it. In 2005, Wuerker found a TBM Avenger for sale, the same type of torpedo bomber used for training at NASW during the war. He plunked down $60,000 and bought it. It has taken eight years to restore and to get the FAA approvals for the plane and his own certifications needed to fly it, but Wuerker recently got it airborne for the first time since it was used to fight forest fires in Canada.
He said he finally got the feel for what “these kids” — the young men who trained at NASW, 42 of whom lost their lives in crashes around southern Cape May County between 1943 and ’45 — went through.
Oh by the way, Mr. Wuerker is 74 years young!!! 🙂
Full article from Stars and Stripes HERE.
And HERE is a link to NAS Wildwood’s Museum.
For your viewing pleasure, here’s a video of a TBM Avenger starting/taxi/flying…
Noisy bastards, and you DON’T make a right turn on takeoff under full power (P-factor torque will pull the airplane into the ground). And you’ll note he lets it go 12 blades before he flips the mags on to keep from blowing the bottom cylinders out of the engine (oil drains to the lowest cylinders, so 12 blades of turnover will get it distributed throughout the engine).
And they leak oil like a sieve… All the old recips do… In the Connie, the 3350’s had an 18 gallon oil reservoir, and was notorious for burning 6 gal and throwing 6 gal out during flights; then leaking the other 6 gal on the ground.
h/t Bob
Aw, nice. And it gives me hope that somewhere out there, there’s a Corsair or F-86 Sabre jet sitting in some abandoned hangar waiting for me to come along and find them and fly them again.
Don’t give up because they’re out there. There is a yard along the bike path to a winery in Sonoma that has 3 or 4 fighter jets of that era sitting there looking pretty complete. The owner bought them way back when the the Air Force was discarding them because he liked them.
Fredericksburg TX is the home of the National Museum of the Pacific War, a Smithsonian quality museum and you owe it to yourself to visit sometime. They regularly sponsor some fantastic symposiums. On Dec 7th 2011, they had a fly-in of WWII aircraft. There was a parade down main street and the planes did a fly over. I happened to be driving past the airport as they were taking off and doing their practice flights. (The flyover was in conjunction with a formation school. A regularly scheduled event that gets pilots their FAA required formation currency). So I pulled over and watched for a while. My vehicle is metallic blue, so pretty visible. Pretty soon, I noticed the aircraft were coming closer and closer. Pretty soon, the TBM flew OVER my vehicle. Prop wash is a wonderful thing! and a TBM is a BIG airplane and LOUD. Loved every minute of it.
Murph- Yep there is ALWAYS hope!!!
Juvat- That IS on the visit list… and yes they are NOT small airplanes!
Is that a pitot tube on the port wingtip? Is the shape due to the folding wings?
Long ago I helped operate an kC-135 Simulator. One of the I/P’s had flown B-17’s from England over Germany & hopefully back regularly. He spoke lovingly of the 17’s and their wonderful engines. He said they leaked a lot of oil, but carried a lot (100 gals, I believe) per engine, in self sealing tanks. I love to see & hear those big radials fire up!!
There’s nothing like the sound those old planes make. Sounds like ‘Murica!
All of those prop driven planes were noise. As a kid I got to sit in a PBY Catalina at NAS Atlanta (when is was located at Peachtree-Dekalb Airport)with my brother, a crewman, as she warmed up for flight. I couldn’t hear myself think but who cared. I was in a war plane and it was cool. But they made be bail out before takeoff. That sucked.
When I was in high school in the early 70’s in Puyallup, WA (just to the southeast of Tacoma) there was a gentleman who owned and flew one of the few remaining operation P-38 Lightnings. You could hear him from half a county away when he got a wild hair and cracked open the throttles on those twin allisons. He loved to get down as close to the deck as the tower would allow him and just go screaming across the country side.
WSF- It is, the shape gets it up out of the airflow and provides a steady state pressure…
Woody- 32 gal oil tanks were the spec, if I remember correctly… And being an old fart, I too love the sound of radials firing off, but I hated trying to start one on a cold day… sigh
Rev- Yep!!!
CP- LOL, I’m betting you thought more than once about sneaking back aboard, didn’t ya???
Ray- Oh yeah!!! 🙂
I will never understand radial engines. They seem so complex and yet sound so cool. I need to spend more time around them. Just to get schooled of course 🙂
Hey Jim, This was the a/c that drew me into the USN. The squadrons at Quonset Pt. would go to Charlietown to practice their T&G’s and then they would head out here for some practice gunnery runs on an old sunken oil tanker about 300 yards off shore of Block Island. They would make their runs right over the edge of the Island firing out to sea. This occured quite often and we could hear them coming for miles. We’d be there, up at the Southeast Lighthouse as they went over, .50 cals blazing away! By the time I was 12 years old I had a bushel basket of empty casings we’d pick up off the ground. That oil accumulation was called a hydraulic lock, and if you bent something with a premature “mags on” you were in deep poo for an extended period! Thanks for the post. OBTW, a guy from Westerly RI has one of these, newly restored and was over here with it this summer and He offer me a ride after I finished telling him this tale! T’was great to be up there again. Ev
Another OBTW; Great timing on the date of the post as today is the day I tripped over the 75 YO mark!
Six- Just enjoy them from a distance… They throw oil EVERYWHERE!!!
Ev- Thanks for the story, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 🙂
Just make sure that there IS a puddle of oil under one of those radials. Because if there ISN’T a puddle of oil, there isn’t any OIL left!
I swear that old R985 the group of us overhauled in school took 10 quarts in, burned 3 on the test stand, put three on the ground between runs, and sprayed 3 more all over the test cell.
But it was probably the sweetest-starting engine we had. Easiest to hand-prop, anyway.
But my warbird of dreams is a PBY5A Catalina amphibian. If I ever get a chance, I might even let you drive for a spell, OldNFO! 😛
Scott- EXCELLENT point! And I’d love to!!!
We used to get sent nasty notes saying that nobody designed the engines to leak oil and to tighten up the seals or do whatever it takes to keep the oil in the engines. We figured if they didn’t design it to leak then it didn’t leak.