cc
>> --who was born and raised in
Madison, Wisconsin.
Graduated from UW Madison in
1966 with a degree in landscape
architect.
He entered the Air Force in
pilot training at Reese Air
Force Base in September of 1966
and graduated in September of
1967 in class 68B.
He flew T-41s, 37s, T-38s
aircraft in training.
He entered the Strategic Air
Command in 1967 flying KC-135s
until his service commitment was
completed in the fall of 1971.
He then joined the Milwaukee Air
National Guard flying the C-97
and the KC-97L at Mitchell Field
until transferring to Madison
Air National Guard in 1978,
flying the O-2A followed by the
AC-3, 37B, A-10A, and the local
area supersonic flight and the
F-16C, and then retiring in
1994.
Tom was able to fly in the Air
Force and Air National Guard for
26 years throughout the
United States, Canada, Europe,
South Asia, Panama, Thule,
Greenland, and he has
accumulated over 5,000 flying
hours in military aircraft.
In his general aviation world,
soloed in 1964 in Morey Airport,
Middleton, Wisconsin, and
received his private license in
1965, flying in 152s and 172s,
entering the military again in
1966.
Managed the weather
dissemination program, the --
and the GPS approach procedures,
development Rockets for Schools
ACE programs at Mitchell and
Dane County Airports, and he has
accumulated over 3500 hours
flying general aviation
aircraft, including helicopters.
Retirement, he doesn't slow down
of course.
Very active in the UW Flying
Club.
Has flown over 300 Young Eagles,
probably more now to date.
Is part of the flight instructor
of the Wisconsin Aviation and
the director of Thomas Aviation
Consulting Technologies.
He was inducted in the Wisconsin
Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007
and is currently serving on the
Board of Directors for the
Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame
Incorporated.
He also is area 4 chairman for
the Wisconsin ESGR, Employment
Support for Guard and Reserve,
Committee.
So please help me welcome back
to the stage Tom Thomas.
[APPLAUSE]
>> Thank you very much.
I mentioned the Wisconsin ESGR,
this is really a cool poster,
and I brought a couple of these
along if you want to take one
home and hang it up in your
hanger or in your window, I
brought some along too.
Still support our troops, our
guard and reserve members that
are serving now for our country,
which is a really important
thing.
Really happy to be here to talk
about an experience I had back
in 1977 when I was flying with
the Milwaukee National Guard.
Outline for today.
I'm going to talk about the
introduction background, you got
some of that already, the
pre-flight and check out of the
Boeing 377, the cross country
pattern, entering the pattern at
Dodgeville, the landing, and the
final pavement.
Final pavement.
We'll talk about that too.
And I'm going to have some other
information about the C-97, the
Boeing 377, so you get an idea
of what goes on with the
airplane, how big it is, and how
the airplane flies.
Again, my introduction, I
started taking lessons in 1964
and went into the Air Force in
1966, went into the Milwaukee
Air Guard in 1971.
In 1971 when I went into the Air
Guard, I was out of the
Strategic Air Command and I was
an instructor in the KC-135, and
they said, well, we'd like to
have you, Tom.
We're going to get 135s in two
or three months.
That was December of '71 when I
raised my hand.
My last flight, my last flight
in the 97 was on January 12,
1978.
But what a wonderful experience.
It was a step back in time
flying the big old recip.
A beautiful airplane.
To give you an idea of the size
of the airplane, our engines
were Pratt & Whitney 4360s, the
largest recip that flew
regularly.
This is a piston.
Imagine the piston from 172 or
150 or Cherokee.
I'm going to have this around so
you can come and take a look at
it too.
It's quite a piston.
Each engine had 28 of these.
Four rows of seven cylinders
apiece, and we had four engines.
Imagine 112 of these popping and
jumping and banging and sloshing
around.
They liked oil.
[LAUGHTER]
When they designed the 97, as
a matter of fact, in the nose
of the 97 under the pilot
compartment they built it with
a 53-gallon oil tank.
And as the airplane flew, the
engines, Pratt & Whitney 4360
was designed to consume two
gallons of oil an hour.
Two gallons of oil an hour.
They had a 25-gallon oil tank
but still it would go low.
Some would burn faster than
others, so the flight engineer
would pump oil from the oil tank
reservoir in the nose to the
engine that it needed.
Now, being in the National
Guard, I learned quickly that
the National Guard were
improvisors, and they could
improve a lot of things.
And all of our 97s, this one
right here, right behind the
cargo door, and you'll see where
that is on the airplane, they
installed, our mechanics
installed a 50-gallon drum of
oil with a hand pump on it.
And as the oil went down in the
lower nose compartment, they
would pump the oil from our
50-gallon drum so we always had
enough oil.
Very important thing for the 97.
Milwaukee had a variety of
airplanes.
They had F-89s.
In 1959 they won the
championship shootout with the
F-89s, and it seems like
whenever they did something
well, the same in Madison, they
would get a different aircraft.
Milwaukee got the KC-97G model
in 1960, and they flew the first
--.
In Milwaukee, we did a lot of
interesting things.
I recall one Saturday I showed
up and they were having an air
show at Milwaukee.
They used to have them at
Mitchell Field.
It was really neat.
And I was on a crew that was
going to be inflight refueling
F-100s.
The top picture is of a tail
with a 97 and three F-100s
flying in formation alongside
it.
I had done this in the Air
Force, so that was no big deal.
We'd get a fighter behind us,
and he'd kind of fly along the
boom as we flew down the runway
and then we'd fly away.
They'd never make contact.
I got up the first time, and
it's harder to inflight refuel
with a basket.
They call it a drogue as opposed
to a prob, and we refueled
F-100s with a basket.
We picked up a flight of F-100s
from --.
They came in, we're getting
ready to go down the runway, and
the 97 you do things a little
bit different.
I come to AirVenture, I see
people making these low
altitude, high speed passes.
Remember those that at
AirVenture?
A great time.
Well, we made high altitude, low
speed passes.
[LAUGHTER]
In the 97, but we refueled.
And I'm listening on the radio
to the announcer as well, and
the F-100 came in, he got in
contact with the bag, and as we
flew down the runway we were
actually passing gas to him.
And they announced that too, and
I thought, wow, these guard guys
are really sharp.
And they are.
And this happened here at
Milwaukee too.
And you see the two 97s coming
in formation on a fly-by as
well.
A lot of different aircraft here
at Milwaukee.
One in particular, 905 is the
only one still existing in the
state and it's up at Volk Field.
How many people have driven by
Volk Field on the interstate?
You can actually drive in there
and drive around these
airplanes.
905 is still alive and well.
[knocks on podium]
I just heard last week, as a
matter of fact, from a gentleman
from Volk who told me that they
got a call from NASA, and NASA
still has a Super Guppy.
Remember the Super Guppies with
the big...?
Those are KC-97s that have taken
on a little weight.
[LAUGHTER]
And they make them real large so
they can carry things inside
them, and they're still
operating as Super Guppy but
their fuel tanks are dilapidated
and they don't work anymore and
they need some more fuel tanks
to replace it.
And they're looking around and
they call Volk Field and said,
hey, can we swap out gas tanks?
Do you have a 97?
Can we possibly trade so part of
905 still might be flying again?
A really neat story.
And it is up there, and after
the talk here and we're talking
about the 97, you want to go and
see one, if you can't get to
Dodgeville, stop in at Volk
Field and take a look at it.
You can walk around it and take
lots of pictures.
What is a 97?
What is it?
Well, it's kind of a big
airplane.
It has a wingspan of 101 feet,
four inches.
That's pretty wide.
And the length is 110 feet, two
inches.
That's pretty long.
That's a perspective.
Over 38 feet tall.
The gear says 33 feet wide, but
the actual center section of the
gear, they're dual tandems, are
29 feet, six inches apart.
The runway at Dodgeville was 30
feet wide, so the outside of the
wheels were actually on the
gravel or the grass.
Before he paved the runway,
Don Quinn, who owned the runway,
it was 75 feet gravel, and he
just paved 30 feet in the middle
of it.
So we were partially on gravel,
partially on asphalt.
But it was a pretty good sized
airplane.
Okay, 141 feet wide.
Interestingly, if anybody had
been into Dodgeville, the best
way to go there was by car even
when the runway was open.
[LAUGHTER]
Before we landed, the windsock
was too close to the runway.
We would have hit it with our
wings.
So they lowered the windsock.
Dodgeville, at the time in 1977
I was working for the state of
Wisconsin Bureau of Aeronautics
Department of Transportation in
airport operations.
And one of the things that I did
there was visit the airports and
check them for the FAA for their
airport facility inventory.
We would set airport inspection
5010 data, the data that you get
in the airport when you call it
up for your aircraft.
I'd actually gone to Dodgeville
before this with an engineer and
we surveyed the runway.
Dodgeville has a very unique
quality.
It's all downhill, basically.
Runway 1230, 30 northwest is our
landing direction.
Primarily in the state it's to
the north and northwest, 30.
The elevation difference on the
east end, runway 30 landing
approach, and the west end,
runway 12, was 84 feet.
All downhill.
84 feet.
So that was an opportunity, and
this opportunity making, again,
lemonade out of lemons, we'll
land uphill.
We have a challenge of landing a
big airplane on a short runway,
and if we use gravity on our
side, going uphill it's going to
help us land.
Initially, when Don Quinn
purchased the airplane in
California he wanted to bring it
back and make a restaurant out
of it, a cafe.
>> This is a military C-97
Boeing aircraft.
Civilian terms, that's a Boeing
377.
If that still doesn't mean much
to you, maybe this will.
This is the plane Farrah Fawcett
used in her car commercials.
The plane was built in the
mid-'40s and used to haul cargo
in the military.
It's takeoff weight is 181,000
pounds, and it burns 600 gallons
of gas in an hour.
Don Quinn bought the plane
Saturday in Long Beach and plans
to have it flown into
Dodgeville, land on a 2800-foot
airstrip, and then put on a
static display to be used as a
coffee shop restaurant at the
Don Q Inn.
According to Claude Frickleton,
temporarily securing the plane
at Frickleton Aero, Quinn's
always been an airplane nut and
a heck of a promoter.
The plane will be flown to
Dodgeville late this week or
early next week depending on the
wind and the weather.
Judy Nash, Wisconsin TV Network
News.
>> He had the Texas Air National
Guard fly the airplane up to
Wisconsin.
And they landed it at Madison,
and he paid them and got them
airline tickets to go home to
Texas, but they didn't want to
fly it in because the weather
wasn't good enough.
Those Texas people are kind of
smart.
So he was looking for a crew.
My boss came to work one day and
he said, hey, Tom, he said, one
of your airplanes is out at
Frickleton.
If you remember Frickleton
operation on the south end of
the field, and it's got Don
Quinn's name on it and he's
looking for a crew to fly it in,
you ought to give him a call.
I'd been to the airport, I knew
the 97, I knew Don Quinn, I'd
worked with him before, so I
called him up and said, hey,
Don, are you looking for a crew?
And he said, yeah, I am.
The guys from Texas couldn't fly
it in there because the winds
weren't right.
So I got on the phone and I
called around and I was able to
get a couple other crew members
from the 126 refueling that were
in Milwaukee that were
interested in flying it in with
me.
Dick Schmidt, Don Waligorski and
myself.
Don Waligorski was the flight
engineer.
Dick Schmidt was an airline
pilot for Air Wisconsin, and,
incidentally, he built a pit
special himself that he flew
around for air shows, and Ron --
says hello.
He's the guy that signed it off.
Active EAA member as well and a
126 refueling member as well.
So I contacted Don Quinn, and he
said yes.
And it depended on the weather,
so we waited for a good weather
day.
It happened to be Sunday,
October 17th.
The winds were pretty good, and
they were light and actually out
of the southeast so it favored
runway 12.
Too calm, basically.
So we coordinated and got the
three crew over to the Dane
County Airport.
Don Quinn was there.
Don Waligorski, Dick Schmidt,
myself, and the Channel 27
television reporter.
We looked at the airplane.
The television reporter, Dick
Schmidt, myself, and Don Quinn
flew in a Cessna 172SP to
Dodgeville.
And I knew the airport, so I
flew the 172 over there.
We landed uphill.
We dropped of the television
recorder with his video machine
and Don Quinn, and then Dick and
I walked the runway.
And we looked at potential
obstacles and potential
situations if we got a flat
tire, and that's when we had
them lower the windsock, and
different options that we had
before we just took off and flew
in there and landed.
When I talk to some people
sometimes and they wonder how
the airplane got in there, I
say, well, you couldn't really
land an airplane that big there.
They actually took the wings off
and put the fuselage and wings
on a train and took it in and
reassembled it.
And they believe that.
[LAUGHTER]
But we looked at the airport
first, and we looked at
the options.
And the Dodgeville Airport had a
number of unique qualities to
it, and one of them was
the terrain.
But landing uphill was on
our side.
So we checked that out before we
flew in for the first time, and
only time, with the 97.
This was the 1970 Wisconsin
airport directory, again that I
worked with publishing when I
worked at the state.
It shows the runway being 2700
feet long and 30 feet wide.
Before we flew over to
Dodgeville, we wanted to make
sure that the 97 was working
okay.
That everything on it was
working as it was supposed to.
So we took off from Madison, and
when we took off, we took off on
runway 31, one of the shorter
runways, which was, I think,
about 5400 feet long, which was
a piece of cake.
We flew out to the northwest
practice area, and we did slow
fly maneuvers.
We left the gear down.
Lessons learned again.
If the gear is down, you don't
need it, leave it down.
What ain't broke, don't try to
fix it.
So we left the gear down, flew
the airplane flaps, slow flight.
Very stable, very good, and then
before we landed, we wanted to
make a landing at Madison and
make sure that reverse worked.
We had four engine reverse on
that and we want to make sure it
worked, it was even across the
board, so when we decelerated we
wouldn't get any movement to the
right or the left.
So we came back in to land at
Madison and they want us to go
to the long runway, the
8,000-foot runway as opposed to
the one that was
5,000-something.
And we said, no, we'd take the
5,000-foot runway.
If we couldn't land there, we
couldn't land on 2700 feet.
So we came around, we brought it
in, we called up the air spades
and had the reverse lock lever.
On the 97, with the throttle,
there's actually a panel that
sits up against the throttle so
you can't reverse it
inadvertently in the air.
You actually have to open the
reverse lock panel.
As we came down, I was watching
the air speed so close, calling
it off, and we touched down and
Dick went to reverse and it
didn't reverse.
I thought, whoops.
My hand was on the reverse lock
panel.
Opened it up, we went to reverse
idle, even across the board.
It looked good, solid.
Went back, forward thrust.
Brakes worked good.
Braked evenly.
No movement one way or the
other, which was crucial.
So then we took off and we
headed for Dodgeville.
Left the gear down.
We had some 10,000 pounds of
fuel on board.
We could have made it to the
east coast.
We had a lot of gas.
It wasn't a problem.
Our limiting factor, remember
what I told you about?
Oil.
On the engines.
If you get down to 15 gallons,
you get a warning light, and if
you get down to 10 gallons, you
shut the engine off.
When we were coming in to land
and we lowered the nose, we
actually were getting low level
lights on our engine oil.
Interesting.
Interesting opportunity.
When we got to Dodgeville, we
did a standard traffic pattern.
And this is the standard traffic
pattern from the dash ones.
We have a couple dash ones you
can look at over in the book as
well.
And it shows that just like if
you're flying a 172 or a Piper,
Dakota, you fly it downwind, we
have the continued turnaround,
and then the final approach.
When I looked at this, it's
interesting you can see the
downwind, the turn to final
approach.
It says 25 knots above stall
speed.
We were a little closer than
that on final.
But you see it touching down on
the runway.
What was the wingspan?
>> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Yeah.
Look at the width of that
runway.
Boy, I'd like to land on that
runway.
Not quite standard what we're
going to do.
We got to the pattern, and we
had told them before we'd landed
in the 97 we were going to make
a low approach.
No matter if it looked good or
not, we were going to make a low
approach to make sure everything
was set up right, air currents
and everything looked good.
We'd go around and then if it
did, we would land.
If it didn't look good, we were
going to fly back to Madison.
Or the east coast.
We had enough gas.
[LAUGHTER]
So they said okay.
We went in and we made a low
approach, first of all.
Then we did a go-around and we
decided we'd use the call sign
eagle one, the eagle has landed
in tie with the astronauts
landing on the moon.
Eagle one going around and he
called us on a brick.
He was on a brick.
He said how come you're going
around?
And we said we told you we're
going around.
We wanted to make sure it was
okay.
We'll land on this approach.
So we came around and we're
landing on runway 12, uphill
again, and off the end of the
runway on 12 there happens to be
a ravine that's some 150-some
feet deep.
Really quite a drop off.
On the other end of the runway
is Highway 23, and that was
about a 15-foot drop off.
So it's important to stay on the
runway.
[LAUGHTER]
So we made the call when we came
in at Dodgeville, eagle one,
gear down.
Base runway 12, full stop,
Dodgeville.
As we continued turning, we made
the next call.
Dodgeville traffic, eagle one,
turning final, runway 12,
Dodgeville.
Everything was looking good.
Pretty fall colors you can see
in October.
It was a beautiful day.
On final, Dodgeville traffic,
eagle one, short final, runway
12, Dodgeville.
This is landing at Dodgeville
Airport.
Again, October 16th, sorry,
1977.
And you see us touching down
lightly there.
We're going to have a video that
we're going to show you, and
you'll see the actual landing.
We came down and on short final
the reverse lock plate was open
so the copilot didn't forget.
And I call off the air speeds,
and they were in the low 90s
when we came across final coming
up to the end of the runway.
And we virtually hit the first
brick.
That's a term that maybe it's an
Air Force or Navy term.
It's the end of the runway.
They're not made out of bricks
but if you imagined if they
were, you'd want to hit the
first brick if the runway was
short.
Actually, it was about 10 feet
from the end, but from our size
of an airplane it was the first
brick where the wheels hit.
I went back there again to
inspect it, and there were our
wheel marks.
But we hit the ground firmly.
And you'll see the airplane skip
gently, as the television
reporter announces it over the
video, and smoothly touched
down.
We came down and we hit that
runway, ka-bang.
No, we didn't hit the runway; it
hit us.
It was coming uphill.
And we bounced and the airplane
shook, but I felt that was okay.
I've had ones like that on
normal land.
But we bounced uphill and we
didn't bounce that far and we
never got very high because
we're going uphill.
Don Waligorski thought, our
flight engineer, we were going
to be going around, and he was
ready with the throttles.
Dick and I both felt, ah, piece
of cake.
We've got it made.
About 200 feet, we came down,
smooth landing.
We're rolling straight and
level.
Dick brought the throttle back
to idle.
I looked, I said even idle
across the board, brought the
throttles back.
Well, the engines are outside of
the wheels, and you know that
the wheels are right on the edge
of the runway.
So both these big props are out
over the grass and the dirt and
the sand.
So when we went reverse, we blew
all that stuff up.
And I'd landed a good number of
times in the winter in a
multi-engine airplane and the
97, and when we reverse the
props we would get a whiteout
from the snow because it goes up
and you can't see.
You're momentarily blinded.
Well, we had a brownout and
couldn't see the ground,
couldn't see anything, but we
were going straight.
It looked good, it felt good,
and we were slowing down good.
Dick brought the throttles up to
idle, back to forward thrust and
the dust and sand dissipated.
And we were about to where the
hanger building is, which is
about 1500 feet down the runway.
We hadn't gone much more than
half way down the runway, and we
were slowing down to the point
where we really didn't even have
to brake.
And it was the topography, going
uphill, that was helping us slow
down.
>> The Don Q almost didn't get
off the ground yesterday as the
crew and the owner played a
waiting game with the weather.
Clear skies made for excellent
visibility, but 10 mile an hour
winds were a problem.
The wind speed was important as
the runway in Dodgeville is
shorter than is usually
necessary to land a plane of
this size.
Wind wouldn't help.
But late in the afternoon, pilot
Dick Schmidt fired up the
plane's four engines, taxied
down the runway, and headed for
Dodgeville.
Minutes later, the destination
was in sight.
The World War II vintage plane
circled above while a crowd of
spectators watched from below.
Schmidt made a practice attempt
before climbing back in the sky
for one last pass.
The Don Q then came skimming
over the treetops and softly
touched the runway before being
engulfed in a cloud of dust.
It was a very happy crew that
was greeted by plane owner Don
Quinn, but yesterday's flight
was the last for the Don Q, once
a wartime fortress now to be
remodeled into a coffee shop.
Paul --, Wisconsin TV Network
News.
>> Well, Don Quinn told us that
the ground was very firm and
there's a lot of limestone
around that area of the state
and Dodgeville and we shouldn't
have a problem taxiing on it at
all.
And we were just a little over
100,000 pounds.
We weren't real heavy.
So we taxied off onto the grass,
and somehow word had gotten out
that we were coming in to land.
We didn't even know we were
going to land, but people showed
up.
The highway was blocked with
cars.
There were all kinds of people
around and thousands around.
I was worried about crowd
control, we all were, about
people running up and those big
propellers, so we got off onto
the grass and we shut down the
outboards.
And this is what we'd normally
do when we're coming back from a
mission.
We'd shut down the outboards.
We'd taxi in on the inboards.
Save fuel.
You don't need them all.
But we did it not only to save
fuel but to save people in case
they came running up.
Went through our checklist, and
then we proceeded to taxi in.
Dick pushed the throttles up,
pushed them way up, pushed them
up against the wall.
We just sat there.
We sunk into the ground.
We couldn't move.
Oh, nuts.
Okay, Don, we want to start the
outboard engines.
So I looked over at number four.
When we started the outboard
engines, pilot and copilot would
give the flight engineer eight
blades.
We'd count them, eight blades,
and tell them he got eight
blades, and then he'd put the
mixture to it, bring the
throttle up, and it would start.
So I gave him the one on the
right engine, Dick gave him the
one on the left engine, started
up all four engines.
And while we're sitting there
parked, Don Quinn called us on
the brick and said, hey, have
you got any problems, eagle one?
Nah, we don't have any problems.
All four engines, brought them
up and we got that thing out of
the ground and it started
moving, but it took all four
engines to taxi, to keep that
thing moving.
We taxied up on the hill,
basically where it is now, and
parked it, and people were down
below the hill and it was a mass
of people.
They were all around.
And we parked it up on top, went
through the checklist, and shut
it down.
The people stayed down.
They stayed away, which was
really very good.
Shut down the airplane and then
climbed out.
And an interesting thing, my
boss was Fritz Wolf of Flying
Tiger.
I don't know, some of you maybe
know Fritz Wolf from Shawano,
Wisconsin, who was inducted in
the Aviation Hall of Fame as
well.
Flew for Chennault in China
Burma before World War II.
And he told me when he heard I
was going to fly it in, he said,
okay, Thomas, you just don't
tell them you work for the
state.
Don't mention the state of
Wisconsin.
So when they asked me after I
landed, I was also in the Civil
Air Patrol.
Have we got anybody in Civil Air
Patrol?
Good organization.
I was with the Civil Air Patrol
cadet program, so when they
asked me what kind of flying do
you do, I said, well, I fly with
the Civil Air Patrol.
[LAUGHTER]
That's all I told them.
But in the paper, and we have a
paper here we'll show you in a
bit, they published it and they
said that Tom Thomas works for
the Wisconsin Aeronautics
Commission.
I thought, well that's the end
of my career.
Well, there was no such thing as
the Wisconsin Aeronautics
Commission.
So I got out of trouble there.
But they came and interviewed us
and wined us and dined us and
then flew us back home that
night.
Dropped me off first at Madison,
Don Waligorski at Milwaukee, and
then Dick up to Appleton.
A couple days after the flight,
this newspaper was published.
And in here there's a lot of
statistics about the airplane
itself.
And I'm going to talk about some
of those things, and some of the
pictures they had in here as
well.
Because the story does go on
after they talked about the
landing and then different
things came up.
This is the Dodgeville Airport
in 1989 shortly after it closed.
It was purchased by a
construction company, and now
the runway has construction
equipment on it.
You can actually drive down it
to the far end, which I have a
couple of times.
But you sure can't land on it
because it's got all this
equipment on it.
So the Dodgeville Airport is no
more.
Thirty years afterward, in 2007,
the Chronicle was published, a
special issue, an anniversary
issue of the landing of the
airplane.
We had a reunion there, and Don
Quinn passed away with stomach
cancer.
Had quite a fight with it.
And during the reunion, his wife
was there, and she talked about
going to California to pick up
this airplane with Don Quinn.
This airplane had belonged to
the United States Air Force.
It had been sold to Project Hope
for a dollar, and as a cargo
airplane it was used to fly
supplies to Biafra in the Congo
during the Biafra revolution
there.
They had five C-97s.
Three of them remained in
Biafra.
Two of them came home.
This is one and its sister is
located at the Pima Air Museum.
Anybody been to Pima Air Museum?
Great place to go.
If you see a 97 there, this is
its sister.
Incidentally, the people from
NASA might be calling the Don
Quinn too about its fuel tanks,
which would be a new life for
this airplane, which is
interesting.
So we had the celebration there,
and Don's wife mentioned that
they had gone in to look at the
airplane.
A company wanted to buy it and
fly it down to South America and
get it certified through the FAA
there because they couldn't do
it here because there were so
many things to get done to it,
and they had almost tried to
purchase it and the bank had it
and they wouldn't sell it to
them so Don put in a bid and he
purchased the airplane.
And to get it flyable back home,
he had to buy some oil for it.
Remember, it needs a little bit
of oil.
[LAUGHTER]
So he says, hey, honey, have you
got that Texaco card?
She said, yeah.
He says, would you pay for the
oil, I'm over here talking to
these guys.
Sure, honey.
So she goes and gives the Texaco
card, comes back, $673 for oil.
She goes, wow, that's a lot of
oil.
And in those days it wasn't that
much.
So she paid for it, and she said
that was the most she'd ever
paid on a credit card in her
life was the oil for this
airplane.
She said she got home and a week
or two later when she got home
Texaco called her up and said,
well, we think the decimal is
off.
It should be $68 not $680.
They thought it was wrong too.
But the airplane needed so much
oil.
It did need a lot of oil.
So that was her largest purchase
price on any credit card.
Payment.
Before we took off to go fly, we
talked about it in our crew of
how much we were going to charge
and how much we were going to
get paid.
We were kind of excited about
the challenge of doing it, and
paying would be nice.
It wasn't our primary
motivation.
You learn something from your
experiences.
Don said, I'll pay you well.
Okay, good, he's going to pay us
well.
On our flight back that night
after the big ceremony we talked
about how much it was going to
be.
What we thought well was going
to be.
And I think it came up to
something like $150 a piece.
That was initial price anyway.
There were other things that we
talked about.
This was '77 again, October
16th.
We got rid of the airplanes in
January of 1978.
And that was the last flight I
had on a 97.
We were all together, Don
Waligorski, Dick Schmidt, and I,
at guard drill in Milwaukee.
We thought we'd go over to the
Don Quinn and get paid.
So we rented an airplane Cessna
172 from Aerodyne and we split
the cost of it and we flew over
to Dodgeville.
The runway was plowed.
I remember it was cold, and we
got wined and dined.
Well, I didn't get wine because
I was the seeing eye pilot.
So I just had Coke.
And Dick and Don had their mixed
drinks.
We were ready to go and getting
ready to go out to the airplane.
It was shooting 11 o'clock.
And this is on tape, okay.
We decided, Dick, ask him, ask
him for our checks.
We want our checks.
And Dick says, well, we'd kind
of like to get paid, we came
over to get paid.
And Don said, kind guy, great
heart, he said, well, what I'd
really like to do is have you
come back with your wives and
we'll have a party, a
celebration, and we'll write
your checks out then.
And Dick says, yeah, okay,
that's fine.
We walked out to the airplane
and we got the 172 started in
the cold, cold weather and we
found our way back to Milwaukee.
It wasn't snowing that hard.
The rest is kind of history, but
every day I'd go out to the
mailbox and look for that check.
Maybe in a blue moon someday it
might come by.
[LAUGHTER]
The 97 did some really
interesting things.
One of the neat things I was
able to do, in 1972, December,
there was a real bad earthquake
in Nicaragua.
Howard Hughes was staying in a
motel on the top floor there.
Some of you remember it.
Nicaragua is a sister to
Wisconsin so they needed some
food supplies.
We got four 97s to fly down with
20,000-some pounds of food on
each one.
I got to go on airplane number
four and fly down to Nicaragua.
We actually flew to Texas,
stayed overnight, and then
entered Nicaragua the next day
during daylight.
They had no power.
They had no lights, no radios.
We talked to a guy in the jeep.
We landed, offloaded, and then
flew in to Panama and stayed
overnight.
But I have this slide for a
specific reason, and it talks
about the ingenuity of the
Wisconsin Air National Guard
maintenance men.
The airplane was going to deploy
to Alaska for two weeks, and the
maintenance man asked Colonel
Bailey, the commander, if they
could take a car to Alaska
because our license plates were
good here and there.
And Tom Bailey said, Colonel
Bailey, ha ha ha, if you can get
it in, we'll take it, ha ha ha.
He figured no way.
Look at the size of that door.
Could you get a car through
there?
They did.
[LAUGHTER]
Somehow, I don't know how they
did, and every time I see a 97,
the one at the museum in
Ashland, Nebraska, has got the
cargo door open, I look at it
and I just wonder.
They must have taken the wheels
off and, I don't know, the
bumpers, twisted it around, got
it all together, got it all
strapped down, and they got it
inside.
And Bailey found out and he went
up to the airplane and he walked
up there and he saw it and says,
get that out of here.
Okay.
But they got it in there.
They did take it out and
disassembled it, but somehow
they were able to squeeze, kind
of like putting a ship in the
bottle.
How do they do that?
But the 97 mechanics were
outstanding.
Fueled a lot of different
airplanes with the KC-97.
This is an F-4 Phantom jet.
When we went to Germany in the
middle '70s, operation called
Creek Party, we flew out of
Frankfurt.
And the 97 was the only plane
that could fly out of there
because the KC-135 made too much
noise.
They had noise sensors set up
all around Frankfurt, and you
had to fly a planned departure
route and if you set off the
noise sensors, you'd be in
trouble.
You'd be fined.
But the 97 could operate safely
out of Frankfurt, and there were
a lot of F-4s in Germany at the
time.
Neat aircraft that I was able to
refuel in the 97 was the YF-17.
Probably haven't heard of the
YF-17, but this looks kind of
like the F-18, doesn't it?
Well, it was in the fly off
competition with the YF-16.
It was a YF-17 two-engine jet.
The Navy didn't buy the YF-16,
but they took the 17.
They bulked it up.
This had a single nose wheel in
the front.
Made double wheels, beefed up
the gear, beefed up the
airplane, and we have the F-18.
It was in a fly off competition
with the YF-16, and we in the
National Guard were able to
participate.
Texas, I mentioned to you about
Texas before.
I was able to fly out the first
crew from Milwaukee to Edwards
Air Force Base California for
the fly off competition.
We landed, this guy showed up in
an orange flight suit and a 12
case of Oly beer and said you
guys are great.
Gave us all a beer, we got off
the airplane, boy, this is a
great place to be.
Edwards, I heard all about the
flight testing here.
Boy, the guard is great.
Texas was just here and they
really supported us, did us
good.
We were going out on a mission
and the Texas 97 took off and
the nose gear was stuck down.
It happened to me twice.
And we said, well, I guess
you're going to have to cancel,
we're going to have to go back
in, and Texas says, no, if you
can refuel at 190 knots we're in
good shape.
So they said okay.
So they're up there with this
airplane flying around with the
nose gear, and there's a YF-16
coming and get gas and doing its
stuff.
More gas.
They're flying along, all the
sudden the airplane would start
to shake when you lose an engine
quite often.
Number two starts to shake and
smoke.
They shut number two down, break
away, break away.
F-16 went back and said, gee
whiz, you guys are going to have
to go back and land.
We'll do the mission later.
And they said, no, that's okay,
if you can refuel at 190 knots.
So here's this airplane with the
nose gear hanging down, number
two feathered, and the refuel in
the YF-16.
One of my additional duties in
the Air Force and the Air
National Guard was aviation
safety.
[LAUGHTER]
Somehow Texas kind of missed out
on things.
Nothing happened but stuff can
fall off the airplane.
But they completed the mission.
And I thought, geez, I got to
follow that story.
As it turns out, we flew for two
weeks.
We had one VHF radio right up
the airplane.
Flew great the whole time.
We never had a problem.
And it was great refueling the
YF-17.
Neat airplane.
Local flights.
The 97 would fly around
Libby Parod.
Put Libby, Libby, Libby on the
table, table, table.
Anybody remember Libby Parod
from Cable?
Yes.
The first woman inducted in the
Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame.
This is Cable.
Cable, Wisconsin.
And the pilots from Milwaukee
knew Libby because they would
fly up there in their corporate
jets.
Well, one day they were out for
a cross-country training flight
and they call up Libby and she
asked them to make a low pass
down the runway and check it
out.
And so it would do that too.
Local flights.
This is our squadron picture
taken in 1976.
You can see on the left side of
the picture, kneeling down is my
name Tom Thomas.
Right close to me is Dick
Schmidt.
Standing up behind us is Don
Waligorski.
We may not have been the
smartest or the best air crew
members in the refueling
squadron, but we were the best
looking.
[LAUGHTER]
The 97 is still sitting there.
I went up there one Christmas
and took this picture, and it is
there on Highway 26 and you can
stop by and see it.
And now the rest of the story.
The Boeing 377 wasn't the first
four-engine airplane to land at
Dodgeville.
This airplane landed there
before we did.
It's a DC-6, and Don Quinn was
flying it at the time for a
company, and he landed it there.
And he needed a copilot for
insurance or something so he
called up a friend of mine,
Jerry Ehrlich, who was a flight
instructor, multi-engine flight
instructor at Morey Airport in
Middleton where I got my
license, which at the time had a
gravel runway and two grass
runways.
A fun place to fly.
And said, hey, would you fly in
the right seat for me?
You don't have to do anything,
but I need you there.
And Jerry told me about it, and
they went up there and flew it.
It was gravel runway then, and
he landed and he taxied in and
he got out in the flaps and the
elevator in the back and the
rudder are all fiberglass.
Canvas but they make the
fiberglass now.
Full of holes from the rocks.
Well, he used some duct tape,
taped it up, and took it off and
flew it out of there.
But this was the first
four-engine to land at
Dodgeville.
We weren't the first one.
Don Quinn was quite an
entrepreneur.
He made a lot of stuff out of
nothing, and he wanted to make a
cafe out of this airplane.
And his plan was to turn it
around and back it into this big
barn restaurant he has, hotel.
At the second level, you would
just walk off, and you would
walk inside and you'd sit at the
tables.
He would have microphones set up
to Unicom and the ATC
frequencies nearby, so while
you're having your burger or
your cup of soup you could
listen to the airplanes fly over
and listen to the pilots talk.
And it has two levels in it.
It has a lower level.
And the lower level was going to
be the kitchen.
It would work out real fine.
Well, when he was going to do
that there were some health
employees from the state of
Wisconsin that went out and
visited him and gave him a list
of things that he had to
provide, elevators and all sorts
of things and so many things he
said thank you very much and
decided not to do it.
He couldn't do it because of all
the restrictions.
It sounds like a slam dunk to
me, but he had so much help that
he just couldn't do it.
So he left it parked out in
front, and people would come and
see it and they would pay to go
into it.
School kids, they'd bring school
kids in buses so they could tour
the airplane.
It was a great addition out
there.
He made, I think, twice the
amount of money that it cost him
to buy the airplane from people
going through it while he was
still alive and coming out on
weekends and walking through the
airplane.
So he was an entrepreneur.
Don Quinn also enlisted in the
Army Air Corps in the early
'40s.
And here's a picture of him with
a P-38.
And he flew the P-38 in the
South Pacific.
Well, another very well known
Wisconsinite, Richard I Bong,
flew the P-38 in the Pacific in
World War II.
70 years ago this year, 1944,
Richard I Bong received the
Medal of Honor.
It was actually given to him on
December 12th.
Our own Richard I Bong from
Poplar, Wisconsin.
He had shot down 40 aircraft,
but he didn't get the Medal of
Honor for that.
He actually, they started the
paperwork in October and he was
selected, he had 38 kills at the
time, because he had shot down
10 enemy aircraft in eight days.
And that's why he was given it.
He still is the ace of aces.
Nobody has matched his number of
kills.
He was put in the flight test
program at Edwards Air Force
Base in California.
Was flight testing the new P-80
jet in January of '45, later in
'45, and the engine quit on
takeoff and he wasn't able to
eject and he lost his life.
It was 70 years ago today or
this year that Richard I Bong
received the Medal of Honor.
We have some additional cards on
the table.
Rose Dorsey, who is the
president of the Wisconsin
Aviation Hall of Fame, has some
trading cards with
Richard I Bong on it.
And he was the first one we,
with the Wisconsin Aviation Hall
of Fame, have produced, and
we're going to be producing
more.
And she has some to pass out if
you would like one after the
meeting.
There was one other special
member that had a tie in
Hollywood to our 97 at
Dodgeville.
Interesting story.
Here she is.
Farrah Fawcett.
I remember, yeah, in technicolor
seeing Farrah Fawcett with the
commercials for the Mercury
Cougar, and they actually were
inside this airplane.
And they had the cams on the
back drive out.
And it had a big Mercury Cougar
on the nose of the airplane as
well in the Mercury Cougar
advertisement earlier in 1977 is
when the commercial was made.
And also, Farrah Fawcett signed
the airplane herself.
And her signature, again, is in
the newspaper that you'll be
able to see.
The airplane was made very
rugged, very capable, and the
picture before that actually had
two engines shut down.
And that was part of its
demonstration to the military to
show how strong and how capable
the C-97 was.
If it would receive battle
damage, it could fly home safely
on two engines fairly easily.
And it could.
And with that, I'll open up to
any questions, if you have any
questions right now.
I'll remain for a while, but if
you have any questions that you
think are of general nature that
other people would like to hear.
[APPLAUSE]