C-82 Hot Seat


I had just turned 17 years old in August 1950 when I enlisted in the Air Force, went to San Antonio Texas, where I took my basic training at Lackland AFB. After finishing basic training I was sent to the A&E School at Shepard AFB, Wichita Falls Texas, where I got my diploma as "Airplane and Engine Mechanic". Golly, I was so happy and proud, because this is exactly what I wanted to be. In March of 1951 I arrived at Frankfurt, Germany to spend the greatest and happiest three years of my life. Here I was, a teen age boy, going to Germany to work on, and one day be flying in, an airplane of the UNITED STATES AIR FORCE. I was like Alice in Wonderland. So much to see, so much to do, and so much to learn.


I was assigned to the 12th Troop Carrier Squadron at Rhien Main AFB in early spring of 1951. The squadron was equipped with Fairchild C-82 airplanes, which at the time was the first-line troop carrier/hauler of the Air Force, and a damn good airplane. The 82s were named "Packets", as were the C-119 that replaced the 82. They both had the unofficial name "Flying Box Car." The C-82s used hot air that came from heat exchanges for defrosting and heating. The heat exchangers were installed in the left and right engine exhaust system. They worked like a radiator or somewhat like one. The hot exhaust would exit out the big exhaust pipes where the exchanger was located, heating the ambient air coming thru the exchangers. They were like a big set of heater coils, quite heavy, very well made, and very hard to reinstall when they were removed for repair or an engine change. From there the hot air (not the exhaust) went through a huge air duct behind the engine and then to the wings for deicing, and to the cockpit and cargo bay for heating. This heat duct, could and would at times, get very hot. These things could really put out the heat. The original wrapping on the ducts was not sufficient to handle the extreme heat. One airplane actually caught fire due to this problem, so it was determined the ducts behind the engines needed a major rewrapping. One by one, the planes were taken to "Base Shops" where the work was preformed. Those people were very good and the re-wrapping job was perfect.


Soon after getting all the planes back to the Squadron we got a message from Group Command informing us of another major overhaul on the 82’s engine controls, located right behind the carburetor on each engine. This work would be done in the Squadrons, 10th, 11th and the 12th, the three making up the 60th Troop Carrier Group, which was part of the 12th AIR FORCE, European Theater of Operations.


The original pulleys and rollers were made of some kind of Bakelite that had to be replaced with metal ones. They were all located in an open-air frame like box about 18x18x18 square. It was in a very difficult position to get to. About the only way was to remove the engine! There had to be a better way, so all the mechanics in the squadron got together, and after looking, poking and checking everything we could think of, we determined that two men, one on the top of the engine and one in the wheel-well could, with some difficulty, get the work done without pulling the engines. We were right, It was a difficult job, seeing as one had to be in the wheel well and the other sprawled out on the wing just aft of the engine that had its cowling removed. The way it was done was pure GI ingenuity. As we removed one old piece it would be replaced with the new one leaving the original box-like structure as it was. By doing it this way the box like thing would not have to be removed. If it had to be removed that meant all the control cables would have to be disconnected. Anyone knowing anything about control cables knows what a hard job that was.


It would take the better part of a day to do one engine. The Flight Chief decided to let another mechanic and myself, I can’t recall his name, try the first one. We did it so well that we ended up doing, if I recall correctly, a large number of the 12th’s planes, not all, but quite a few. We got good at it, our refit time came down and we got to know each other’s moves really well. I was on the bottom with him on the top. What a pair we were. He would hold a wrench from the top and I would removed and replace pulleys, nuts, and bolts from the bottom. Then I would hold the wrench from the bottom and he would replace the pulleys and rollers that were on the top. We were working like a one arm man trying to button his glove. But we were good at it.


To get to the place where the control pulleys and rollers were, I had to crawl up in the wheel well, where the landing gear went when it was retracted. There wasn’t much room for anything more in there, let alone a guy working on a bunch of nuts, bolts, pulleys and cables. I had to scrunch up in a ball to get in there and once in there I had a heck of a time getting out. The only place I had to sit or kneel on was the heat duct--yes that’s right, the same ones that had been rewrapped so good at Base Shops. I could see right away that this wasn’t going to work, because I would damage the new wrapping by sitting or kneeling on them. Those Base Shop guys were good, but they sure didn’t want me messing up the work they had done at great expense to the taxpayers. Something had to be done to protect the heat ducts. So…after some hard thinking, I decided to make a little platform out of some scrap wood I found. I made it to fit over the ducts. What a perfect fit it was. Why, it looked like it had come installed from the factory. I was so proud of my wood working abilities. Now when I got it in position I could squat, sit, or kneel (no not sleep), and I wouldn't damage the new wrapping. This worked just great. When we got all the new parts installed, my partner would gather up all the tools from the top. I couldn’t keep any tools where I was, because it was too cramped and small. I was so scrunched up that if I had any tools in my fatigue pants pockets it would have punched my eyes out. Then I would shimmy back out of the tiny opening with my little wooden platform that I was so proud of, being so careful not to damage the new duct wrapping. . Having that engine completed we would go up in the cockpit, fire up the engine and check all the controls that we had upgraded, and if everything checked out perfect we would check off on that engine and move to the right engine, him with the tool box we needed and me with my little wooden platform. I was growing very fond of my newly made sitting/kneeling wooden platform. Nobody else had one and we weren’t about to tell anyone else of our secret, well not yet, anyway. Eventually they got some made like ours. Boy, Oh boy! We were proud of our work. Well…we continued on with our work, knocking out one engine after another until all the Squadron aircraft were finished, and we forgot about wrappings and pulleys.


Soon after the control box modification, I was promoted to Flight Engineer and assigned to C-82 #775, with Sgt. Bussom as the Crew Chief. He was one of the finest Crew Chiefs on the line. I finally had My very own C-82, one I could love and care for, check her oil and feed her high octane fuel. And to beat it all, I would be flying in her! I realized the responsibility’s, but I know I was up to it and I couldn’t wait to get airborne in her. I loved formation flying. I would stand up in the Radio Operators seat, if we didn’t have one on board, to look out the Astrodome and watch all of our planes flying in a tight formation. Practicing low level flying to avoid radar detection was the best. What a thrill it was to be skimming along at 500 foot altitude! Things went by pretty fast!.


One of the first long missions #775 and I drew, was a flight to Rabat-Salé, French Morocco in North Africa, carrying a crew of mechanics to do some work on a plane that had been grounded there. We left Rhein Main AFB and flew out on a Southwest heading, our mission would take us over Spain and Portugal. It was late at night, and we were cruising along at about 12,000 feet, the cockpit lights were on red to reduce the glare at night, the engines were droning making all of us sleepy, and the airmen below in the cargo bay were all stretched out on the pull down racks asleep. All was going well, when all of a sudden the fuel flow meter for the left engine went out of sight! "My God a broken fuel on the left engine" I thought. The pilot and copilot saw it at the same time. No one panicked, but I’ll tell you what, my hair was standing straight up. "Keep calm, the engine is still running," the pilot yelled to me. "Run down and take a look. See if we are loosing fuel." I flew down the ladder and took a look thru one of the porthole windows, using a flashlight. I strained to see what was wrong, but I saw nothing except a good running engine. It didn’t make sense. I didn’t say anything to the guys asleep, no sense in scaring them. Up the ladder I went to report to the pilot. "Sir, I can’t see anything wrong, no fuel, nothing at all." The engine was still purring like a sleeping kitten. We went through the check list, checking everything we could think of and found nothing wrong, so we all decided to let the engine run, and run it did. After a while we thought it had to be a malfunction in the instrument, because the engine couldn’t be running with broken fuel line.


An hour later we were due to stop to refuel, I don’t remember where. As soon as the plane came to a stop I jumped out to see what had happened to the fuel flow meter. Being the smarty young engineer I thought I was, I wanted to be the one to find out what happened and fix it. As I crawled up into the wheel-well I could see the newly re-wrapped heat duct, and it didn’t look good. OH--OH I thought, it was beginning to dawn on me. As I crawled higher, straining to see what had happened, I saw it…there it was, my little wooden platform all charred and black. ""I had forgotten to remove it!!! What did I do!" It dawned on me...we had done the overhaul on this engine control box before we left, and I had forgotten to remove my little platform. The wood actually smoldered enough from the heat to cause the insulation on the wires to melt, shorting out the fuel flow meter. I removed what was left of my little wooden seat and threw it away before any one had a chance to see it. I then went to work repairing the wires. When I had finished I went up to the cockpit and reset the circuit breaker, fired up the engine and checked the fuel flow meter, and everything was back to normal. No one had any idea what had happened. I hated loosing my little wooden platform that I had worked so hard on, but it was best I got rid of it.


I was, however, quite bothered about it a long time, knowing what could have happened because of my error, and I finally discussed it with the other mechanic who worked with me on the refit. His opinion was that nothing did happen, that I had found the problem and repaired it, and that I should quit worrying about it. I took his advice, but I still felt like a thief in the night.


I can say that I learned a lesson that night fifty years ago, and I grew up that night, too.