 UPDATE
On 16 August, we flew from Darwin to Bali. Total time was a little
over 6 hours in the air. It then took us 5 hours to refuel the plane
from 11 drums of Avgas and to add 7 gallons of oil to the engines.
On 17 August, we departed Bali for
Johor (Malaysia). After 1hr 30min into the flight, smoke appeared
coming from the left engine. After 15 seconds, the engine started to
vibrate severely, then fire appeared. We shut down the engine and
diverted to Surabaya (25 minutes away). The Indonesian ATC was very
helpful and we landed safely.
 We
have located several engines. We have to ship the engine to Surabaya
and install it before the end of September. We are on the clock,
because the annual on the aircraft expires in the end of October.
All of our crew is working for free.
BRASS PLAQUE*
Please help us to complete this mission and cross the hump to China.
Every person who contributes us$1,000* or over will receive their
name on a brass plaque beneath the C47 at its final resting place in
the FLYING TIGER HISTORICAL MUSEUM in Guilin, China --
https://www.gofundme.com/25ccc2zw
Engine Replacement Sponsors:
Tom Claytor* -- Lynn & Tony Hitschler -- Bonnie Ritchie -- Peter
Cooke -- Francis Smith -- Michel Ryf -- Warren Claytor -- Anonymous*
(x14) -- The Elephant Story* -- Ed & Joey Story* -- W.C.McDonald,III
-- Turbosan -- Maggie McDonald -- Larry & Nina Jobe* -- Jacques
Warnez -- Robert Hupertz -- Wichai Laksanakorn -- Richard Ries --
Thomas J. Martin -- Lisa & Eddie Pavlu -- Krystal Bigger -- Gordon &
Brenda Ehmann -- Scott Stingel & Carole Wong -- Billy McDonald --
Elizabeth Wilkie -- Pinyada & Suchard Raksangob Phuket Airpark* --
Christian Mosebach -- Mick & Deb Breen -- Don Chapman -- Al Bartlett
-- Ben Claytor -- Dale Baumler -- The Shadow Tiger* -- Kathy Mac
Donald Adams -- Alan Gaudenti* -- Leon Liebster -- Stephen Gleit --
Johnny Via -- Gabrielle & Danielle Coelho -- John & Peggy Andrews --
Robert Lee -- Andrew Richardson -- Gerald Moon -- William Castle --
Xiaoying Hou -- Saundra Whitehead -- Legg Family Trust -- Stanley
Crawford -- Richard Sicilianp -- William Palmer -- Martin McGuire --
Cameron McDonald Vowell -- Joseph Hyde -- Bill Bulfer* -- Logan Ma
-- Jerry Baker -- Adam Griffith -- Edward Hay -- Mark Juza --
William Etheredge -- Jan Sonderstrom -- Jeremy Zawodny & Kathleen
Moorse -- Catherine Santa Maria -- Worldbeat -- Cissy Thompson --
Stone Hanset Family Trust* -- J.T.Whitehead,Jr* -- Brannon & Sarah
Claytor -- Lydia Rossi -- Ken Parker -- Richard Hague -- Michael
Ward -- Daniel J. Pereira -- John Talbott -- Mel & Suzanne McGowan
-- John & Sally Smikahl -- Bob Cowley -- Tom Rasmussen -- (as of 24
Oct 2016) REPLACEMENT ENGINE READY TO SHIP
In late August, we purchased a replacement R-1830 engine (which
weighs over 1,000 kilograms). It is now in Melbourne, as we are
trying to negotiate the very complicated procedure to import an
engine into Indonesia. The first quote we received from the
maintenance firm located next to the aircraft wanted to charge us
us$12.5 per kilo "Handling Fee" to import the engine. As you can see
this process is going to be interesting. Larry Jobe is now in
Surabaya and the American Consulate has been advising and assisting
us with negotiations. THANK YOU EVERYONE who has believed in this
mission and has generously donated to our replacement engine. Thank
you to Al Marsh for his update in
AOPA MAGAZINE.
SINGAPORE INVITATION
We have received an invitation from the Singapore Flying Club to
land in the historic Seletar Airport after our departure from
Surabaya. Singapore Flying Club is one of the oldest flying clubs in
all of Asia, starting with seaplanes in 1928. They are trying to
find sponsors for fees, avgas, and oil. In this case, we will alter
our plan to land in Singapore to give a talk to aviator friends
there and prepare for the next leg of the journey to U-Taphao,
Thailand. Standby as we wait to hear more about this exciting
opportunity --
Singapore Flying Club
BACK IN THE AIR
 If
you were wondering how long it takes a bunch of mostly 70-year old
guys to change a 2,000 pound engine on a C-47 in the 30*C heat, the
answer is 9 days. We had hoped it would take 5, and it almost did,
but we had to make sure. The amazing story is how we did it.
Indonesia has to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
There is no straight answer to anything. Whatever is negotiated,
then changes. Whatever amount is agreed upon, is then increased.
This is a land where a very unique and special style of negotiation
is called for. We started with a 500 us$ per day parking fee on an
apron that belonged to the Navy. The chaps charging us, didn't even
own it. Then there was the us$20,000 Customs "Handling Fee." We knew
this was going to be difficult. We started with what is called in
Indonesian
 as "Makan Tulu" (eat first). It took us about 2 weeks of
forming alliances and getting our story in the
Jawa Pos
newspaper to
change the tide of the forces against us. In most parts of the
world, if you have an engine failure, everyone wants to help you;
our experience at the airport in Surabaya was that, as soon as we
had landed safely, everybody wanted to eat us. It started with our
having to wait 3 hours in an Immigration holding area. They could
have just given us a 30 day "tourist" entry Visa, but instead, they
were trying to find some way to fine us and detain us, perhaps to
extort money from us. Barry found a used engine back in Australia.
Tom and Larry hit the ground hard and found the way to get the
engine into Surabaya. Our new allies were the Chinese Consul General
and her Economic Attache. They went with us to meet the head of
Customs. Normally, Customs can hold an engine for up to 30 days, and
it is also impossible to import a "used" engine. There are no "new"
C-47 engines, but it was useless to explain that, so we instead
imported "spare parts" for a complete engine. At one point in the
negotiation, the head of the Indonesian Customs looked at us and
said, "why is the China helping the America?" And there we were, and
they certainly did help us. We cleared the engine in 2 days. The
next problem was how do a bunch of mostly 70 year old chaps load a
2,000 pound broken engine into the back of a C-47.
 We
were not allowed by Customs to ship the engine out. No; we had to
fly it out. Next to us on the ramp, were about 15 Russians who were
repairing their Sukhoi Jet. They invited us to drink Vodka with
them. Tom and Barry were the designated drinkers. We asked them how
they would load a 2,000 pound engine in a C-47, and they knew
exactly how. More Vodka. The next day, we had a crane, some wooden
palates, a few metal pipes and our 10 Russian friends. We lowered,
levered, and heaved the engine right in and up inside the plane in
about 20 minutes. No problem, more Vodka. And we learned the very
important Russian Folklore expression, "Nee VeeZhoe PreeCheeNee,
ShtoeBey Nyie VeePyiet" (there is no reason not to drink), and we
made some good friends. The story goes on.... (more later).
"On Approach to Seletar" --
Photo by our friend Lim Yee Kiat
SINGAPORE
 After
a month in Surabaya, Larry was awarded the honorary "Surabayan"
T-shirt. The symbol of Surabaya is a Crocodile and a Shark circling
around a minaret. Aviation is a very small world, and the Thailand
EAA Chapter had hosted "Buck," the Manager of the historic Republic
of Singapore Flying Club, for a talk on the history of aviation in
Singapore. Buck asked us why we weren't stopping in Singapore on our
way North. We said that Johor in Malaysia was a cheaper option for
us. It took Buck a few seconds to change our minds, and we received
the most tremendous and welcome hospitality that any war-ravaged
Surabayan C-47 crew could imagine. The club donated us a free drum
of W120 Aeroshell Oil. All fees were waived. Jet Aviation took
wonderful care of us, and all the members of the Flying Club turned
out to greet us and take us to dinner and help with absolutely
anything we needed. It didn't take Barry and Mick long to pull the
cowlings off and start sorting out our rough magneto, and 2 days
turned into 5 days. Seletar has some pretty strick rules, and you
can only run up an engine in a special run-up area. This rule was
enforced the first couple of days, but when they realized how long it
takes a bunch of mostly 70 year old chaps to follow this procedure,
an exception was made for an "APU-style run-up" in our special
parking area. In the midst of one of our repair sessions, some young
Singaporeans peered through a fence and politely commented, "You
guys look like The Expendables..."
"In Formation..." with
the Commanders of Jet Aviation Seletar
THAILAND
As we landed at U-Taphao Airbase in Thailand, the news was
spreading that the beloved long serving King Bhumibol of Thailand
had passed away. Everything was very quiet. We shut down and met
with some Thai Navy personnel and handling agents, but there was a
deep sadness and stillness in all the people we met. The plane
was flying well. We topped off with drums of fuel previously
arranged by Indochina Aviation and were hungry and tired.
The following morning, we departed for
Chiangmai low level. We made a low pass over the headquarters of EAA
THAILAND which had helped us with connections on shipping agents and
secret procedures to get a "used engine" imported into Indonesia,
then proceeded north to the West of Bangkok. The weather was fine,
and we had another refuel and flight plan stop in Chiangmai. MYANMAR
As we crossed the FIR into Myanmar, there was a marked
change in ATC procedures. For one, we could barely understand the
chaps in Mandalay. Then there were 3 or 4 aircraft talking over each
other, and when they blocked each other out, they spoke louder and
faster. It was feeling a bit like the wild west. We passed over
TaungGyi, then some mountains and down into the Irrawaddy Valley. We
managed to slip in before the 3-4 other aircraft and taxied up to a
warm group of spectators waving American and Myanmar Flags.
There were hugs and smiles and we
clambered out, and then the greatest surprise of all -- the Myanmar
Air Force "TatmadawLey" pulled up in an army truck with 4 drums of
Chinese Avgas and a hand pump. 5 very smart and polished Air Force
Officers presented themselves, and announced that they had been
waiting for us for 10 days. What a tour-de-force, and a salute to
our friend, Danny, the Israeli Ambassador who personally went and
met with the Commander of the Burmese Air Force to request their
help with this honorable mission.
That evening, we were taken to the
Jefferson Center in downtown Mandalay to give a talk about our
journey to a packed room of Burmese English-speaking enthusiasts who
had been following our progress on facebook for almost 2 months. We
had finally made it. We had a delicious Burmese dinner arranged by
our Indochina Aviation hosts who had come to Mandalay to help smooth
the delicate process of departing to the East over "The Hump."
The following morning, the weather
looked okay. A few clouds, but an early start would give us the
chance to cross the mountains before the clouds could build. At
least, this was the hope... THE HUMP
POINT
 15
Oct 2016, A text message to our friends: "We have crossed from
Burmese to Chinese Airspace 15 minutes ago at LINSO point time
03:33Z (11:33 Local Beijing). We immediately received excellent
comms from Kunming Radio. We had to flight plan out of Myanmar at
Flight Level F270, but we stopped our climb at 12,500'. As soon as
we had contact with Kunming, they requested our climb to 4,500meters
(14,800'). All his years in Papua New Guinea (45 years ago), he
never climbed that high. We put the engines forward to climb power
at 2350 rpm and 28" manifold pressure (we are off the placard charts
on performance). The plane climbed right away and smartly to 14.7 in
about 5 minutes. It is getting a little chilly now, and all of us
forgot to put our wool socks on. Below us are sharp valleys and
jagged brown rivers flowing back and forth. We have passed the few
CB thunderheads on the border and we are about 500' to 1,000' above
a cloud layer now. Larry has brought us up a bottle of O2 in case
anyone feels light headed, but we are all feeling good at the
moment. We are now passing overhead Lintsang Airfield (ZPLC). The
Kunming Radio chaps speak perfect English to us, but all other
traffic is speaking Chinese. A large town now appearing on the left.
We are about to go into cloud again. Present groundspeed at this
altitude is 150 Knots. We are now running on the Aux tanks which is
the fuel (90-95 Octane) that the Burmese Airforce (TatmadawLey)
kindly brought to us by truck from Yangon to Mandalay, then they
pumped by hand 4 drums into our wings. We are now 1 hour out of
Kunming. Larry says he will Kiss the ground in Kunming. This is an
amazing airplane. The thought going through all our minds is that
after fixing all the things and all the difficulties and the
tremendous costs involved with our septuagenarian crew, this may
well be the last time any C47 will ever fly the Hump."
KUNMING
15 minutes out of Kunming, we lost the right engine. Smoke,
then vibration, but this time we were faster and shut it down
promptly. It was the top of the #1 cylinder. Then the fun started.
We transmitted "Pan Pan Pan" (distress call) on the radio, but the
Chinese controllers were not familiar with this terminology. We then
explained that we had and "engine failure" and requested priority
landing. They asked if we had and "engine fire," and we said, no,
"engine failure." This went back and forth until several Chinese
aircraft with Chinese pilots trained overseas explained that we had
a problem and had to land immediately. We were cleared in, but they
wouldn't give us the final turn onto approach until we confirmed
visual with the ground. There was a lot of haze, and we could see
the runway on our GPS. Finally, we saw the ground and were turned
in, but now we were too close and too high. We declared that we were
going to "orbit left to lose altitude," but that caused more
confusion and they asked why we were changing heading. Finally, we
were down where we should be and lined up to land and roll off again
on a high speed taxiway, so we wouldn't block landing traffic which
seemed to be at the rate of one aircraft every minute on the two
runways of this airport. We rolled, and taxied as far as we could,
then shut her down. Emergency vehicles and spectators lined the
sides of the taxiway. We were towed to a parking area, and as we
looked around, there were about 500 people there to greet us with
banners and flowers. We had made it over the hump... One last time.
Xinhua News
A SURPRISE
Sometimes, a bad thing is a good thing. We had lost another
engine, so we couldn't go anywhere. The following day, we were
loaded into a van and driven out of Kunming and up a mountain side
almost 2,000'. We finally stopped in a pine wood, with soldiers at
attention, and long flight of stairs up into the wood. As we
climbed, we could see a towering marble structure with Chinese
characters on the front. This was a monument to the Hump Pilots of
World War II. We assembled in front, and listened to sobering
Chinese music, and then we were asked to place flower wreaths at the
base of the monument.
There was a 1.5 meter cut down
through the center of the monument. We were led into this corridor
by the soldiers. One of the translators then told us to clap our
hands. The sound echoed off the walls, and the translator said, "Do
you hear that... that is the sound of the Japanese guns shooting at
the pilots who flew the hump." As we emerged on the far side of the
monument, there was a wall carved in Chinese and English. "This
monument is to honor the American pilots and other nationalities
that flew the hump during World War II to save the Chinese people."
My eyes watered as I started to realize what this place was and what
we had sacrificed here.
Defense POW/MIA
Accounting Agency Thailand (Det1) Flag courtesy of Kevin Pritz, John
Lee and Chris Mosenbach carried "Over the Hump" on 15 Oct 2016 to
honor the crews of over 600 aircraft lost flying The Hump in WWII.
That evening, we were taken to the
Flying Tigers Restaurant in the heart of Kunming. This was the very
same place where Claire Chennault and the Flying Tigers used to hang
out during World War II. The walls are adorned with black and white
photographs and paraphernalia from that time... and today, it has
become the
home of the "Flying Tigers Hot Dog."
After a delicious dinner, members of
our intrepid crew joined our China Friendship Association Attache "AJ"
to another special place -- "The Hump Bar." Here we found more
photos, and flying jackets on the wall, ice cold beer and some
members of the Chinese PLA Army. We greeted each other warmly
without speaking any words that the other could understand and
pointed to the C47's on the wall and explained that we just did
that... They came to our table and invited us to stand for a toast.
It was a fine end to a long day.
LONG JOURNEY'S END
In November 2017, The Chinese purchased a new engine and the
aircraft finally arrived in Guilin. It now takes pride-of-place at
the Flying Tiger Heritage Park and Museum with a plaque to those who
helped us secure a replacement engine when we were up against the
wall and very close to having to abandon the mission in Surabaya,
Indonesia, and to the crew who brought her here.
A POINT OF HONOR
After successfully completing the mission, there are many
people who helped make the expedition a success. One of them is
Indochina Aviation Services who provided tireless help in obtaining
and changing and re-obtaining flight clearances after our many
technical delays through Thailand and Myanmar. Both of these
countries require "local handlers" to apply for clearances and to
handle the flights through the country. Indochina Aviation did this
for us at cost and did not gain any profit from their services. The
most delicate matter was the air route out of Myanmar to China "Over
the Hump." This route requires a minimum flight level of 027 (or
27,000'). Our aircraft was not able to reach this height, so some
very creative flight operations garnered from years of operations in
Africa and Asia were employed. Indochina Aviation also advanced
considerable credit in covering the costs of clearance requests,
fuel reservations, air navigation fees, landing, handling, hotels,
food, etc for the crew. The total cost for the operation was
US$12,154. US$10,000 was advanced prior to entering Thailand, and
Indochina Aviation has sent an invoice for the remaining US$2,154 to
the Flying Tigers Historical Organization (Jan 2017 and again in May
2017). We are hoping that either the Flying Tigers Historical
Organization or the Flying Tiger Heritage Park and Museum in Guilin,
China will honor the spirit of the brave men who flew the hump in
World War II by honoring the support received by Indochina Aviation
and reimbursing the expenses incurred during their support of the
mission.
ACCOUNTING
US$12,154 - Costs incurred by Indochina Aviation (arranged by
Tom thru US DAT Burma)
Cover Letter from Indochina Aviation (May 2017) --
US$2,154 Balance Due
S$6,321 - Sponsorship from Republic of Singapore Flying Club
(arranged by Tom)
S$10,064 - Sponsorship from Jet Aviation (arranged by Tom's
friend Lee Buck Choon)
 HUMP
JACKETS
Ed & Joey Story and The Elephant Story have been generous
contributors for our replacement engine. They have also designed a
"Commemorative Hump Flying Jacket." Elephants were used during World
War II to help load drums of fuel onto aircraft flying the hump, and
The Elephant Story supports conservation of Asian Elephants --
Order Hump Flying Jacket.
|
In August 2016, a C47
will depart from Australia and fly through Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand, Myanmar and "across the hump" to Kunming, then on to
Guilin, China. The final resting place for this historic aircraft is
to be the main exhibition display at the Flying Tiger Heritage Park
and Museum
in Guilin, China. This museum chronicles the critical contribution
made by the Flying Tigers and the pilots who flew the hump to supply
the Tigers during World War II. The timing of this flight is most
critical, because at this moment, the United States, in cooperation
with the Government of Myanmar, is currently conducting a
