Convairiety, Volume 5, Number 5, Wednesday, February 27, 1952 Page: 3 of 8
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February 27, 1952
CONVAIRIETV
Fage 3
Detective Work' on Ground Spots Trouble For Plane in Air
HEADQUARTERS"—Lt. Col. Stephen Dillon (on phone] di-
rected operation that eventually brought RB-36 safely to earth. At
left is Karl Busch, Convair flight dispatch, and at right is Capt. Don
Mills. Scene is flight dispatch office where trio and others kept
long vigil.
COMMUNICATORS—Linking ground "headquarters" with plane
in air was Convair radio station. Center is Phil Prophett, relaying by
radio instructions received over phone. Left is Bill Passano, station
operator, and at right is W. C. Robinson.
RB-36 Lands Safely After
12-Hour Attempt at Fix
(Continued from page 1) I and then another. And our com-
cating the gear had not locked.
At the same time, Phil Prophett,
Convair manager of Flight, was
making the same observation
from the yard of his home in Pa-
cific Beach. Steve Barinka, Con-
vair SD Field Operations super-
intendent, was getting the word
by telephone from his ramp fore-
man, Charles Baker.
On duty at Convair was Capt.
Don Mills, AF assistant chief of
flight operations, and the skele-
ton Field Operations crew neces-
sary for deliveries. Operator Bill
Passano was manning the Con-
vair ground radio station.
“The situation wasn’t unpre-
cedented and usually can be
worked out fairly simply,” Dil-
lon recalled this week. “I tele-
phoned some suggestions to
Convair flight dispatch to be
passed on to the plane; but
after awhile we didn’t seem to
be getting any place.”
The next few hours were of in-
creasing intensity. Dillon took
charge in the Convair flight dis-
patch office with Mills. He was
joined by Barinka and General
Foreman Harry Rumbaugh and
later by R. C. Loomis, manager
of B-36 Recycling. Communica-
tions were by phone to the Con-
vair radio station in Building 4
where Passano relayed messages
to the plane commander, Capt.
Charles Culp, and his flight engi-
neer, First Lt. Lyle D. Ramsey.
Prophett soon took over voice
transmission duties from Passano
and continued to act as go-be-
tween throughout the entire inci-
dent with W. C. Robinson, Con-
vair flight engineer, assisting.
“It was rather slow work,”
Dillon explained afterwards.
“Our first job, of course, was to
pin point the trouble. This meant
ruling out first one possibility
bined experience could produce a
lot of possibilities!
“We had some trouble making
ourselves understood until we
broke out the operating manuals
and could refer to this page or
that page and this part and that
part.”
Aside from the specific job at
hand, those on the ground had to
be thinking far in advance. They
not only had to guard against
any unforeseen complications de-
veloping at the moment, but also
had to think of the time when
the ship must come down, with
or without a “fix” on the landing
gear.
It is normal operating proce-
dure to alert fire department, po-
lice and Harbor Department at
Lindbergh Field whenever there
is any remote chance of trouble
in one of the big planes. This is
automatic. In this case the alert
was continued until late after-
noon when it was relaxed to a
20-minute “on call” basis. As
Dillon explained, even though the
North Island field could have
been used in an emergency, if
serious unforeseen trouble de-
veloped, he didn’t want all his
eggs in one basket.
“You never know what can
happen,” he said. “North Island
could have been closed to me
for some unpredictable reason
such as an emergency landing
of their own. I needed Lind-
bergh Field as an alternative
and a safety factor.”
All afternoon the ground men
were weighing the different fac-
tors leading up to selection of a
field for the ultimate landing.
Standard procedure demanded a
field of maximum runway and
safety facilities.
Dillon at one time considered
Edwards Air Force Base at
CRITICAL INSTANT—RB-36 that took off from San Diego two weeks ago looked much like this
as it started to retract landing gear. In brief time between gear down and g.ear up a freakish co-
incidence occurred.
■I
Muroc Dry Lake but decided
against it after learning that re-
cent rains might have left a
damp condition adjacent to the
runways. He wasn’t taking any
chances. Ultimately he chose the
Naval Air Station at North Is-
land and asked permission.
“They came back in a very few
minutes with approval and stood
by from then on,” he added.
Meanwhile, the RB-36 circled
and circled. On the ground Ba-
rinka, Rumbaugh, Sgt. L. B. Car-
mienke of the AF office at Con-
vair, and Assistant Foreman R.
AMC General Sends
His Commendation
Commendation for a “job well
done” came to Lt. Col. Stephen
Dillon this week from Major
Gen. William M. Morgan, com-
manding the Western Air
Procurement District at Los
Angeles.
The general’s comments were
an endorsement to a message
from Col. E. G. Morrison, Pub-
lic Information Officer, head-
quarters, AMC, stating: “This
command has been informed of
the outstanding job performed
by Colonel Dillon. . . . Reports
indicate (his) understanding of
the situation and initiative were
largely responsible for the suc-
cessful landing of the B-36
with no injury to personnel or
damage to the aircraft. ...”
W. Dickinson, attempted to simu-
late with a B-36 on the ground
the situation the flight crew faced
“upstairs.”
“We even limited ourselves to
the tools we knew they had up
there!” Barinka recalled.
Up above, Flight Engineer
Ramsey was having a work-out.
Time after time he shuttled from
the plane’s interior, through a
narrow passageway where he had
to crawl, to a platform beneath
the wing and adjacent to the
landing gear mechanism. It was
rather windy in this semi-exposed
position and not the most con-
venient place in which to work.
Ramsey made a number of trips,
trying out first one suggestion
and then another, returning to
the radio to report after each
trip.
“Ultimately, by a process of
elimination, we became positive
that some piece of foreign
matter was jamming the lock,”
Dillon continued. “It had to be
small. The lock was within
three or four thousandths of an
inch of closing. It was a freak
situation.”
With no apparent chance of a
“fix” in the air, the decision was
definitely made to land at North
Island and the time was set for
about 3:30 a.m. With most of
the plans laid, communications
with the RB-36 were turned over
to North Island’s tower and the
“headquarters staff” on the
ground shifted operations to
Naval Air. They were carried
TROUBLE SPOT—On ground,
Sgt. L. B. Carmienke and Steve
Barinka try to simulate landing
gear trouble aloft so as to radio
instructions for "fix." Sergeant is
in approximate position plane's
flight engineer assumed while
working on gear in flight.
across the bay by the Coast
Guard.
Dillon first briefed the Navy
crash crews on the RB-36, its
fuel tank locations and escape
hatches, etc. He even drew them
a sketch. If the gear collapsed
on landing there would be no in-
decision in rescue. Loomis, Ba-
rinka and Mills were assigned to
go along with the crash vehicles.
Dillon and Prophett took station
ir. the NAS radio tower and gave
final advice on landing to the
plane commander.
“I rode in the Navy crash
chief’s car,” Barinka recalled,
“and it was like being a part of
a ‘task force,’ for the Navy had
all kinds of equipment, fire
wagons, ambulances, even a
crane.
“We were already on the move
when the RB-36 made its ap-
proach and were racing by the
time its wheels touched. It was
only seconds after the plane stop-
ped that we had it surrounded.”
Even though not locked com-
pletely, the landing gear held.
“Just in case,” the flight crew
went through with the emergency
procedure. The plane commander
cut off all power on the instant
and the crew came tumbling out
in what looked like record time.
In less than an hour a tempo-
rary fix was accomplished on
the ground. However, not until
daylight, when the plane was
flown back to Lindbergh Field
where it could be placed on jacks,
was the exact cause established.
Field Operations men found a
rubber string, about one-eighth
inch in diameter, lodged in the
side brace assembly and prevent-
ing the gear lock from closing
perfectly. By freakish coinci-
dence it had found its way there
sometime in the few seconds of
gear retraction after take-off.
Soon thereafter the plane was
test flown, this time by Dillon
himself. The gear worked per-
fectly. Then another Air Force
delivery crew took over and this
time reported back “routine
flight.”
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Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation. Convairiety, Volume 5, Number 5, Wednesday, February 27, 1952, periodical, February 27, 1952; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth777530/m1/3/: accessed March 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Fort Worth.