Hot, hot, hot!

[Friend Weller]

The CAA's "Sentimental Journey" was in Logan for an airshow this weekend.  It was supposed to fly out today but a failed magneto in engine #2 means an additional day here while a new one is being overnighted in.  It'll be on its way tomorrow afternoon. 

A friend of mine and I took the opportunity to venture out on the apron for the tour.  We've both flown in B-17's before (his dad flew 30 missions during the war) so we're both very familiar with the airframe but I was able to make this observation today:  it was over 90° this afternoon.  Sentimental Journey is, according to the crew, 900 pounds lighter by being polished aluminum compared to painted B-17s.  It was as hot if not hotter than the outside air temperature inside the fuselage and every bit as stifling.  Now the humidity at 4200' in the Rockies in July isn't anything like the tropical Pacific but regardless, with only four openings (one nose hatch,, two cockpit windows,, and the aft fuselage hatch) available for ventilation, needless to say we cut our time short in the interest of being to get out under our own power.  It felt good to get outside the aircraft into the hot July sun.

This little excursion only drove the point home of how unimaginably hot it must have been to be inside the Electra on the reef at Nikumaroro during the daytime.  A solemn reminder of what out illustrious duo had to deal with during the summer of 1937.

[Jeff Lange]

Great first person observation Friend!

[Ric Gillespie]

In July 2009 I spent some time in the cockpit of the Naval Air Museum's Electra parked in the Pensacola sun.  Within five minutes I was soaked with sweat and eager to exit.

[Jim Zanella]

Whenwe did air shows at Barbers Point HI we had the same problems with heat in the flight deck of the  Boeing E6A. As soon as we landed the flight crew would bail. I learned to have the airplane parked 90 degrees to the wind direction and open the side windows.
Jim

[Ric Gillespie]

My father (who turns 100 next month) tells of arriving at Fairborn AFB, Ohio in the summer of 1944 to transition into B-17s, having just completed multi-engine training in Beech AT-10s at Newburgh, NY.  Thrilled to at last fly the hallowed Flying Fortress, he was horrified to find the instructor pilot waiting in the cockpit dressed only in his underwear.  He soon understood why.

[Scott C. Mitchell]

This discussion correlates with Betty's Notebook, in which Betty made this record and observation:

"come here just a moment"   
......in here he [Fred] kept wanting to get out of the plane because it was so hot and she kept calling him back.

[Ric Gillespie]

I wonder if they were wearing just their underwear.

[Don White]

Reading about these experiences, and just dealing with the current heat wave in Virginia, brings it home what it was like for them far more than just imagining it in my comfortable chair.

And I find it difficult to endure an hour or two of driving in a car with insufficient air conditioning for this weather.

LTM,
Don