The taildragger
I guess serving and working dangerous locations and countries like Vietnam (and a few weeks in Thailand) somehow kinda prepared me for my flight of a lifetime over the Sacramento mountains from Alamogordo to Okemah Oklahoma with literally a mad scientist in what was called a T—Craft, a Taylorcraft,. TheT for taildragger and Tasylorcraft
The plane was born the same year as I was!
Just a few tidbits about the plane!
In general, gusty crosswinds are the nemesis of a taildragger such as the T-Craft because of its weight & large wingspan. The approach speed when landing the T-Craft has to be spot on; to slow and it would stall; to fast and would bounce like a balloon and become a real handful to control.on landing the plane was known to have a mind of its own – unlike so-called normal planes it would happily bounce back into the air and continue flying.
More about the T-Craft later. Now a little about its owner and self-taught pilot Ralph Gaines!
Ralph Gaines was a mad scientist and I was his crazy friend who work with him together at RATSCATT (radar backscatter facility). Most ratscatters shied away from Ralph! He was a little too weird for them! Ralph was in charge of a secret experiment with very high frequency radar.
He was able to generate a frequency, a radar frequency, so high that there was no coaxial or waveguide or something that could carry or transmit the frequency from the transmitter to the radar dish.
So he developed a waveguide so small and flawless it could carry the frequency, the signature radar frequency, from the transmitter to the radar dish which was just amazing as the super-high frequency that he was able to generate!
Just to bring you up to speed with a little technical information. Wikipedia says: Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the range, angle, or velocity of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. A waveguide is a structure that guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Extremely high frequency (EHF) is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) designation for the band of radio frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum from 30 to 300 gigahertz (GHz).
The radar frequency that Ralph was able to generate was so high that it could detect a rusted bolt or screw on an aircraft 200 yards away! But it was useless if there was no waveguide that could carry it from the power transmitter/generator to the transmitter/receiver dish.
In the early 70’s the frequency Ralph worked with was almost immeasurable much less controllable! He was known through the then radar detection world as a top rate engineer in the field of EHF (a new term back then)
Ralph lived in Boles Acre (just south of Alamogordo) with his nurse wife! A strange pair for sure! He was an electrical genius who couldn’t change the spark plugs in his own car and she was a nurse you didn’t wanna be left alone with but if you wanted to be left alone she could certainly make that happen and was quite capable of running everyone, family, friends and other doctors out of the room!
He was also a junk collector and he found a 1946 Taylor craft in somebody’s barn somewhere in southern Texas! Probably the lightweight plane had been used for crop dusting! He had a shade tree mechanic friend of his (who looked, acted & talked like Frank Sinatra) completely rebuild the engine and low and behold it started right up but the plane was a cloth plane and needed to be completely recovered so his wife found a shade tree seamstress (a Delilah wannabe) to stitch and recover the plane! Believe me these characters were true real-life characters – I couldn’t make this up…
The Taylorcraft design was a conventional layout: single engine, high-wing, fabric-covered, side-by-side two-person aircraft. The basic design has remained unchanged since 1936,
In the fall of 1946 production was halted following a fire in the Taylorcraft factory at Alliance, Ohio and the company went into bankruptcy. In 1949 C.G. Taylor bought the assets from the former company, and started a new company Taylorcraft, Inc. at Conway, Pennsylvania.
So the aircraft that Ralph and I are about to fly over the sacrament mountain so we can go bass fishing in Okemah Oklahoma was the one of the last ones made just before the original TaylorCraft company went bankruptcy.
How much about the plane did I knew about before I climbed in the seat beside Ralph and strapped on the seatbelt, I can’t remember but had I known that it was the last planes ever made by a bankrupt company I might’ve been a little more careful.
Ralph’s 46 T-Craft Taylorcraft had the typical cork and wire fuel gauge in the main fuel tank. Problem is, the cork would get waterlogged (“fuellogged”) so when he wasn’t flying the tail dragger Ralph would pull the cork wire gauge out of the fuel to let it dry out. Most of the time he kept the cork wire gauge out of the planes fuel tank & in his kitchen! Ralph decided he needed to invent an unvented rain cap for the gas tank & he did! He said he applied for a patent for the rain cap but I’m not sure that’s true.
Talk about a low tech plane – Keep in mind the cork fuel gauge wire was located directly in front of the plane’s windshield so both the pilot and the passenger could see that wire, how much or how little of the wire was sticking up out of the fuel cap indicated how much fuel remained in the main fuel tank. That’s how pilot and passenger know when the main tank was getting low. When the main fuel tank got low the wing fuel tank was drained manually by a lever into the main fuel tank and when the main tank was full again the lever had to be manually turned off or the main tank would over flow spewing highly combustible fuel onto the windshield which for obvious reason could became a very dangerous situation. I have no idea if other T-Crafts fuel system was set up that way but Ralphs was.
He also decided to shellac the cork and was so proud of himself like a little kid who just flew a paper rocket to the moon… he even decided to shellac the cloth fiber that covered the plane! Yep he was different!
Ralph loved to hear about our families fishing trips and became OCD about going bass fishing in the farm ponds out at the farmhouse and ponds around Okemah! He begged for months for me to fly with him to Okemah and finally I agreed to! We planned to go in a month or two, but he just couldn’t hold his enthusiasm for the trip to Okemah and after checking the weather patterns over and over and over he decides he wants us to take off just a week or so after I agreed to go with him.
The day we took off was a beautiful day for a plane ride! Ralph picked the day and exclaimed on so and so day at 6 AM was a perfect time with the perfect wind conditions to takeoff and fly over the Sacramento mountains! He was right!
The plane had an engine RPM gauge and two magneto switches plus a cork float, as explained earlier, for gas gauge. Even though most of the airports Ralph used had dirt runways and no manned airport tower. Ralph had a navigation radio on board, one he built, similar to a CB Radio, that he could talk to the airports flight towers (those that had them) letting them know he was approaching and asking what runway he could land on but he preferred using small dirt runways with nothing but a Windsock at each end of the run way to assist with landing!
We flew by sight, we followed roads and known landmarks on a map. We used two maps! One was a roadmap just like you would use to drive from Alamogordo to Okemah and the other we used to navigate with was a terrain map, commonly called Topographic map which were also called contour maps or topo maps. Topographic maps conventionally showed land contours, by means of contour lines with symbols for other physical objects and locations.
I was familiar with topo maps from Vietnam and even though I had never used a topo map in my life to actually get from pint A to point B with, Ralph immediately gave me the title of navigator.
Takeoff was smooth and uneventful, and I immediately gained a little confidence about Ralphs ability to fly the plane! Until we actually took off I had my doubts whether he even knew how to fly a plane much less how to takeoff and land one but hey what’s life without out a little Adventure!
It was cool flying above familiar roads that I had use for years to travel from Alamogordo to Okemah and back! It was cool seeing the small towns that I had to zoom through in a vehicle for years. You noticed I didn’t mention big cities because Ralph was paranoid about flying over or even getting near the big cities like Oklahoma City! The biggest city we flew over was Amarillo and he was sweating bullets as we went over it. I was just taking it all in and so happy to be on board!
The landing in Okemah was also un-eventful as landings go and my dad and Uncle Leland and John Ford picked us up at the airport! They couldn’t believe that I had flown in on an aircraft as old as I was and landed on a dirt runway that on one end butted up against interstate 40 and on the other end of the strip was a drive-in movie theater.
We fished our hearts out… dad and uncle Leland and John Ford accompanied us to all the best fishing ponds in Okfuskee County. No better eating on earth when cleaned and filleted and cooked correctly!
We stayed three nights and two days and ate fish every day, sometimes twice a day, and we also had a mess of fried squirrel which blew Ralph away! He loved it.
Ralph actually flirted with mom, can you believe that, and she loved it and Dad got a kick out of it. Ralph and Mom being together was something to see and hear. They hit it off and became close friends until he died… up until I lost contact with him and learned he had passed away he would ask about her every time I saw Him.
From early morning till late night he praised mom’s cooking and coaxed some of the best meals we had in a long time out of her! She loved cooking for Ralph and Ralph loved eating her food and listening to her tall tales and long-winded stories!
All my Okie realities and friends marveled at Ralph! They had never met anyone like Ralph andcouldn’t imagine people like him even existed!
Time flew bye and three days later after landing in Okemah it was time to takeoff from Okemah, so we did! Under the seat was a 10 lbs ice chest of frozen fresh caught bass! A gift from dad and uncle Leland and John Ford to Ralph! Ralph actually teared up when they handed him the frozen fish! I had to sit on it for the attempted flight back to Alamogordo!!!!
Again, flying back to Alamogordo, we flew over familiar roads and towns using familiar landmarks to navigate! We were both a little nervous about flying over the Sacramento mountains, but we have done it once and was sure we could easily do it again! We were wrong!
As we were approaching the Sacramento mountains somewhere near a small town called Tatum New Mexico, we experienced an emergency that most claim just never happens! These planes had to magnetos that provided the spark for the gas engine. one was a back up for the other and no one had ever heard of both magnetos going out at the same time but they did!
We were flying along at about 5000 feet off the ground and Ralph decided to check the back up magneto and lo and behold it was dead and he looked perplexed but when he turned the switch back to the main magneto it died and when both magnetos go out there’s no spark to the engine and immediately the engine quit running! The wood propeller clucked and chucked a couple of times and stopped dead still right before our very eyes! We couldn’t believe it! Deafening silence except for the wind noise the wings made.
The glide ratio of a T-craft is about 20 or 30 to 1! Meaning, flying at 100 mph, for ever 10 foot off the ground it can glide 200 to 300 ft with no engine! So doing the math if we were 4000 feet we could actually glide this thing without an engine for 80,000 to 120,000 feet! So still doing the math that means we could squeeze staying in the air and gliding, without an engine, for about 22 miles, before we had to land.
Believe it or not that was somewhat comforting, worst case scenario we could land on the road the only problem with landing on the road in farm territory was the irrigation pumps in the farmlands of NM! On one side of the highway was electric power lines and on the other side was irrigation pump and across the road was a high-line wire that went from the power lines to the irrigation Pump! Hitting one of those high-line wired would not be good.
My job was to scour the maps to see where we could best land! The best candidate for landing safely would be A dirt landing strip similar to the one we had taken off from in Okemah. I found an old abandoned unmarked and unknown dirt airstrip approximately 17 miles from where the engine went out maybe we could make it! It was near the town of Tatum New Mexico!
In the boom days of the oil fields in and around Tatum the oil company big wigs & oil field workerswould fly into this little airstrip to inspect and maintain they’re all rigs!
Come to find out this abandon airstrip had been used for a couple of years by ranchers to feed their cattle so even though small planes had landed and taken off from the once active dirt runway it was now covered in cow chips and deeply entrenched cow trails! Oh well it was still better than trying to land on the Paved road laced with high-lines.
However Ralph was a little shook up and he had mistakenly turned on the emergency gas tank in the wings above us and now fuel was pouring out of the gas tank through the hole that the wire cork gas gauge came up through! Which was a biggie because if the magnetos were to accidentally come to life and fire again then we would become charcoaled bodies on an abandon airstrip in a burned up old cloth T-Craft tail dragger. Now I was beginning to sweat, and I wanted to get us on the ground as fast as!
I turned off the emergency tanks and Ralph regained a little of his calm and with cow chips a flyin’ we landed the taildragger! We would’ve kissed the ground had it not been for all the cow chips but needless to say once we got out of the plane and our shaking knees would allow us to walk away from the aircraft we sit down and just laughed our butts off at what had just happened! OK so maybe some of the laughter was mixed with some tears but no tears of fear just tears of relief.
Now the big question is what do we do next – we have a broken down 3 legged plane out in the middle of nowhere and we’re on foot! We’re like two birds with clipped wings.
Looking around I could see a few hundred yards away an old hanger, so I decided to walk over and see what that was about! It was full of hay which some rancher had been feeding the cattle on the runway from but next to the hanger was a telephone pole. About 5 foot off the ground was a telephone box and I thought no way is that going to have a telephone In it and if it does no way is it gonna! Wrong again!
I opened the telephone box and there hung this lone old black telephone without a rotary dial! So I thought bummer, no dial face, how then am i gonna call anybody if I can’t dial from the Phone? So I thought I’d just pick it up to see if there was a dial tone and sure enough there was a dial-tone. Not only was there a dial tone but the phone started calling someone somewhere! I couldn’t believe it! How can it be! I’ve never seen such a thing or heard of it! A phone without a rotary dial that when picked up off the phone cradle would dial a number on cue by just being picked up.
Within a few rings a man answered and I could tell he was an older man with a heavy New Mexico accent! He sounded a little bit like Perry Brunson from Orogrande NM, my father-in-law‘s brother!
He said hello this is the Sands Motel and this is Birdie speaking can I help you! So I commenced to tell him who I was and what had just happened. When I got to the part about where I was that’s when Birdie started laughing! He said Hank if you think I’m gonna fall for this crap you’re dumber than dirt! I replied well I am not Hank and I don’t think for a minute you’re dumber than dirt!
He said oh you’re good this time but I’m telling you I’m not gonna fall for it so you get your butt over here and have a cold beer with me and stop thinking you can pull some kind of weird crank call cause this time it ain’t gonna happen and before I could say anything he hung up!
So I shuck my head, hung up the phone picked it up again and it dialed Birdie right back, and good old Birdie picked up the phone like the courteous motel owner he was, and answered hello what can I do for you and I said hey Birdie this is Rocky again and my friend Ralph and I we emergency landed on your old abandon airstrip and believe it or not there’s a phone out here that works and when I pick the handset up it calls you and you only. Please don’t hang up on me we need your help!
He said OK Hank I’m gonna let you play me for a few more minutes. He asked what kind of airplane are you flying and I said it’s a 1946 T-Craft and he laughed the biggest laugh I ever heard he said ok Hank I gotta admit that’s a good one and why did you have to land at an abandoned airstrip out in the middle of no-where! And I told him about how both magnetos went out and now he’s cracking up hysterically so I patiently waited till Birdie stopped laughing and cussing at me and telling me what a fool I was to try to play him when he wasn’t gonna fall for it again!
Well this went on for a few more minutes and he asked a few more questions and laughed at each and every answer but believe it or not with each question I could tell I was wearing him down. He was beginning to believe me!
I knew I had won him over when he finally called me Rocky instead of Hank! Finally, Birdie said Rocky you wait right there I’m gonna bring my toolbox over and we will take those magnetos off and we’ll see what we can do to help you two lost souls.
Before he hung up Birdie said I haven’t seen a 1946 Taylor craft in a long time but I used to visit oil wells around here in a very similar type air-o-plane (he pronounced it exactly like I just spelled it) so I’ll see you in a few minutes!
So Birdie shows up and I know you’re gonna think I’m pulling your leg now but he showed up in a 1946 Cadillac Series 62 Convertible! It was one of the coolest most beautiful cars I’ve ever seen and needless to say it was rare rare rare!
By the time Birdie got to us Ralph and already taken both magnetos out of the engine compartment (he had a small tool chest under his seat) so the first thing we did was put the frozen fish in the floorboard of the Cadillac and off we went to the Sands Hotel in Tatum NM!
Not knowing whether we would ever make it home with the Frozen filleted bass Ralph and I talked it over and we decided if Birdie was up to it we would cook up some freshly cleaned bass and enjoy it together!
Birdie couldn’t believe it! He thought it was one of the best meals EVER and he couldn’t believe Ralph and I either. He thought we were the weirdest two dudes that had just dropped out of the sky into his hotel that he had ever meet in his life!
It was a great meal and then you know you’re living right when Birdie looked at both of us, reached in his pocket and said here take the keys to the Caddy, take your two magnetos back to Alamogordo, get them fixed then come back, put them in the your fine bedsheet air-o-plane and you can fly back over those mountains to the desert!
And that’s exactly what we did! Much to mu disappointment I was able to go back with Ralph to Birdie‘s at the Sands Motel but Ralph said that when he left Birdies he stuck $100 bill (which was a lot of money back the)n underneath a cuppa coffee on the table and hugged Birdie‘s neck and flew his bedsheet Air-o-plane back over the Sacramento mountains to Alamogordo!
But that’s not the end of the story! Birdie not only loaned us his 1946 Cadillac convertible, but he gave us a book of Poems. More like a book of cowboy quotes and cowboy wisdom that he had published just a Few years previously! I gave the book to Ralph and he promised he would copy it for me but never did and believe it or not I thought about that book often over the years but was never able to pry it out of Ralph’s hands. Yes not even his dead hands. Soon after the plane ride from Alamogordo to NM Ralph was diagnosed with lung Cancer (no he didn’t smoke) and he died soon after. I had to find that out the hard way. His nurse wife knew how Ralph felt about me and me him but never told me he died. I found out from one of his neighbors on one on my many fruitless trips to visit him in Boles Acres NM. I w
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