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B-25 OPERATIONAL AND INFLIGHT GUIDE


P-59A
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I know this should be in the paper photo section, but no. So sue me! This is a cool little book and if I ever find a B-25 with the keys in it..... It has more pages, but you get the idea.

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On 2/1/2021 at 7:03 AM, P-59A said:

How is that possible?

I know! Hahaha!

 

A friend's father trained B-25 pilots in Georgia. I will have to ask her if he was stationed at Moody AFB. 

 

Awesome find!

 

..Kat

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5 hours ago, P-59A said:

Moody started flying B-25'S IN 1951

Ah...I didn't know they flew after the war. Her father was an instructor during WWII.

 

 

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Right...I knew B-25s were used after WWII. I believe they were even used up until early Vietnam War. I meant I didn't know they flew at Moody after WWII rather than during the war. 

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Thank you for posting that checklist. It was very interesting to read.

My Fathers Brother was killed in one. A marine corps PBJ version.

It was a lot of airplane for 19 year old pilots. And early on, some of its dangerous flight characteristics were unknown.

Mainly, it could not be flown safely on one engine if your airspeed was below 145 miles per hour.

One of the checklist tasks was for the pilot to react to losing one engine.

This killed some young pilots before it was discovered that you have to have airspeed of at least 145 before performing that test..

Afterwards, after many crashes and deaths the test was conducted at higher altitudes above that 145 air speed.

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WASP Marie Michele was killed when the B-25 she was co piloting lost an engine doing touch and go practice at an Aux field . They did not have the altitude to recover and did a flat spin down.   

 

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Hey guys, I feel the need to chime in here about the B-25 flying characteristics.

Since I’ve been flying 25’s for 19 years I thought I’d provide some perspective.

The 25 does not have any negative characteristics while operating on single engine, in fact it flies quite well on one engine.

The need to maintain 145 mph in the B-25 is simply what was referred to at the time as Safe Single Engine Speed and it was in the Flight Manual from day one.
Every multi-engine airplane ever built has it and each airplane type is different, but all will suffer a loss of control below this speed, known as Vmc, if corrective action is not promptly taken.
Basically, it is the point at which you run out of rudder to compensate for the adverse yaw created by operating on one engine as airspeed reduces. If airspeed decays too far, the airplane starts to roll over. As the condition gets worse, if you don’t reduce power on the operating engine and lower the nose, over you go.

It is something we trained on over and over again in pilot training.

Today it has become more refined as Blue Line (best single engine climb speed) and Red Line (minimum single engine speed), but on older airplanes they just gave you the one number Safe Single Engine Speed.

Incidentally, the worst time to lose one is on takeoff before you reach 145. That’s why we stay shallow initially after takeoff...to get to 145 quickly. This usually occurs by the departure end of the runway, unless you are climbing steeper to avoid obstacles. 

If you dig into WWII aircraft losses, look at the accident rate. It is absolutely staggering.

The fact is that thousands of young pilots were being put into high performance aircraft with minimal experience and the accident rate reflects this.

The B-25 however, had such good flying characteristics, that it was used as a multi engine trainer in the USAF till 1958...notice the Marauder was gone immediately after the war.

If you want to read a great book, which has a story of fly a B-25 for hours on one engine, I recommend Gen  Henebry’s book about flying in the 3rd Attack Group.

Hope that sheds some light.

Also, I have a number of old B-25 checklists that I’ll post when I get some time.

Best, John

ps, P-59A, didn’t you and I communicate many years ago about the B-25 single engine accident you referred to? I was flying Executive Sweet at the time.

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I did read that accidents killed over 15000 trainees during WW2. I read somewhere that the navy lost more people in training than they did in air combat.

For whatever reason back in late 1943, there were several crashes involving the PBJ on the checkflights out of MOTG 81 out of Cherry Point.

The instructor killed along with my uncle had just returned from escorting a friends body back home after being killed in the same kind of accident in a PBJ the week before.

The crash inspectors found the controls all set properly for one engine out. An eyewitness on the ground saw the plane about 600 feet up yawing to the left and right before it went down.

No fire no engine problems before the crash. It was the cut one engine test that killed them. Prob just the exact way like you described above.

 

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22 hours ago, B-17Guy said:

Hey guys, I feel the need to chime in here about the B-25 flying characteristics.

Since I’ve been flying 25’s for 19 years I thought I’d provide some perspective.

The 25 does not have any negative characteristics while operating on single engine, in fact it flies quite well on one engine.

The need to maintain 145 mph in the B-25 is simply what was referred to at the time as Safe Single Engine Speed and it was in the Flight Manual from day one.
Every multi-engine airplane ever built has it and each airplane type is different, but all will suffer a loss of control below this speed, known as Vmc, if corrective action is not promptly taken.
Basically, it is the point at which you run out of rudder to compensate for the adverse yaw created by operating on one engine as airspeed reduces. If airspeed decays too far, the airplane starts to roll over. As the condition gets worse, if you don’t reduce power on the operating engine and lower the nose, over you go.

It is something we trained on over and over again in pilot training.

Today it has become more refined as Blue Line (best single engine climb speed) and Red Line (minimum single engine speed), but on older airplanes they just gave you the one number Safe Single Engine Speed.

Incidentally, the worst time to lose one is on takeoff before you reach 145. That’s why we stay shallow initially after takeoff...to get to 145 quickly. This usually occurs by the departure end of the runway, unless you are climbing steeper to avoid obstacles. 

If you dig into WWII aircraft losses, look at the accident rate. It is absolutely staggering.

The fact is that thousands of young pilots were being put into high performance aircraft with minimal experience and the accident rate reflects this.

The B-25 however, had such good flying characteristics, that it was used as a multi engine trainer in the USAF till 1958...notice the Marauder was gone immediately after the war.

If you want to read a great book, which has a story of fly a B-25 for hours on one engine, I recommend Gen  Henebry’s book about flying in the 3rd Attack Group.

Hope that sheds some light.

Also, I have a number of old B-25 checklists that I’ll post when I get some time.

Best, John

ps, P-59A, didn’t you and I communicate many years ago about the B-25 single engine accident you referred to? I was flying Executive Sweet at the time.

Yes we did!!!!!! That is how I know that! I found Marie's brother and he told me what he found out after talking to the other pilots who saw the crash. Roy was a Naval Aviator instructor in Pennsicola. He went to Victorville AAB after the crash and talked to everyone he could. The mishap report say's nothing about practicing touch and go landings at Hawes Aux 4, but that is exactly what they were doing. She wasn't supposed to be No 2 that day, her room mate had a toothache and couldn't go. She also was not rated for the B-25 and had no hours on her log book. She wanted the stick time and things went south. The pilot was given 100 percent at fault. As far as stateside for WW2 the number is around 60,000 deaths. That is about half of all USAAF fatalities in WW2. I have a mishap report out of Rice that talks about the pilots and aircrew refusing to fly after 5 B-24 bombers crashed within several days with in sight of the base. That's 50 guys dead in about a week and everyone saw it, Just horrible. They had to address the issues and they talked about it in the mishap report. Unheard of! It's the only mishap report  I have that does that. Issue 1) The aircraft they were training in were returnee's from combat missions over seas. They had high hours on them and had been patched together many times. 2) Sub standard Aviation gas. The high octane stuff was going overseas and the low grade stuff was used for training. Sulfur build up fowled the plugs. 3) Sand. Being located in the high desert Rice was subject to sand storms that fowled up everything. 4) The ground crews were making bad mistakes like leaving rags and tools in engine parts or leaving oily rags in the engine area. The combination of these things along with aircrews in training and at low altitudes were the lead up to 50 guys dying in about a week. I had never heard of these things until I read that report. So, John I also talk to Taigh. I think you know him. I have run things past him for his take on what may have gone wrong in my B-24 mishap reports. By the way thanks for letting me crawl around that bird at the Hawthorn Air show. That was allot of fun! Do you  still fly it? 

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Good to hear from you.

 I am still involved with Executive Sweet and fly it occasionally, but these days I mainly fly Wild Cargo based at the Military Aviation Museum, also known as the Fighter Factory in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

 

https://militaryaviationmuseum.org/aircraft/wwii-aircraft/

 

I really enjoy your posts and all the great photos you share!

John

 

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Rooster, That was an interesting video. It gave a good insight into it. I would of liked to of known what caused the engine to fade out like it did. In relations to Michell's crash different things were at play. As I recall in my conversation with John about it he was more about the things that needed to be done quickly due to the touch and go and not having altitude. As John pointed out to me the B-25 is a fly by wire and that means you have to have upper body strength to mule things, no hydraulic actuators to help out . When that engine failed at low altitude they were supposed to hard rudder opposite against the failed engine to keep it strait and nose down to pick up air speed and throttle into it then pull up to gain altitude with the airspeed. That didn't happen. The other pilots in the area saw it flat spin down and the crash photo's show a flattened bird, not a nose in impact. That tells me they probably pulled up until they stalled and the running engine put them to a flat spin, but John can speak better to that. Our conversation was many years ago and I might be off on some of what we talked about. Roy told me it was his belief his sister was in control at the time and that played into what happened. The pilot had over 2,000 hours on his book and had he had control of it then it may have been a different story. Many of the things Roy told me about the crash were not in the mishap report. The fact they were doing touch and go's, not just once but many times was not in the report. To read the report you get the impression they were just flying over Grey Butte Aux 4 ( not Hawse like I said before) . The crash was 100 yards in a straight line off the end of the runway. The impact had the nose facing at 9 0'clock to the runway. The left engine made a impact into the ground of about 2 feet while the rest was surface impact. All of it say's flat spin.

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TheCrustyBosun
On 2/3/2021 at 8:03 AM, B-17Guy said:

 

If you want to read a great book, which has a story of fly a B-25 for hours on one engine, I recommend Gen  Henebry’s book about flying in the 3rd Attack Group.

 

I’ll second that recommendation. I own a copy and am familiar with the particular story mentioned. Good stuff. 

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  • 2 months later...

So as mentioned, I also have a "home grown" B-25 checklist and I promised to post a few photos some time ago.

Here is a sample, this one was from Connally AFB Waco, TX in the 1950's.

This booklet does not have emergency procedures as yours, just pre-flight and normals only.

John

 

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On 4/8/2021 at 6:10 AM, B-17Guy said:

So as mentioned, I also have a "home grown" B-25 checklist and I promised to post a few photos some time ago.

Here is a sample, this one was from Connally AFB Waco, TX in the 1950's.

This booklet does not have emergency procedures as yours, just pre-flight and normals only.

John

 

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But yours has photo's!!!! I like photo's!

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  • 2 years later...
Delaware WWII Fallen
On 2/3/2021 at 8:03 AM, B-17Guy said:

The 25 does not have any negative characteristics while operating on single engine, in fact it flies quite well on one engine.

[...]
Basically, it is the point at which you run out of rudder to compensate for the adverse yaw created by operating on one engine as airspeed reduces. If airspeed decays too far, the airplane starts to roll over. As the condition gets worse, if you don’t reduce power on the operating engine and lower the nose, over you go. It is something we trained on over and over again in pilot training.

I'm profiling an airman killed in an incident in which a B-25 ditched in the South China Sea while returning to the Philippines from a raid on the Indochina coast on March 10, 1945. The only member of the crew who survived was picked up by a submarine after three weeks in a raft. One source indicates the B-25's engine may have been damaged during a skip bombing attack when its bomb detonated on contact with the target ship. Although I'm pretty well read in WWII histories, my limited knowledge of technical matters pertaining to the B-25 makes it hard to translate an eyewitness narrative into plain language for the reader. I was hoping B-17Guy or someone else with experience in B-25s might be able to clarify a few things.

 

Original statement from Captain Elmo L. Crawford in a Missing Air Crew Report (MACR):

Quote

 

I was leading the squadron of six ships [...] and we were now on a return course [...] about one hours time away from the taget, when plane No. 044 developed trouble in the left engine.  Lt. Chambers pilot of this ship was unable to contact us by radio due to my radio set being out.

 

Lt. Chambers gained altitude to fifteen hundred feet using partial power on his left engine.  The engine finally cut completely, but Lt. Chambers contacted my left wingman and told him that he was unable to feather the propeller and he would have to ditch.

 

I saw the ship ditch upwind into a large swell.  Lt. Chambers had been asked by my wingman to ditch cross wind but apparently this was not done.

 

The ship was afloat for one minute and thirty seconds, and when the ship was half submerged the life raft was seen to inflate.  I personally did not see any survivors until the airplane had completely submerged.  My crew and I both sighted two survivors in water near the raft. 

 

 

  1. Is it safe to assume that Chambers gained altitude when the engine started acting up so he would have more altitude to play with if the engine cut out? You mentioned lowering the nose was a must when flying the B-25 on one engine, after all.
  2. Do B-25s have a variable pitch propeller or did feathering entail something other than adjusting the blades to face edge-on to airflow, thereby reducing drag?
  3. After the feathering failed, it seems the B-25 ditched rather quickly. The pilots would surely have wanted to get as close to friendly territory as possible. Does that suggest that with the increased drag from the windmilling propeller, that they were already having difficulty keeping the speed up and feared an imminent loss of control if they didn't ditch immediately?
  4. Why did the pilot ignore the recommendation to land crosswind? If he was already fighting to keep his airspeed up, did he feel that landing into the wind was the only way to keep lift up and avoid losing control? I would assume hitting the swell greatly increased the impact on the plane and either killed or incapacitated those men who did not manage to abandon the plane before it sank.
  5. If Captain Crawford's radio set was out, preventing him from speaking with Chambers directly, how did he immediately call "for rescue from the ground station"?

Thanks!

B-25 crash Chambers.JPG

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1 hour ago, Delaware WWII Fallen said:

I'm profiling an airman killed in an incident in which a B-25 ditched in the South China Sea while returning to the Philippines from a raid on the Indochina coast on March 10, 1945. The only member of the crew who survived was picked up by a submarine after three weeks in a raft. One source indicates the B-25's engine may have been damaged during a skip bombing attack when its bomb detonated on contact with the target ship. Although I'm pretty well read in WWII histories, my limited knowledge of technical matters pertaining to the B-25 makes it hard to translate an eyewitness narrative into plain language for the reader. I was hoping B-17Guy or someone else with experience in B-25s might be able to clarify a few things.

 

Original statement from Captain Elmo L. Crawford in a Missing Air Crew Report (MACR):

 

  1. Is it safe to assume that Chambers gained altitude when the engine started acting up so he would have more altitude to play with if the engine cut out? You mentioned lowering the nose was a must when flying the B-25 on one engine, after all.
  2. Do B-25s have a variable pitch propeller or did feathering entail something other than adjusting the blades to face edge-on to airflow, thereby reducing drag?
  3. After the feathering failed, it seems the B-25 ditched rather quickly. The pilots would surely have wanted to get as close to friendly territory as possible. Does that suggest that with the increased drag from the windmilling propeller, that they were already having difficulty keeping the speed up and feared an imminent loss of control if they didn't ditch immediately?
  4. Why did the pilot ignore the recommendation to land crosswind? If he was already fighting to keep his airspeed up, did he feel that landing into the wind was the only way to keep lift up and avoid losing control? I would assume hitting the swell greatly increased the impact on the plane and either killed or incapacitated those men who did not manage to abandon the plane before it sank.
  5. If Captain Crawford's radio set was out, preventing him from speaking with Chambers directly, how did he immediately call "for rescue from the ground station"?

Thanks!

B-25 crash Chambers.JPG

I can't speak to the B-25, but I have read and the movie Unbroken depicts an issue with glass nose aircraft ditching at sea. With the greenhouse nose on the B-24 it would implode causing it to act as a break. On the B-24 the sudden stop would break its back at the Bombay bulkhead causing the sudden death of anyone in the nose or on the flight deck. Aircrew in the aft section were faced with major damage to the bomber that impleaded survivability of the crash or the ability to get out.

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