Latest / So There I Was / New Life for YL-37 Episode 208

Transcript

New Life for YL-37 Episode 208 · So There I Was

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  Quiet numbskulls, I'm broadcasting. Hello and welcome to So There I Was,
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  which is how all aviation stories begin.
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  This is episode number 208, New Life for YL-37.
• 0:13
  A helicopter that's just a few months older than repeat. Oh my gosh.
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  I know, right? Yeah. What a fabulous story about this helicopter,
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  which we had already talked about multiple episodes ago.
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  61, episode 61. Don't ever do that again.
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  That was a couple episodes ago. Yeah, man.
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  Anyway, Duber's back, and he's got an amazing story to tell.
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  And we hope that it is a life-changing event for YL-37.
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  Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, while I'm at it, I mean,
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  the helicopter looks better than me after 64 years.
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  But, you know. Oh, my gosh. I'm trying to get some help there through our sponsor,
• 0:59
  oneskin.co. Thanks to them for a sponsor. How's that for a creative segue, huh?
• 1:04
  Oneskin.co is a sponsor this week, as is dcartworks.net.
• 1:08
  So make yourself look better. Make your walls look better. These folks are helping
• 1:12
  keeping this show come to you, as is Al Cisneros.
• 1:17
  Yeah. Al, your financial advisor is going to be pissed. I just say that.
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  I am very, very concerned about your financial judgment, Al,
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  but we are so very humbled that you've donated.
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  Thank you so much, because that was giant. Giant. Yeah, it was.
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  Absolutely. So this is a fantastic episode. Going to hear all about YL-37 and
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  how it's a new life for this airplane, but it's changing the lives of a lot
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  of veterans who spent some time, were saved by it.
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  And it's YL-37.org.
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  Is the website for this. It's a flying memorial and the website's amazing.
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  Duber's wife did it and the whole history is there.
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  Testimonials. There's one on the fallen ugly angels is one of the pages that they have.
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  And if you tap on that and then go down and tap on the pictures,
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  it gives you biographies of many of the ugly angels who have flown that airplane.
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  And one of a Lance Corporal, I believe, who died in that airplane.
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  So yeah, powerful stuff.
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  So God bless you, Duber, and your mission to keep this flying war memorial alive.
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  It's incredible effort on your part, and we were thrilled to have him back.
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  If you can, go to yl-37.org and throw your financial judgment out the window to him too.
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  That's right. Right. And by the way, we're looking for a major benefactor for
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  this project. So if you know somebody that's got more money than they know what
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  to do with, this would be an excellent opportunity.
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  It really would, because it does. It changes lives. There's no two ways about it.
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  There are people who who get some real healing out of going and seeing this
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  airplane and even getting a ride in it. So I think.
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  So there I was, 10 years old, sitting around the dinner table,
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  trying not to get choked up.
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  And all my dad's buddies, we just finished pheasant hunting down on the farm in southwest Iowa.
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  Guys that were my mentors, talking the stories about getting shot at by the
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  Vietnamese, creating new tactics, flying backwards out of LZs,
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  you know, shutting off lights.
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  Firing back with their snub nose 38s and my jaw is just on the floor listening
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  to these stories trying to figure out how can i get a little bit a piece of this when i grow up.
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  And here we are there it is and you got more than a piece of it oh man yeah
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  greetings everyone One repeat here.
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  So there I was coming to you from Pensamacola, Florida, where we all been at
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  one point or another, right?
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  Yeah. Where's my cohorts? Right there.
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  There you go, right? Yeah. I'm blessed enough to be at home in Kearney,
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  Missouri, a little slice of God's country for me.
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  And it is our distinct pleasure to bring back one of our favorites,
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  duber to tell some awesome stories and
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  and with some big fucking news well sit
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  on that collective don't sit on the collective that's right that's right
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  but well well now we can't ask our first question which we've already asked
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  you back on show 61 don't ever do that again which was actually one of my favorite
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  stories i love telling that story yeah the uh yeah but we know how you got interested
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  in aviation, marine aviation.
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  Hey, before we go any further, just let me say, you're...
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  You're still there I was opener it it fucking
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  got me dude yeah right that is
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  awesome the hair on my arm stood up and there'll be
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  more you fucking bastard stop because we've
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  got we've had the pleasure of having one eye
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  and gunny who were probably sitting at that table they
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  were indeed they were no shit I'm just
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  sad we weren't able to have your pop join us tell talk up your pop a little
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  bit brag on the man yeah i mean iowa farm boy spent his life doing fixing hot
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  you know fixing fence castrating hogs shearing sheep and you know was a hell of an athlete and.
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  Decided to go to the marine corps service country very early
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  in vietnam 1965 i remember
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  him saying how during the cuban missile crisis you know
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  they didn't have any m14 rifles so they had to use broomsticks
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  for manual of arms at ocs they didn't
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  do tps then so it was ocs
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  straight to flight school you know he went to flight school one fly
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  helicopters got to be part of the ugly
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  angels you know the old squadron and went
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  into vietnam 13 months
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  in in country he got shot down 11 times got
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  a purple heart came home
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  one to keep flying raised a
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  bunch of money got some partners and started flying with the hughes 269 and
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  then he bought a couple of bell 47s like the mash helicopter sprayed crops yeah
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  bought an h34 did heavy lift work and you know raised raised eight kids yeah,
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  put us through, put us through college and whatever we were doing.
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  And then I was the only one that, that of my brothers and sisters that wasn't colorblind.
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  And I had to grow up, decide what I was going to do out of college.
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  And I thought, Hey, maybe I'll, you know, let the Marine Corps pay for my,
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  pay for my training and 20, 20 years, two months, 28 days in a wake up. Here we are.
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  How about that shit? Well, there's that. But as I recall, you had your training
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  before you got to the Marine Corps, hence your story. Don't ever do that again.
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  Twice as many rotary wing hours as uh yeah i can honestly say you're the only
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  guy i i know that's ever been delivered to a baseball game via helicopter to
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  the outfield yeah my son yesterday asked me if i could take him to the prom
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  next year and i said we'll see we'll see,
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  hey before we go a whole lot further i just
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  want to i just want to go back what would we say
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  episode 60 61 61 again
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  we we tied the bow on the fact that you
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  flew h50 ch53s in
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  the exact same squadron that your dad flew h34 correct yeah pretty which is
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  pretty badass very lucky very fortunate you know the stars aligned maybe a little
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  help from some leadership just because they knew that this was something that
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  was so rare that kind of got to capitalize on those things and.
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  Yeah. Oh, yeah. Get a pitch. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
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  Well, and you're certainly trying to capitalize on it. I've referred to it a
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  couple times now, so I think I feel kind of compelled if you would tell the
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  don't ever do that again story. Yeah.
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  Don't ever fucking do that again. One of my first flights flying the TH-57 right
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  there. Jet Ranger, right? Yeah, Jet Ranger.
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  You know, I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to, I wanted my, I wanted to try and
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  just let my skills do the talking of what little bit of skills I had.
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  Cause I had, you know, like I said, in 61, dad taught me a lot of great things
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  about listening to the aircraft.
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  And he also, you know, there's no old pilots.
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  There's no bold pilots or there's old, there's bold, but there's no old bold. And I disagree.
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  My dad was old and bold and he did a lot of things that would just make an aircraft sing.
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  And first time the instructor
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  was like hey take the controls and we
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  did a pedal turn left pedal turn right and i did
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  the millennium falcon sliding turning departure and
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  he didn't say apparently is a very advanced move huh i wouldn't
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  say advanced but if you do it right and you do it smooth you know
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  it's pretty fun and it's pretty cool and then up in the downwind he's like
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  man that was awesome but don't ever fucking do that again
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  hey will
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  you show me with your hand yeah what the
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  hell you're talking about well i don't have a model sitting here with me
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  but i mean essentially you got a helicopter do your
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  pedal turn you do your pedal turn and then
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  i just went backwards and tucked the nose and slid out like the middle okay
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  okay okay yeah yeah he's like that was awesome don't ever do that again don't
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  don't do that again you could do that you could do that with me if we fly again
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  but don't don't uh so at that point the the cat was out of the bag and he said,
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  okay, who the hell are you? How did you know how to do that?
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  I mean, I told him I'd spent my whole childhood flying with my dad,
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  me and my brothers, and we all kind of had our own way of doing things, and.
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  Yeah there you go what do you say that's awesome awesome
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  story man fantastic and some h34 time
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  already by then right a couple three hours yeah a couple three i'd
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  usually get my flight time coming home from from lift
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  jobs and stuff because we would dad would
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  use this helicopter the h34 because it had about a 5 000 pound lift capacity
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  for putting air conditioners you know red iron construction materials up on
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  great big buildings and stuff and it's extremely tedious but also exhausting
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  work and you know he'd be exhausted and he'd just be like just fly down this road.
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  Wake me up we get close because he was struggling and and
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  that's how i got the majority of my time was straight and
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  level not dangerous but he'd hear that engine you know
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  that big 1820 puts out 1500 plus horsepower and
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  when you you don't even have to look at the gauges you
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  can just hear that audible change in the
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  rpm and he'd wake up and go oh we
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  must be home okay i got it you
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  know yeah that's pretty awesome nice that's
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  pretty awesome all right and is this is that
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  your mom or your that's my brother that's my
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  brother okay all right good to see
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  you jim thanks thanks buddy i love i
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  love this shirt i need to get some more now that we know who
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  the actual owner is i know i know a
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  guy they were in your neck of the woods just uh last week
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  i got some money to throw at the cause man i need a
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  hat i need some shirts you know bald guys need hats so i
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  got to get a hat got to get some that's why i'm wearing one there you
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  go so so let's talk about this thing how so tell
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  tell us the story of how this came about so uh
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  i'll do my best to paraphrase when only got an hour and a half a long a guy
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  who does what my dad did with heavy lift work he bought he bought some h-34s
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  and he he used him for his construction business name is gerald hale god rest
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  his soul great man pure southern country gentleman.
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  He bought some H-34s. He'd rebuild them. He used them to move heavy equipment
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  into the hills, into directional drilling and whatnot.
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  And over time, he'd go down to the boneyard. He'd pull these things out.
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  And he came across this one.
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  He bought it. It sat for quite a while, for about 10, 12 years.
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  And it got to the point where he was going to rebuild it. Started stripping
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  the paint off of it, pulling the floor panels out.
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  Reviewing the logbook, seeing what squadron it was in as it was transferred
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  from 363 to 263 around and stripping the paint, finding patches.
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  This old aircraft's got 54 bullet holes in it, three years in combat from 65 to 68.
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  It ended its tour in Vietnam when
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  it was on the ground and it got hit by a rocket, blew the tail off of it.
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  They sent it to sidlam up in korea the depot level maintenance
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  guys fixed it and by that time you know the 46s the
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  hueys had really started taking off turbine engines so it
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  was kind of obsolete so they sent the helicopter
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  back to the united states and it
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  was a training aircraft for a while and then they mothballed it
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  and that's where gerald comes in he got it brought it back to oklahoma oklahoma
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  that's i was gonna ask what part of the country is yeah tulsa oklahoma
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  little town inola and man what a
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  great guy i can't say enough about the guy i know
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  i know uh oklahoma that's what's what
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  it says right there right so he he found out this history and you want to talk
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  about someone who is just completely dedicated to the preservation of history
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  he painstakingly repainted this aircraft yl-37 yankee lima 37 which is the two-letter
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  identifier for the ugly angels still to this day.
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  And he repainted it exactly like it was in Vietnam. And they had their first,
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  reunion, I think it was 1999.
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  And he found a bunch of old uglies and it just exploded.
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  And for 20 plus years, he flew it to reunions and schools.
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  And with the mission of preserving the history, but also telling some of the
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  untold stories of the Vietnam War,
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  they put a brass plate on the sliding door on the side of the helicopter dedicated
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  to the 33 crew members and pilots that died in Vietnam from 1962 to 1969 when
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  the Uglies were there. And the,
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  Unfortunately, Gerald passed away about 11 years ago, and two local,
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  actually three local friends there, Mike and Jesse Schneider,
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  and then his longtime mechanic, Greg Dirks,
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  they kept the aircraft flying for about 10 years, not doing a ton with it,
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  but still trying to keep it active.
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  Unfortunately, they sold off a lot of Gerald's things, his parts and other helicopters.
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  I mean, because at one point he had four, I think four H-34s. He had a Black Hawk.
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  Oh, wow. He was big at Lover of the Enstrom, which is a smaller helicopter.
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  And about a year ago, his wife, Lily, approached me about taking over the mission
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  and taking over this helicopter.
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  So I got my type rating certification. We flew it to Pensacola for a huge reunion.
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  We flew it up here to the Iowa State Fair and to some other local events with
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  the moving Vietnam Wall.
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  And we landed it there and did some stuff. And I tell you, the reason why I'm
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  doing this is how healing it is for these old boys.
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  Nice. These guys that just come out of the woodwork to see this thing and touch
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  it and feel it and smell it.
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  It's just overwhelming.
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  Absolutely overwhelming. And that's Avgas, right?
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  Yeah, 110. Yes. Yeah. So it's got it's got a special smell to it.
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  And then, yeah, and that and the sweat and everything else. I can only imagine what.
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  Sorry, I swallowed a bug. Back in time, 60 years. No, man, not at all.
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  God bless you. And then that just shows me how much your heart is in the right place over this.
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  You know, these are men who never
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  got the thank you and never got the acknowledgement for what they did.
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  You know, the call signs ugly angels, but they were angels, man.
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  And they pulled a lot of Marines and a lot of soldiers and everybody else out
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  of a real shit sandwich to include 64.
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  You're going to have to talk me out with one eye who literally left an eye in Vietnam.
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  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the whole reason why we're doing this is to honor my dad's
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  legacy. Me and my brothers have...
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  We've banded together with support from my mom, my wife.
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  I mean, you want to talk about a social media frigging Mack truck,
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  get out of the way. My wife is phenomenal at it.
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  And I don't know if you guys follow our YL37 Facebook page, but she schedules posts.
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  I mean, she grabs things that I look at over and over again.
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  I'm just amazed at how good she is and the people that comment and talk about their experiences.
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  And I was just like, that's what we got to capture. I want to capture all these
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  things. I want to get people in front of this helicopter.
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  And, yeah, I mean, she's got a beautiful history. It's an amazing airplane.
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  She's got a lot of life left in her. And I'm going to fly it around the Midwest
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  until I either go broke or, yeah, hopefully neither have. All right.
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  All right. Well, it's going to try and get you there, I'm sure.
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  But to what degree can you talk about what is this kind of cost?
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  Because obviously you need either deep pockets or a lot of help from people
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  who understand that this history is important.
• 18:45
  Sure. Well, the, you know, the
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  difficult thing about this is it's 1960s technology, late 50s, early 60s.
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  This aircraft rolled across the assembly line in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1961.
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  So there's no more rotor blades. You can't, they're not rebuilding them.
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  So, I mean, if you can find good rotor blade, that's $60,000, $80,000.
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  You know, I got a buddy of mine who's flying at age 34 doing heavy lift work
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  right now, and he just had an engine rebuilt. It was, you know,
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  just shy of 90 grand to have a rebuilt motor.
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  I got three old motors, but they're all timed out and beat up.
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  The part, and just over my shoulder in my shop here, my brothers and I went
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  down to Oklahoma and pulled a bunch of the parts back this weekend.
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  And there is a lot of stuff. But, you know, for the most part,
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  it's got to be overhauled. It's got to be rebuilt. It's got to be recertified.
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  So, as you can imagine, there's not very many guys doing it.
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  There's only a couple guys in the United States that even know how to rebuild
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  an 1,820 cubic inch Wright Cyclone, a reciprocated engine.
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  Right you know the cylinders are the size of a coffee can you know the inch fuel line,
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  and my dad always used to say i mean this thing will when you're really working
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  it it'll burn 100 gallons of fuel an hour you know at five bucks an hour five
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  bucks a gallon do the math you know and that five bucks was when gas was cheap
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  i don't know what it is right now yeah.
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  So yeah it's it's gonna be a labor of love you know
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  i've got i got access to a couple guys that can
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  help me fly it safely and my dad's
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  old mechanic just lives up the road so i've got access to a lot of people that'll
• 20:28
  help me keep it going but really you know the mission is is trying to raise
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  some funds so that i want to fly it for 10 years i'd like to fly it for 10 years,
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  i need an operating budget of probably you know somewhere in
• 20:43
  the neighborhood 100 000 bucks a year to be able to
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  do that and then uh and it would predominantly
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  be you predominantly be taking it to air shows
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  you know for static displays well i've
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  got 12 events planned already in this year between
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  going to memorial service at a cemetery just up the road here a memorial day
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  service down at camp dodge at the army base okay uh state fair the iowa state
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  fair which is huge we took it last year and put it in front of hundreds of thousands of people.
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  Air shows we're gonna try to go to oshkosh good about putting money in your tip jar so to speak,
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  some yeah yeah a lot of a lot more people we've got an old we got an old ammo
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  can that you know we put out there for donations and we're selling hats and
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  shirts and sure gerald created a children's book for it which is really really
• 21:39
  neat i'll make sure you guys get a copy of that yeah yeah,
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  what about corporate sponsors so we're working on that you know we're talking
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  to some fbo's about fuel sponsorship.
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  There's some large...
• 21:54
  Deep pocketed farmers in the area that can hopefully help us out and we're going
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  to do a couple fundraisers a 50 50 raffle reverse raffle here in iowa and yeah
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  there's the old girl look at that sexy beast that's a good looking that's a
• 22:09
  good looking right up on the youtube channel yeah,
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  so so let me ask a silly question i'm going to show you you know my ignorance
• 22:17
  the uber so you can laugh if you want there's no such thing as a.
• 22:25
  Remanufactured or a new technology type
• 22:28
  rotor blade that you could put on that helicopter you
• 22:32
  know you got to have the need so i'll use i'll use the sikorsky s61 which is
• 22:38
  essentially the h3 that i flew at hmx still a fairly predominant helicopter
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  there's quite a few guys out there that use them for heavy lift work because
• 22:47
  they'll lift about 10,000 pounds.
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  There's a company called Carson Helicopters that's pretty famous on the East
• 22:53
  Coast or West Coast for doing heavy lift work, firefighting, stuff like that.
• 22:58
  And they rebuilt, got a STC from the FAA to rebuild those into,
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  I don't know if they're composite or not, but they've got a swept blade to them
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  or a swept trailing edge tip, rotor tip.
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  And they were able to increase the lift by about 2
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  000 pounds but the cost to do that
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  is millions of dollars millions of dollars because
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  you've got to submit you know you got to submit the drawings the specifications
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  then you got to do flight testing you got to put all the data you got to put
• 23:26
  that package in front of the faa and then they've got to approve it and so an
• 23:30
  ftc is a special type certificate that and everyone is different and you've
• 23:39
  got to have enough aircraft to justify it right so there's i think there's,
• 23:44
  There's three or four companies that are flying this helicopter with turbine engines in it, an S-58.
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  The civilian version of an H-34 is an S-58 Sikorsky.
• 23:54
  And the T version has two PT-6s mounted in the front.
• 23:59
  And uh very very efficient lifting helicopter
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  but you still have the max gross weight limitations of
• 24:05
  the airframe so you're still only lifting about 5 000 pounds
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  but you've got a much higher power to weight ratio and
• 24:11
  you know dead man's curve you're staying on the healthy side
• 24:14
  of it rather than the bad side but i
• 24:18
  gotta ask what that is when you get we don't have to
• 24:20
  do it now but come back to dead man's curve there as far as the
• 24:23
  performance numbers so you you you would you're you want
• 24:26
  to keep it original yes absolutely i want to keep it
• 24:29
  as close to original as possible the only thing that this thing doesn't have
• 24:32
  on it just because of the weight is they
• 24:35
  were getting shot up so much in vietnam because that that engine on the front
• 24:39
  was just a friggin bullet magnet i mean my dad my dad flew out some that were
• 24:44
  missing missing cylinders he flew one out that only was firing on three pistons
• 24:48
  once and was able to create enough power yeah how's that How's that possible?
• 24:55
  Cheating death every day. Yeah. Talking about bulletproof, but man, damn.
• 24:59
  So there was a, underneath the engine, if you bring up that other picture of
• 25:04
  the helicopter, there was a great big steel plate that went,
• 25:07
  because the oil cooler is right up underneath the motor.
• 25:10
  And that was how they were very susceptible to getting shot up,
• 25:14
  getting bullets holes on them.
• 25:16
  So right underneath that, the bottom of the motor there, there was a metal plate
• 25:19
  that went from all the way from the left side to the right side of the fuselage.
• 25:23
  So that probably wasn't very, that probably wasn't light. No,
• 25:27
  no. So I don't want to drag that extra weight around if I don't have to.
• 25:30
  I always say, go to the bathroom before you get in it so we can save a little gas. Right on.
• 25:35
  Yeah. All right. Wow. So, okay.
• 25:39
  And once again, I'm showing my lack of knowledge. You guys can laugh at me.
• 25:44
  Yeah, but you know how to hover, man. You got that part down.
• 25:47
  Yeah. Mind you, it was a weird hover in a Harrier.
• 25:49
  You were burning gas. out of an LZ, not necessarily on purpose.
• 25:53
  You were burning gas a hell of a lot faster than I was. We were heating it up.
• 25:57
  Because of the age of the airplane, could it not be classified as experimental?
• 26:04
  That was my question, yeah. Yep, it is experimental.
• 26:07
  So can you get by with not having STCs and things like that in an experimental
• 26:12
  airplane? I don't think so.
• 26:15
  I'm probably showing my own ignorance there, but I don't think so.
• 26:18
  The few guys that I know that still fly, there's probably only,
• 26:23
  I think, 12 flyable reciprocating engine helicopters of this variant out there.
• 26:31
  The guys that I talked to you about in Episode 61 out in Brewster,
• 26:35
  Washington, that do the Dry and Cherries.
• 26:38
  And then there's Hangar 58, a buddy of mine down in, I think he's Oklahoma City, that does it.
• 26:45
  And then, you know, you've got the T guys, Aris Helicopters, Air Crane.
• 26:49
  I got a good buddy that flies for Midwest Helicopters out in Chicago.
• 26:55
  So I was looking for that. Someone had sent me a video a couple of years ago right after your show.
• 27:00
  And you said you knew the guy and now I can't find that video.
• 27:03
  But yeah, it's Midwest Helicopters. OK, they're a good group of guys out there.
• 27:09
  So are you the, uh, the A&P and IA?
• 27:13
  No, I'm, I'm thinking about taking, you know, using the rest of my GI bill.
• 27:17
  Once my kids are done burning it up and see if I could go get my A&P,
• 27:21
  but my brother's probably going to get his.
• 27:24
  And then, like I said, I got access
• 27:25
  to the guy who's, who's busted his knuckles on this plane for years.
• 27:30
  He's actually an Iowa boy too. He sprays crops up here.
• 27:33
  So he said he'd help me. And then I got my dad's old mechanic.
• 27:36
  He's getting up there in age, but he is, he's pretty excited.
• 27:40
  This is really invigorated a lifeblood in him because I, I learned a lot from,
• 27:45
  not just from my dad, but from my dad's mechanics over the years.
• 27:49
  They were just, just great guys and they'd take the time to teach in.
• 27:54
  You know, how to do safety.
• 27:56
  Those guys just ooze knowledge, right? Oh my gosh. You just sit,
• 27:58
  yeah, just sit there and suck it all in.
• 28:01
  Right? Yeah. It's amazing to listen to them, guys like that,
• 28:04
  that, you know, they just say two or three things and you go,
• 28:07
  there's about four headlines in that sentence that I can now take and turn into
• 28:14
  gold because they understand.
• 28:17
  Yeah. So that's a good question that just came up.
• 28:20
  No, it does not have a governor or what you would consider like modern engines
• 28:24
  with a FADEC that'll protect it.
• 28:26
  You, you really have to fly this helicopter. There, there is no such thing is autopilot.
• 28:33
  I mean, you're, you're almost flying. Your scan is almost like flying instruments
• 28:38
  when you're flying at just VFR, you know, visual flight rules.
• 28:41
  Just to make sure the engine's hanging in with you. Well, you've got rotor RPM
• 28:45
  and you've got engine RPM, you know, and they're, they're mechanically linked
• 28:49
  through a hydraulic clutch.
• 28:51
  So, you know, when you start that motor, it's not a direct linkage. Yeah.
• 28:55
  You have to run the engine RPM up and then engage the clutch.
• 29:00
  Catch it. And, you know, just imagine like you're driving your pickup.
• 29:03
  You're putting a little bit of gas in. You're letting the clutch out,
• 29:05
  and you're not stalling it. You have to do the same thing.
• 29:08
  And then once you get that linkage locked. So that's the Tri-Tac gauge.
• 29:13
  Is that it? Yeah, triple-Tac. Yeah, triple-Tac.
• 29:16
  So which is what one eye broke with his fighting knife and put his finger in
• 29:21
  there to feel it to engage the rotor. So tell us how that system works,
• 29:25
  because that still is amazing to me that he has to wear with all the jubet.
• 29:29
  So the engine sits at an angle, right, like this.
• 29:34
  And then you've got a linkage drive shaft that goes up between the pilots.
• 29:38
  And about a third of the way up or right behind the engine is a little oval
• 29:43
  with a hydraulic clutch in it.
• 29:45
  And when you flip the
• 29:48
  switch and engage that clutch pushes all
• 29:51
  the fluid out engages the sprag clutches and
• 29:54
  and locks it in and then it goes up to the main gearbox up to the rotor system
• 29:58
  and then back down to the tail rotor blades and okay so that's the pfm box yeah
• 30:02
  it's the pt it's the pto knob on your on your mower deck right you pull your
• 30:08
  kind of essentially yeah or yeah right I mean, only it's a little more,
• 30:13
  you know, it's got a hydraulic clutch instead of. Yep.
• 30:16
  Yeah. So it's, it takes some finesse. You're not just going to hop in that thing, flip a switch and go.
• 30:22
  Yeah. So you, but you're, uh.
• 30:25
  Your rotor could be either still or it could be turning if you're just coasting.
• 30:29
  Like a guy just came into an LZ and he's still turning. But he's disengaged the rotor?
• 30:33
  No, you keep it engaged all the times.
• 30:37
  Okay. And when you get down and, you know, when you get there and land and you're
• 30:42
  done for the day, you know, you disengage the clutch and you just,
• 30:45
  the cyclic has a twist grip on it. And that's how you control the throttle.
• 30:50
  So dad always used to say to me, you know, when you want to try and maintain
• 30:54
  your rotor RPM, just squeeze, a little squeeze.
• 30:57
  And that's all it is. It's just like a tiniest little squeeze,
• 31:00
  maybe an eighth of an inch of a squeeze.
• 31:03
  And then if you really want to throw the coals to it, you know,
• 31:05
  you give it a good squeeze.
• 31:07
  And then to reduce the RPM, you just push a little bit and you unroll your hand.
• 31:13
  And when you're done flying, you know, at the end of the day,
• 31:16
  you land, let things cool down. You disengage the rotor system.
• 31:20
  And it disengages the sprag clutches from the rotor head, and then she'll cool down nice and easy.
• 31:28
  Okay. All right. Well, what has to be lined up then, though, in order to engage?
• 31:33
  I'm just going back to One Eye's story. Why did he have to take the class?
• 31:37
  I just want to say I'm very uncomfortable with this conversation. I'm very nervous.
• 31:42
  No, right? Well, so your engine RPM will be predominantly higher than your rotor
• 31:47
  RPM, And what you're trying to do is you're trying to match up rotor RPM line
• 31:54
  with the engine RPM line.
• 31:56
  And then once you get them lined up, they're locked.
• 31:59
  And then you carry them up together. And that's when you pull.
• 32:04
  That's what he was talking about. He was trying to line those up so he could
• 32:08
  add the power to get out of the LZ. Exactly. Exactly.
• 32:11
  Yeah, if you didn't have the clutch engaged, that motor is just going to freewheel.
• 32:14
  So just imagine your hand on a motorcycle, that clutch engage.
• 32:19
  You're sitting there jacking the throttle.
• 32:21
  It ain't going to move until you release that clutch, and then you drive away.
• 32:27
  Air shows. Almost. Air shows. It's so much more simple than that,
• 32:33
  you know. I'll try to make it sound complicated.
• 32:35
  Well, my palms are sweaty right now. Can we talk about something else? Yeah, right.
• 32:41
  Anything but helicopters. How many know? I want to talk about helicopters,
• 32:44
  but not this stuff. It's making me nervous.
• 32:47
  Air shows. What do you got on stack for this summer?
• 32:52
  So in May, we've got a couple of events, And then we're going to try to go out
• 32:56
  to what's called the Cavalcade of Plains in Bolingbrook, Illinois.
• 33:00
  They put together an air show out there June 6th and 7th.
• 33:06
  And then we're doing a big 4th of July, 250 years of being badasses and cash checks.
• 33:12
  My parents or my, excuse me, my in-laws own a wedding venue,
• 33:17
  an auction building here in central Iowa.
• 33:20
  So we're doing a big 4th of July brouhaha for that. And then I'll be down in
• 33:25
  my own stomping grounds in Griswold, Iowa, where I grew up July 11th, Oshkosh, end of July.
• 33:34
  And then back here in the Midwest for a local old settlers reunion in Maxwell,
• 33:41
  Iowa at the Iowa State Fair.
• 33:43
  We're going to the Iowa Jeep Show in September.
• 33:47
  The where's that where's that gonna be that's in garwin iowa gar gar with a
• 33:53
  g gar yeah with a g if i can raise the money and this is a big one i don't know
• 33:59
  if you guys ever heard of papa smoke,
• 34:02
  yeah yeah so the papa papa smoke reunion is down in houston at the end of september
• 34:07
  but that's going to be a big hurdle because that's about 20 hours of flying,
• 34:13
  it'd take me 10 hours to fly from iowa to houston and back and if you can imagine
• 34:17
  about two grand an hour 20 hours i just just made fig's brain hurt with that
• 34:23
  math but yeah right it ain't cheap hold on let me get my crayons out put them on the window yep yep.
• 34:32
  October 3rd we're gonna do something that i am extremely passionate about Now,
• 34:38
  there's, if you get on the Facebook page or the website called The Final Salute,
• 34:43
  there's a lady here in Iowa.
• 34:46
  Her name's Linnae Stovers. I think it's Stovers.
• 34:49
  She approached us at the Iowa State Fair.
• 34:53
  She is a funeral director, and she has organized unclaimed remains for veterans.
• 35:02
  And she has a network where they find veterans that have no family members,
• 35:08
  no one to advise them of the directions for the funeral, what they want to have done.
• 35:15
  I was lucky enough to be asked by Lene to participate, and I was a flag bearer
• 35:20
  for one of the, I think, 20 unclaimed veterans that we put at the Iowa Veterans
• 35:25
  Cemetery in Van Meter, just west of Des Moines last year.
• 35:29
  And October 3rd, we're going to fly the veterans, unclaimed veterans, from the service.
• 35:39
  Yeah, that's going to be a big one. I'm really excited about that one.
• 35:43
  Yeah. That is awesome. Let me briefly state that if you want to help, you can Venmo.
• 35:51
  The Venmo address is at UniformAlphaMikeFoxtrot362. So U-A-M-F-3-6-2 to help
• 36:02
  cover the cost for something as important as important.
• 36:05
  Can we put his QR code? And we'll put that memo code.
• 36:08
  Yeah, we'll put his QR code on. So there I was, dot U-S slash episode slash 2-0-8.
• 36:16
  Is that what I said? 8, 2-0-8, 2-0-8. Yeah. Show 2-0-8, yeah. Yep.
• 36:21
  Yeah, we've got a 501c3 formed. to the Ugly Angel Memorial Foundation is going
• 36:26
  to take care of the health care and feeding of this helicopter.
• 36:30
  And, yeah, our plan is to keep flying this thing as long as I can get gas and keep the funds rolling.
• 36:37
  You know, it's going to be a labor of love. And I've got it right here.
• 36:40
  I'm going to have the helicopter right here at my house so I can work on it
• 36:44
  when my wife lets me go out to the shop and have kitchen pass time. Right.
• 36:48
  I love that.
• 36:52
  Oh man asking if your ads be capable is that i don't think that's required yet,
• 36:58
  everywhere in the states are you ads b.
• 37:02
  Oh 80 yeah yeah yeah we've
• 37:05
  got adsb in the helicopter it just okay typically when
• 37:08
  you're flying thousand feet and below adsb ain't hitting a whole
• 37:11
  lot no one cares no yeah so although
• 37:14
  one time i was traveling cross country in my tiger and atc
• 37:18
  comes up and goes so we got an unmarked uh you know we got
• 37:20
  a target down there you're two o'clock low whatever and i
• 37:24
  was able to give give them oh well this is his tail
• 37:27
  number this is i see him there's all off
• 37:31
  the adsb so it was yeah they're like oh yeah
• 37:34
  well we're dealing with faa technology here i send
• 37:37
  it to my wife and my my mom so they can track me and stuff like that but then
• 37:41
  the last the last event we have planned before we put the old girl to bed for
• 37:46
  the summer is veterans day and i'm gonna fly it into where My kids go to high
• 37:51
  school for a Veterans Day ceremony at West Marshall High School.
• 37:56
  They don't know that yet. I haven't asked. I'm just telling them that I'm going to do it.
• 38:00
  And then we're going to take it over to the Iowa Veterans Nursing Home in Marshalltown is the plan.
• 38:08
  And land it over there and go see some vets. And then I want to fly it down
• 38:12
  to the Veterans Cemetery and Van Meter and do a flyover.
• 38:16
  It's kind of my plan for right now. So, yeah, 12, we've got 12 events planned,
• 38:21
  maybe even 13, which is, it's going to keep us busy. Me and my brother are going to be humping.
• 38:27
  Yeah, that's got a full schedule. Yeah.
• 38:31
  Yeah, cheap, too. Almost no cost to John's chief tax taxpayer.
• 38:37
  Well, yeah, so it's all private donation. And we need to get the word out about
• 38:45
  how we can spread the word and get some donations so you can keep this artifact flying.
• 38:53
  Yeah, so the Marine Corps Aviation Association gave us some money last year.
• 38:56
  I was going to reach out to them.
• 38:59
  I don't know if you've seen the Flying Leatherneck Museum that's being built
• 39:03
  in Elk and Escondido or Tustin.
• 39:08
  It used to be their building, so I'm going to ask them.
• 39:12
  Obviously, I'm going to reach out to Sikorsky Helicopters, which was bought
• 39:15
  by Lockheed Martin, and see if they're willing to help me keep this old girl flying.
• 39:22
  I'm not proud of...
• 39:24
  My my lack of knowledge of reaching out to people so
• 39:27
  if anybody's a professional fundraiser you know i i
• 39:30
  am willing and able to to take
• 39:33
  on any and duber i happen to know a couple guys that are going to the marine
• 39:38
  corps historical association black tie event on the 25th of april at the marine
• 39:43
  corps national foundation at the marine corps museum in quantico are they on this call with us,
• 39:52
  no not yet but we're we
• 39:56
  we need to take yeah actually they are those two
• 40:00
  guys are on the call oh they are on the call okay they're just not wearing black
• 40:03
  ties right now no those two guys are talking we're not we're not there you go
• 40:07
  yeah i'm picking up we're slow on the uptake but we got you but see this is
• 40:13
  the kind of thing we can spread at that event yeah because i'll get I'll get
• 40:17
  you some swag. I'll get you some business cards, whatever it takes.
• 40:20
  We probably need business cards or maybe a flyer. I'll just get you some doobers,
• 40:25
  man. We'll get some special doobers made up. We'll call it a day.
• 40:28
  Because this is Marine Corps history. Yeah.
• 40:32
  It is. In fact, they have, if you go to the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation
• 40:35
  website, they have an H-34.
• 40:39
  Yankee November 19th. Yeah. Yeah, 361 bird. My dad actually flew that for those
• 40:44
  guys when they were building it.
• 40:46
  Boy. Yeah. Cause my dad had a bunch of tests. He had a bunch of test time.
• 40:50
  So funny story when, when he started it up for the first time and you know,
• 40:54
  they were setting the rig and the tension on the cables and all that stuff.
• 40:57
  It was grossly out of rig and he took off,
• 41:02
  he took off and the helicopter just kind of took off on him and he had to undo
• 41:06
  his seatbelt and almost stand because the cyclic was, you know,
• 41:10
  coming way up. Oh shit. Yeah.
• 41:13
  Yeah. We took off, he took off kind of sideways and it wasn't planned,
• 41:16
  but, uh, you know, luckily they got, never do that again. Yeah.
• 41:23
  Yeah. Yes. That old, that old bird that's in the museum is really special.
• 41:27
  I mean, you see all the guys that get promoted or retire there inside the atrium.
• 41:33
  That's a very neat, it's a, it's sad that they couldn't keep flying it.
• 41:36
  The guy's name is Al Weiss that, that owned that aircraft and he flew it,
• 41:41
  flew it as much as he could and as long as he could.
• 41:43
  But, you know, he ran into the same issue that, that I'm kind of running into
• 41:46
  is just, you know, funding. It's not cheap.
• 41:49
  We we we we got to keep the ball rolling
• 41:52
  yeah you know you got to get the ball rolling you got to keep it
• 41:55
  rolling yeah and well and our website
• 41:58
  has a ton of information on it too if i can put a put a
• 42:02
  uh a plug in so it's yl dash yl
• 42:05
  dash three seven so yankee
• 42:08
  lima yl dash three seven dot org and
• 42:12
  we've got history on there we've got
• 42:15
  the history of the aircraft a bunch of pictures upcoming
• 42:19
  events there's contact information past events testimonials well let's take
• 42:26
  a minute and talk about the fallen ugly angels you know you heard me talk about
• 42:29
  the 33 guys that died in vietnam you want to talk about something that'll pull your heartstrings,
• 42:37
  lance corporal kenneth mcbeth.
• 42:42
  His name is on that plaque. He died in this helicopter.
• 42:48
  Oh, wow. His KIA incident has the BUE number 148783, which is YL-37's serial number.
• 42:56
  He died in that aircraft. And it is my distinct honor to fly it.
• 43:02
  And to fly it, you know, in his honor in the 33, you know, the 33 Marines that passed away.
• 43:08
  And to honor my dad. this is
• 43:11
  cool hang on before you do that let me let me jump in and tell
• 43:14
  people here this is cool so when you go to yl37 yl-37.org
• 43:19
  and you go to the fallen ugly angels it
• 43:22
  has it has them there but then i clicked on
• 43:25
  lance corporal mcbeth's picture and it
• 43:28
  takes you to the whole story yeah kim
• 43:32
  my wife did this my wife did she she
• 43:35
  organized all this and it's just i'm in awe every time
• 43:38
  i click around god bless her that's amazing work yeah
• 43:41
  very cool i'm sorry i interrupted uh yeah let's talk about your dad some more
• 43:45
  here yeah my dad flew this aircraft 148783 it's in his in his logbook red red
• 43:51
  time which is combat time 11 times he flew it about 7.8 hours and we got to
• 43:56
  get that updated because the the.
• 43:59
  The website is wrong. It doesn't have all the flight hours. But you can,
• 44:03
  there's a link in there where you can scroll through and see all the pilots.
• 44:07
  Yeah. You see Roger Cook, Rusty Sacks, Gunny.
• 44:11
  Yep. Yeah, Gunny's got a lot of flight time in it. Yeah.
• 44:15
  Jack Lodge, Ryan Hidd. This is awesome. Well, and we, so we,
• 44:20
  Kim did, my wife did a bunch of research to try and find surviving family of
• 44:27
  all these Marines that were KIA.
• 44:29
  And I've, you know, let's, so that top one there,
• 44:33
  first Lieutenant Anthony Kasuki, I had the honor of meeting his brother and
• 44:37
  his brother is writing his, his, his older brother's biography,
• 44:43
  you know, writing his story about how he crashed in unfortunate and really bad weather in Vietnam.
• 44:49
  But these, you know, you read through these KIA stories of, of all these guys and everything.
• 44:56
  It just brings things full circle. You know, February 4th, 1969 was the deadliest
• 45:01
  day in the Ugly Angel history.
• 45:02
  It was right before the squadron was getting ready to shut down.
• 45:09
  And they had a midair collision and killed eight Marines, unfortunately. Oh, man.
• 45:14
  Just absolutely, yeah. Do you know, I've got a question you probably don't know
• 45:21
  the answer to, but I have to ask it.
• 45:23
  Is, is he the pilot that was one eyes co-pilot that one I thought was dead?
• 45:29
  Cause he said that he thought he was dead and he died in the midair.
• 45:32
  I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so.
• 45:37
  Had to ask. Yeah. I'd have to ask Ben. Yeah. Ben's still kicking.
• 45:42
  Try to talk to him every now and again when I can. God bless him.
• 45:46
  What a, what an amazing show that was. A lot of fun. Oh yeah.
• 45:50
  Got a lot of stories and you know, it's, That's what put the hooks in me, right?
• 45:54
  Is listening to my dad and his buddies tell these stories. It's just,
• 45:57
  oh my gosh, how are these guys?
• 46:01
  It's him right in the middle in the picture that Styx has up right now, I think.
• 46:04
  Yeah, so that's Yankee November 19th. That's the helicopter that's in the museum,
• 46:08
  that one right there. Okay, all right.
• 46:11
  That's incredible, man, the things that they sacrificed and then never complained
• 46:15
  and, you know, came back without any fanfare.
• 46:20
  In fact, some hostility and, you
• 46:23
  know, sacrificed so much and people don't appreciate, didn't appreciate.
• 46:28
  I think people now more appreciate than they did back then, but he healed some of those wounds.
• 46:35
  Well, going to these events, to these reunions, we had a flight school instructor
• 46:44
  whose dad was an H-34 door gunner.
• 46:47
  He gave me a big donation, and we put him in the door. We put him in the helicopter.
• 46:52
  We've got an M-60, a demailed M-60.
• 46:55
  We put it in there and put a helmet on him. And I mean, you just,
• 46:58
  you look over at the guy while you're flying and that sight,
• 47:02
  the sights and the sounds and the views that he saw when he was 19 years old.
• 47:06
  And he's just got his eyes are teared, welled up. Yeah.
• 47:09
  Yeah. Cause you imagine what he experienced. You imagine what he experienced
• 47:13
  when he was a 19 year old crew chief pulling guys out, getting shot at.
• 47:18
  Spending all day flying that helicopter and then he gets back to base and guess what he's doing?
• 47:23
  He's patching holes. He's working on it. He's washing blood off the floor of his helicopter.
• 47:29
  Right. How do you heal those scars? How do you repay? How do you repay somebody that went through that?
• 47:34
  And that's, that's what we're trying to do is just give those guys,
• 47:37
  you know, not trying to take them back to the worst times of their life,
• 47:41
  but maybe the best time of their life when they, when they were 10 foot tall
• 47:44
  and bulletproof and literally bulletproof.
• 47:49
  We had another guy. We put it out on Facebook. Yeah, there's the M60. Look at that thing.
• 47:55
  I can tell you right now, I can't hold it up like Arnold Schwarzenegger did.
• 48:00
  It's that son of a gun. That's a hunk of metal. Yeah.
• 48:04
  Yeah. Well, the one he was holding up might have been a prop.
• 48:08
  I don't know. Yeah. You know, just saying. A foam prop, you know.
• 48:12
  Yeah. It might have been a little lighter than the real thing,
• 48:14
  but hey, maybe not. I don't know.
• 48:17
  Sorry, interrupted. No, you're fine. When we flew the helicopter to the moving
• 48:21
  Vietnam wall this last summer, I had a guy, a young guy reach out to me,
• 48:28
  works over at the Cedar Rapids airport, and he says, hey, my grandpa was a crew
• 48:32
  chief in this, and he used to tell stories.
• 48:35
  He's like, can I bring my dad over, his son, to come see it?
• 48:41
  And we had an old ugly angel crew chief, Ed Tappman, who's one of my,
• 48:46
  one of my good close friends.
• 48:48
  And he's another Southern country gentleman. He just, he woos my wife every
• 48:52
  time. Cause he's just a silver tongue devil.
• 48:56
  And, uh, you know, he's just says things like, Oh, good, good night, Irene.
• 49:01
  Or I can't even remember how he says it, but he was, we brought him along and
• 49:06
  he was showing these people, the helicopter telling stories.
• 49:11
  And I introduced this gentleman.
• 49:15
  To ed and ed was showing him what his dad would have done this is where your
• 49:21
  dad would have sat this is the maintenance he would have done this is how long
• 49:25
  his day would have been because,
• 49:27
  he he would have never known that you know he would have never known and the
• 49:30
  connection that ed was able to provide through that helicopter to his son and grandson i mean.
• 49:40
  Is there anything better i mean no no dude that's that's that's connecting dots
• 49:44
  and tying the bow Yeah, just rips your heart out of your chest, but it's also healing.
• 49:49
  It's healing because it fills in those blanks where it's like,
• 49:53
  well, my dad was gone for 13 months. Well, what the hell did he do?
• 49:56
  Now I know. Now I have an appreciation.
• 50:00
  Right. He probably didn't talk about it very much. Well, and that's most of
• 50:05
  the time my dad never talked about those things a whole lot unless he was with
• 50:10
  his brothers, unless he was with his guys.
• 50:13
  When we went to Pensacola this summer, I was with my buddies,
• 50:17
  with my pilots and my crew chiefs who I have such an unbelievable bond with,
• 50:21
  and we were telling stories.
• 50:23
  And my wife is sitting there just going, I never fucking heard that.
• 50:27
  I didn't know anything about this stuff. And I was like, honey,
• 50:31
  it's not personal. It's just I don't have that connection with you,
• 50:35
  but this connection brings that out.
• 50:39
  Yeah. You know? Yeah.
• 50:42
  Absolutely. I had it up there a minute ago, but Jeff Carr, thank you, sir. Cobra.
• 50:48
  Yeah. That's Cobra 3-1. Thanks, Jeff.
• 50:54
  He's a Vietnam Army Cobra pilot. Awesome. Thanks, Jeff. I just saw your donation
• 50:59
  come through. Much appreciated.
• 51:02
  Much appreciated. He was a guest owner.
• 51:05
  I don't know his number off the top of my head, but it was an awesome interview.
• 51:10
  And he's uh he's my cigar smoking buddy
• 51:13
  now right now i got my i've got
• 51:16
  my computer sitting on my humidor right now he went he went
• 51:19
  for his 55 year follow-up yeah but
• 51:23
  uh he was minding his own business flying his helicopter and
• 51:26
  body parts flying around in his cockpit yeah
• 51:30
  those body parts of those oh oh yeah i
• 51:35
  know that guy well do you do you live in
• 51:38
  a in a neighborhood fig or do you have acres i i i live in a neighborhood that
• 51:43
  everybody has uh a big big lots i live on six acres big enough to land a helicopter
• 51:48
  i was thinking that and all i need all i need all i need is a lot long how much
• 51:54
  room i got a lot of trees i planted a lot of trees yeah,
• 51:58
  Do you like those trees? I'm at the end of a cul-de-sac.
• 52:03
  Oh, perfect. Could you put it down in the cul-de-sac? Absolutely.
• 52:06
  I could do anything once.
• 52:08
  It's probably a terrible idea, but you could do anything once. Yes.
• 52:14
  Well, give me your lat long anyway. On our way home, our way back here,
• 52:17
  maybe we can fly by your place.
• 52:19
  We need to get you guys either in the aircraft or around this thing.
• 52:23
  Well, I've technically been in it because I climbed in it at the air show.
• 52:28
  You know, read the plaque, threw some money in the bucket, bought a T-shirt.
• 52:32
  It was hotter than Hades. And I don't remember the guy's name,
• 52:34
  but he was the guy that flew it up there from Oklahoma.
• 52:36
  Yeah, either Jesse or Mike Schneider. Yeah.
• 52:40
  And I thought that, you know, what was, was cool. I was drawn to it because
• 52:44
  I knew it was there and I, and I knew it was from your dad's old squadron.
• 52:48
  And this was after we had talked to you. So like, Oh, okay. I got to go see
• 52:52
  this thing. Right. Yeah. And that's what got me down there.
• 52:55
  I drug my, my poor daughter with me. It was like 115 degrees that day on the
• 52:58
  ramp, you know, and I want to stand there talk. She was leaking out of every pore, you know?
• 53:03
  So I don't know, but I did, but I mean, I, I never saw it running.
• 53:07
  And it was just sitting there static.
• 53:09
  It had a lot of people around it. Wanted to, you know, smell it and touch it.
• 53:12
  Sure. It was, it's pretty awesome.
• 53:15
  So your brother says he owns a chainsaw. You can clear an LZ there.
• 53:19
  There you go. There you go.
• 53:22
  Yeah, this, this, this whole endeavor is just about legacy, right?
• 53:26
  It's, it's honoring those 33. Yeah.
• 53:31
  Honoring my dad honoring my old squadron and then
• 53:34
  and then you know figured out a way to pass this on yeah
• 53:38
  i would think sikorsky would want to throw some serious money at this just for
• 53:42
  the for the goodwill and hey look you know we've got a we've got a 64 year old
• 53:48
  helicopter that's still going it's been shot up and it's it's just going it's
• 53:52
  it's what we make quality stuff sure you,
• 53:57
  If old Igor was still alive, you know, he'd be flipping some,
• 54:00
  flipping some Benjamins at us. Right.
• 54:03
  Absolutely. But it's cool. I had a chance to fly my, my kids.
• 54:08
  I had my granddaughter in this. I mean, you want to talk about,
• 54:11
  so my, my father's great grandkid.
• 54:14
  So man. That's nice. Are you able to offer rides to others for a fee? Like I know.
• 54:22
  We have. Yeah, we have.
• 54:26
  Being experimental we got to be careful what we do everybody's got to be obviously
• 54:29
  in a seat belt and all that stuff but we make them sign a waiver and you know it's a zero it's a zero,
• 54:35
  zero fail mission i have to fly this very conservatively very this is grandpa's
• 54:41
  cadillac you know what i mean i'm not i'm not gripping and ripping we're flying
• 54:45
  smart we're we're using crew resource management to the next level.
• 54:51
  Me and my brothers, we'll talk through every decision and we will,
• 54:55
  you know, we'll have somebody on the ground.
• 54:58
  We'll have a fire truck on the ground in the next extent possible.
• 55:01
  We'll make sure the LZ is clear, a good comms into the wind,
• 55:04
  no loose things flying around.
• 55:06
  You know, we just got to be very, very smart. And that's, that's going to be
• 55:10
  our goal is to do this as long as possible.
• 55:13
  Well, two things. I think I'm wondering if something like the Collins Foundation
• 55:16
  might be worth talking to to see if they would bring you into their fold i don't
• 55:20
  know to help because i don't know how they do it what is that what is that well
• 55:24
  i know they have a b24 i think they're that was their b17 that crashed in connecticut
• 55:29
  a couple years ago oh yeah they've got a 24 and a 25.
• 55:33
  And I got a ride on there 24. I just happened to run into one of the guys who was at my airline.
• 55:38
  We wandered into each other in a, not knowing each other in the crew room or
• 55:44
  not the crew room. What do they call it? The big first class lounge.
• 55:46
  I was going to Europe. He and his wife were coming back from Europe.
• 55:49
  I'm like, there's nowhere to sit lady. Do you mind if I sit here? How many of you? Just me.
• 55:54
  Yeah. Sit down. My husband's at the bar getting something to drink.
• 55:56
  You'll be right back. Oh, so you made her get up so you could take her chairs.
• 55:58
  Oh, well done. Well done. Well done. Yeah.
• 56:02
  So we get chatting and, you know, what are you, what are you doing?
• 56:04
  I'm going to Europe to fly, pick up an airplane and fly. And what are you doing?
• 56:07
  Oh, we're coming home from vacation. And,
• 56:10
  He says, well, what do you do? I said, well, I have a bead window here.
• 56:14
  I go, well, I fly for FedEx. He goes, oh.
• 56:17
  He looks at his wife and goes, small world, huh? And I'm thinking he's a ramp
• 56:20
  agent, a courier or something like that. Sure.
• 56:23
  Bag man. What do you do? He goes, yeah, I fly for FedEx. Really?
• 56:28
  And two weeks later, he happened to be in Manchester, New Hampshire,
• 56:31
  and took my son out of school. We wandered over and got a ride on a B-24.
• 56:36
  Liberator. Yeah. They charge $400 for, I don't know, like a 15-minute ride.
• 56:42
  Yeah. And so, which is, you know, yeah.
• 56:47
  For $400, I'll let you sit in the co-pilot seat. Yeah. Right. There you go.
• 56:53
  Not going to start it or anything, but let you sit there. No,
• 56:55
  I was just going to let you sit there. I didn't say anything about start. Yeah.
• 56:59
  So, thinking of which, I think Sticks is trying to find a way to make his way
• 57:03
  out there and do that. He's got some rotor time, so I think he's jonesing to
• 57:08
  just, you know, sit in that seat, too.
• 57:11
  Yeah. Well, flying a helicopter mechanically, regardless of what machine it
• 57:16
  is, is for the most part the same.
• 57:17
  But the thing that will humble you with this helicopter is just the RPM control.
• 57:24
  The fact that you are controlling the rotor speed and the engine speed. It's all you.
• 57:29
  And if you get behind it, she'll bite you.
• 57:32
  Yeah. And modern aircraft, you don't have to necessarily worry about that as
• 57:36
  much. Okay. So it takes a few weeks to become friends with her.
• 57:41
  Yeah. I mean, it's the same thing. You know, trees, you push it forward,
• 57:44
  trees get big. You pull it back, trees get small. But yeah.
• 57:49
  Something also unique about this helicopter is it's made out of magnesium.
• 57:55
  Yeah. Flash bulb. It's essentially a flying flash bulb.
• 57:58
  And that was for weight savings? and I don't,
• 58:05
  I'm probably saying this incorrectly, but, you know, we were building a lot
• 58:09
  of airplanes back then. So aluminum was probably pretty damn hard to come by.
• 58:13
  Or maybe we didn't even have the technology to make aluminum then,
• 58:16
  you know, because when you look at fabric, not long before that was what they
• 58:22
  built things out of, you know? Yeah.
• 58:24
  Well, there's our show title. It's a flying flashbulb.
• 58:28
  Accurate. Accurate. Oh, man. You know, speaking of money, though,
• 58:34
  we need to take just a moment here and thank Derek Combs over at DC Artworks
• 58:38
  for helping us bring this show to you, everybody.
• 58:41
  So let's do that and then finish talking some more about this wonderful project
• 58:45
  that you're doing, Duber. Awesome.
• 58:49
  So there I was trying to explain to someone why the stuff on my wall matters.
• 58:53
  It's not just decoration. It's identity, history, stories.
• 58:57
  Then I realized most people don't even know what's possible until they actually
• 59:01
  get to see it. That's where DCartworks.net comes in.
• 59:04
  If you've got a wall in your office, your hangar, your shop,
• 59:07
  your bar that feels unfinished, go take a look at DCartworks.net.
• 59:12
  This is a veteran-owned shop run by Derek Combs, and what he does is take steel
• 59:17
  and turn it into something that actually means something.
• 59:21
  Not mass-produced decor, not something you scroll past.
• 59:25
  These are pieces that make people stop and ask questions. Everything starts
• 59:29
  as precision laser-cut steel, then gets hand-finished.
• 59:33
  The result is clean, durable, and built to last. But more importantly,
• 59:38
  it looks like it belongs somewhere important.
• 59:40
  And here's the part most people miss.
• 59:43
  What you see on the website is
• 59:45
  just a starting point. About 95% of what DC Artworks does is custom work.
• 59:51
  Squadron logos, call signs, aircraft silhouettes, unit gifts.
• 59:57
  Business branding, personal pieces, things you literally cannot buy anywhere
• 1:00:02
  else because they don't exist anywhere else.
• 1:00:05
  And then someone has that idea and reaches out to Derek. That's the move.
• 1:00:09
  Don't just scroll the site and think, that's cool.
• 1:00:12
  Scroll the site and think, what would mine look like?
• 1:00:16
  Because once you start that conversation with Derek, you very quickly realize
• 1:00:20
  how many directions this can go.
• 1:00:23
  Materials, finishes, size, layout. he'll
• 1:00:26
  walk you through what works and what doesn't and what's
• 1:00:29
  going to look right on your wall and that's when
• 1:00:32
  it clicks you're not buying something off the shelf you're
• 1:00:35
  creating something that's yours I've got a set of naval aviator wings from him
• 1:00:40
  that are two feet across and I can tell you this nobody ignores them they stop
• 1:00:45
  they ask they want to know where they came from that's the difference so here's
• 1:00:50
  what to do go to DC artworks dot net take a few minutes,
• 1:00:54
  look around, then reach out to Derek and start that conversation.
• 1:00:58
  Because once you understand what's possible, your wall's not going to be staying empty for long.
• 1:01:03
  And when you're ready to buy, use code STIW for 20% off your order.
• 1:01:10
  Every day, every time, forever, even if something's already on sale.
• 1:01:14
  And thanks to DCartworks.net for sponsoring this episode.
• 1:01:21
  So, there I was, aging like milk in the back of a C-130.
• 1:01:27
  That part hasn't changed. Here's the part that surprised me,
• 1:01:30
  Fig. I never cared about skin care.
• 1:01:33
  Not at all. Zero. Not one little bit. I didn't think about it,
• 1:01:37
  didn't expect to care, and honestly, I didn't expect to like anything in that category.
• 1:01:42
  Well, yeah, you're not exactly the target demographic, I suppose.
• 1:01:45
  But I tried one skin, and about a week in, something stood out.
• 1:01:50
  I'm using a tiny amount every day and it actually feels pretty good.
• 1:01:54
  It's light, it's clean, it's not greasy.
• 1:01:56
  It's just easy to do, to follow their system.
• 1:01:59
  So this isn't you turning into a skin care guy?
• 1:02:04
  No, and that's the point. It fits even if you're not that guy.
• 1:02:09
  What got my attention though was the science. They're focused on the senescent
• 1:02:12
  cells, basically damaged zombie cells that build up and accelerate your skin's aging.
• 1:02:19
  And your career didn't exactly help that. Well, no.
• 1:02:22
  You know, I've got the fair skin, so the sun, the stress, the,
• 1:02:26
  you know, a few G's here and there, six, eight, not ideal.
• 1:02:30
  But their OS1 peptide is designed to target that at the cellular level, not just cover it up.
• 1:02:38
  And to be clear, this isn't magic? Right.
• 1:02:41
  Nobody's reversing 20 years of aging overnight, or in my case,
• 1:02:45
  40 years. You know, it's just not going to be a quick fix.
• 1:02:49
  But their early clinical studies are peer-reviewed and showing improvements
• 1:02:53
  in skin function, hydration, and overall feel.
• 1:02:56
  Again, not just moisturizing and covering up anything. It's trying to work down at the cellular level.
• 1:03:02
  So, not snake oil. No, not at all. And that's why I'm actually using it,
• 1:03:07
  which is something I never thought I'd say.
• 1:03:09
  Look, if you want to check it out yourself, get 15% off one skin with the code SOTHERIWAS.
• 1:03:14
  That's one word. so there I was at oneskin.co slash so there I was.
• 1:03:19
  That's oneskin.co slash so there I was. That code is so there I was for 15% off.
• 1:03:27
  That's simple enough. Right. And using that link and code helps them keep coming
• 1:03:33
  back to us as a sponsor. And so we appreciate it.
• 1:03:36
  And thanks to OneSkin for sponsoring this episode.
• 1:03:40
  Thank you for all your support to help keep these shows coming.
• 1:03:43
  So we can tell cool stories like this, too. This is amazing.
• 1:03:47
  When I first heard you were buying this thing, I was like,
• 1:03:50
  Man, that's. It's badass. It is badass. Cutsie move, man. Cutsiest move I ever saw.
• 1:03:57
  God bless you. I mean, this takes real dedication. This is not something you
• 1:04:01
  just undertake for the fun of it. It takes real heart.
• 1:04:04
  And clearly, you were moved by these folks who were mentors.
• 1:04:08
  We got to get DC Artworks to make a. All right.
• 1:04:14
  An Ugly Angels. HMH 362. HMH 362. Hell yeah. Emblem for you.
• 1:04:23
  Hey, can I share a couple of pictures real quick? Oh, hell yes, you would.
• 1:04:27
  How do I do that? If you want to text them to me, or you may be able,
• 1:04:33
  yeah, you can share the screen.
• 1:04:34
  You should be able to share the screen. Just be sure not to put your social
• 1:04:37
  security number up there or your passwords.
• 1:04:41
  It just gives me the option to share which one. Let's see here.
• 1:04:44
  It should be at the bottom. So, yeah.
• 1:04:47
  Yeah, there we go. Here we go. Window.
• 1:04:52
  So one of these i wanted to show you this last summer we flew let me know when
• 1:04:57
  you can see it there it is yeah we flew by my dad's need to add i don't know
• 1:05:03
  if i add yeah there we go there it is,
• 1:05:06
  oh that's so we flew the helicopter by my dad's headstone oh that is cool that
• 1:05:14
  is a great picture that is fantastic,
• 1:05:16
  if you email me this as well I will put it in the blog post for the show I think you have it perfect,
• 1:05:26
  I got your notes but I didn't look at the pictures yet so,
• 1:05:32
  Which for a Marine, you know, I should have looked at the pictures first and
• 1:05:36
  then tried to. I love pictures. The words are scary.
• 1:05:43
  This one right here is kind of cool. This was our last reunion when they flew
• 1:05:47
  the current day VMM 362 squadron.
• 1:05:51
  May have to pop it up there. Yep. There we go.
• 1:05:56
  So there we put YL-37 next to a V-22.
• 1:06:00
  I've seen it. Oh, I didn't. There we go. now we're oh yeah
• 1:06:06
  how about face-to-face badass picture man
• 1:06:09
  so and that's slick where what where
• 1:06:11
  was that picture taken duber so so that was in oklahoma that was where the aircraft
• 1:06:16
  currently resides and i know i know okay yeah wow that's a great picture yeah
• 1:06:24
  great picture and then i got one more I want to share if I can find it.
• 1:06:32
  What are those rotor blades made out of?
• 1:06:36
  So they've got an aluminum spar, a hollow spar, and then it's charged with nitrogen
• 1:06:43
  so then you can tell if there's a hole in it.
• 1:06:45
  It's got a blade BIM indicator, so it's filled with nitrogen and then just an
• 1:06:51
  aluminum covering with honeycomb inside of it. Okay.
• 1:06:59
  Lightweight weighs about 210 pounds 25 foot
• 1:07:02
  long that's crazy but looking
• 1:07:05
  at them they sang pretty good so it's a little so your your rotor diameter is
• 1:07:10
  50 52 feet or something 56 56 56 yeah and there's my kids oh that's awesome
• 1:07:18
  and then eight that's badass yep yeah i don't have a photo of my,
• 1:07:25
  granddaughter in it, but I got a video of her and she's just grinning air to
• 1:07:28
  hear just her and her cousins.
• 1:07:30
  Man, loving it. Living it up. Very cool.
• 1:07:34
  That's the story, guys. Any help you can give? We got to make sure you keep
• 1:07:40
  this legacy going for a decade and then help you pass it on to the next. Yeah.
• 1:07:49
  Absolutely. She's old, but she's got a lot of life left in her.
• 1:07:52
  She's got a lot of life left in her.
• 1:07:55
  You said you've got three motors now that you can cannibalize?
• 1:07:59
  Yeah, I've got three motors. Believe it or not, I've got 23 main rotor blades,
• 1:08:03
  but only about four or five of them have good paperwork.
• 1:08:07
  I've got just stacks and stacks of old parts, generators, alternators,
• 1:08:13
  magnetos, spark plugs, condensers, hydraulic lines, hydraulic pumps,
• 1:08:18
  rotor heads, dampers, trunnions,
• 1:08:21
  pitch change rods, tail rotor blades, terror gearboxes intermediate gearboxes
• 1:08:25
  terror disconnects a lot of parts parts is parts parts is parts.
• 1:08:32
  There's a lot. There's a lot. It's a lot.
• 1:08:35
  I know it's, you know, it does seem like a, it seems like a monumental task.
• 1:08:40
  It seems like it's almost overwhelming, but I got a real good feeling about this, dude.
• 1:08:46
  What choice do I have? How do you pass something like this? You don't have a
• 1:08:49
  choice. You're going to do this.
• 1:08:52
  I'd never, I'd never be able to forgive myself. I've been blessed with just
• 1:08:56
  an amazing opportunity and I'm going to do everything in my power to continue to rock and roll this.
• 1:09:02
  And thankfully, my brothers have committed to basically canceling their personal lives and helping me.
• 1:09:09
  That's pretty bad. Personal lives are overrated.
• 1:09:13
  Yeah. My silent partner who will remain nameless is going to fund every bit
• 1:09:19
  of this as she can help, too.
• 1:09:20
  That's awesome. Oh, mom. Yes. You know.
• 1:09:24
  Where are you in the hierarchy of all the brothers and sisters as far as— I'm
• 1:09:30
  the baby. You're the baby. I was the accident.
• 1:09:32
  Yeah yeah i'm seven years between me and my next oldest brother mom you don't
• 1:09:36
  have a kid at 42 you don't do that well you were you were the gift that just
• 1:09:41
  keeps on giving and and just here you are i went past the catcher i went past
• 1:09:45
  the catcher all the way to the backstop,
• 1:09:48
  i love that that is
• 1:09:51
  that is really great and i'm not you know what i'm first
• 1:09:53
  of all i wasn't shocked when i heard you got
• 1:09:57
  that helicopter in in the back of my mind i
• 1:10:00
  almost i almost envisioned that was happening anyway isn't
• 1:10:03
  that weird yeah i wasn't shocked at all well neither was
• 1:10:07
  i i was like he's nuts but no i mean in a way i think it was you have to be
• 1:10:14
  a little crazy to take on this this task it's monumental it really is that and
• 1:10:18
  you have a connection to that and it's it well It's a deep connection. It's not a...
• 1:10:26
  Yeah. And that's what I have to, that's what I have to uphold. Right. That's yeah.
• 1:10:32
  It's not a cross that I have to bear. It's a cross. I get to bear.
• 1:10:36
  There you go. It's the best way that I can describe it. You know what I mean? That's awesome, dude.
• 1:10:40
  Yeah. That was a great way of looking at it. And, and I'm proud of you.
• 1:10:45
  Cause I mean, I, I mean, I, I've seen, I've seen the helicopter up close and
• 1:10:50
  it moved me and knowing that you're going to keep it flying.
• 1:10:54
  It's, it's really bad-ass.
• 1:10:56
  I really, I want to do everything I can to help you make this an awesome experience.
• 1:11:03
  Well, the owner of FedEx, if I remember correctly, was a Marine, right?
• 1:11:08
  Yeah, and sadly, he has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
• 1:11:13
  A little less than a year ago now, but yeah, he was. Was it?
• 1:11:16
  Okay, I didn't realize it was that long. But, no, I think, I'll see if I can
• 1:11:19
  reach out to one other guy.
• 1:11:20
  He's long since retired, but he gave me my IOE in the DC-10,
• 1:11:25
  And he was an H-34 pilot in Vietnam.
• 1:11:28
  You know what we need is a tech guy. By the name of Frank Sato.
• 1:11:32
  Frank, if you're listening.
• 1:11:34
  We need a tech person who's made more money than he'll ever know what to do
• 1:11:38
  with. Who has a father, uncle, grandfather that was a Vietnam veteran.
• 1:11:44
  And he could make a donation to your 5013C that would keep it running into perpetuity.
• 1:11:51
  And this person would never even know the money's gone.
• 1:11:55
  That's what we need. Yeah, right. That's the friend.
• 1:11:58
  That's the friend I would like to have. So everybody put your feelers out and
• 1:12:02
  find that person because that person's out there.
• 1:12:04
  I guarantee it. Absolutely. I guarantee it.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, I got a doobler with your name on it. And listen, there's not too many
• 1:12:11
  of them left. I mean, they're getting shorter and shorter to come by. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
• 1:12:17
  Yeah, for sure. For sure. And you had so many.
• 1:12:21
  That's impressive, too.
• 1:12:23
  Yeah. Yeah, no kidding. All right. well you know what now
• 1:12:26
  we got to tell people that haven't listened to show 61 what
• 1:12:29
  is a duber and how'd you get the call sign yeah story blue
• 1:12:35
  angels blue angels came to hawaii for the first time in about 20 years in my
• 1:12:39
  when i was out in hawaii with hmh 362 and co and the exo were like listen buy
• 1:12:45
  everything you can get your hands on hats shirts koozies whatever and,
• 1:12:51
  I had a vendor come up to me because I bought a bunch of crap from him.
• 1:12:54
  And he's like, man, you got to try out these things called doobers.
• 1:12:56
  And I'm like, what the fuck is a doober?
• 1:13:00
  And it's just, you know, it's this little neoprene sleeve that goes on the back
• 1:13:04
  of that. I don't know if it's even got instructions. Look at that.
• 1:13:07
  It tells you how to put the damn thing on. It's probably a little bit out of
• 1:13:09
  focus. It goes on the strap on the back of your trucker's hat.
• 1:13:11
  Yeah, it goes on the back.
• 1:13:12
  What's it do for you? What's it actually do for you on the back of your? Absolutely nothing.
• 1:13:17
  Absolutely nothing. It puts a decoration on the back of your grape.
• 1:13:22
  It just, it makes you look like a NASCAR, you know, he'd like to put a sticker on everything.
• 1:13:27
  So I, I, I told the guy I'd, you know, I'd buy a gross of them and I was expecting that to be like 144.
• 1:13:33
  And we got like fucking 12,000 of them and we didn't, we didn't fucking sell any of them.
• 1:13:37
  We had 14,400. It was so bad. Yeah. A gross of grosses.
• 1:13:43
  So the staff NCOs, I was pitching what we were going to sell and the staff NCOs
• 1:13:48
  were like, Doober, that's your call. Oh boy.
• 1:13:51
  So it stuck that's awesome that's awesome yeah it could have been a lot worse
• 1:13:56
  right could have been a lot it should have been a lot worse right yeah well
• 1:14:02
  it's a great story it's a great call sign you're a fine american a good marine
• 1:14:06
  and and now you you have very you have a very expensive,
• 1:14:11
  it's not even a hobby it's a passion,
• 1:14:14
  Yeah, for sure. We're going to get it done.
• 1:14:17
  You know, it's the owner, Gerald, everybody asked him, you know,
• 1:14:22
  what's your plan for this aircraft
• 1:14:24
  when you, you know, you get up there in age or when you're retired.
• 1:14:27
  And he, he told everybody that he had a plan and then he asked my dad. Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  Well, and, and my, my dad never told me this, but Gerald told my dad,
• 1:14:41
  I'm going to give it to Nick.
• 1:14:42
  Wow so and i and i never heard that from him i actually heard it from ed tapman
• 1:14:50
  from from one of the old crew chiefs he he's the one who told me that and when
• 1:14:57
  he told me i just completely,
• 1:15:00
  broke down i get it that's awesome just turned into putty get it.
• 1:15:08
  Totally get it yeah it's gonna be fun it's
• 1:15:11
  gonna be neat i'm excited for it i'm excited i
• 1:15:14
  can't wait to see it flying right i you
• 1:15:17
  know that's one helicopter i might be
• 1:15:20
  willing to get in well i'm not gonna say that but i might you know it's because
• 1:15:26
  it's a big damn deal and you know and i love the backstory and i love the fact
• 1:15:31
  that you're you know you're it now duper that's pretty damn cool we we need
• 1:15:36
  to find you a shit ton of money that's that's just all there is to it,
• 1:15:40
  shit ton is about how much it's going to take is what we that is a technical
• 1:15:44
  measurement this week yeah crap ton crap ton shit ton somewhere in the middle
• 1:15:49
  so but thinking you talked about it earlier thinking of technical details i went and asked,
• 1:15:59
  I don't know, it was Gemini or some AI. Just how many liters is 1,800 and change cubic inches?
• 1:16:06
  That's a 29-liter engine.
• 1:16:09
  Those pistons have got to be massive. They've got to weigh as much as the damn
• 1:16:13
  rotor blades. You said coffee can.
• 1:16:18
  Yeah, I've got one sitting out here. It would take me a minute to find it.
• 1:16:22
  Yeah. Oh, man. Matter of fact, give me two seconds. Give me two seconds.
• 1:16:25
  We can do that. Fig and I can vamp for all of that. you know yeah absolutely
• 1:16:29
  he's gonna grab one of those holy smokes yeah that thing's got to be you know
• 1:16:33
  like you say big rounds of coffee again if not bigger and there's nine of them
• 1:16:37
  no dude he's only a couple hours from me i i i gotta i gotta find an afternoon and drive up there and,
• 1:16:44
  see him and look at the operation take some pictures
• 1:16:47
  smell it again you know when you
• 1:16:50
  smell when you get in there when you get near you start smelling it you
• 1:16:52
  know it's it smells it's the real deal right yeah you
• 1:16:56
  see the patches you know inside the patches
• 1:16:59
  where the bullets went through at one point i mean
• 1:17:02
  dude it's a it's a it's a it's a war artifact
• 1:17:05
  look at that yeah what the hell is he oh he's got
• 1:17:08
  an m60 well he
• 1:17:11
  just killed somebody what what
• 1:17:14
  what duper what what the hell oh you
• 1:17:16
  can't hear me i can't hear yourself but uh
• 1:17:20
  oh my god all right so this is
• 1:17:23
  the drive shaft right there that i was telling you that goes
• 1:17:25
  in between that goes in between the engine
• 1:17:28
  and the oh my gosh that appears to be six feet long or so maybe seven so that's
• 1:17:34
  that's what hooks up to the clutch and goes and it's about so if people that
• 1:17:40
  are just listening you're going to want to go to the to our youtube channel
• 1:17:43
  and look for it is it six feet long how long is it it's about five.
• 1:17:49
  Because I'm 5'10". And that clutch plate looks to be about a foot in diameter. Yeah.
• 1:17:55
  And here's the business end. There it is. Say hello to my little friend. Right. Tripod M60.
• 1:18:04
  That's the M60. Love it. Yeah. You can't. I can. That takes all of it. That's all I got.
• 1:18:14
  I can't. But it's a good conversation piece when I put it on my desk. Right.
• 1:18:19
  And just for those listening, the Tuber's forearm is almost as big around as
• 1:18:23
  the buttstock on that thing.
• 1:18:25
  So him having a hard time holding it up, that's impressive.
• 1:18:28
  What did you think that weapon was? We're going to schedule physical therapy
• 1:18:31
  tomorrow because that hurt.
• 1:18:32
  It's probably 30 pounds. Your brother's put out the engine weighs 1,500 pounds.
• 1:18:40
  Yeah, 1,525 horsepower. So you're looking at almost a one-to-one power ratio,
• 1:18:46
  but when you put the turbines in it, it's a lot less.
• 1:18:50
  Yeah so this thing's cool i wish i could go deer you're gonna have to reach
• 1:18:54
  out to uh cobra 31 when he brings it down to missouri yeah you know yeah get him over yeah for sure,
• 1:19:02
  and then engine weighs 1500 pounds yeah that's holy fook that's legit,
• 1:19:13
  i'll take you out in the shop show you a bunch more parts but these are the
• 1:19:16
  only ones that i could find that we're light.
• 1:19:20
  Fantastic stuff. Wow. Well, damn. All right, so we got to, we're going to be
• 1:19:27
  able to put there, oh, look at that picture. So that's it all opened up.
• 1:19:31
  Got the hood open yeah you can see inside of the,
• 1:19:36
  inside of that shroud that shiny shroud there is kind of the heart of the motor
• 1:19:40
  you got the mags, the starter, generator and up underneath it's the carburetor
• 1:19:45
  and then that green piece with the little white,
• 1:19:49
  placard on it that's the cables that come down and feed the carburetor and then you got the.
• 1:19:58
  Intake for the engine because this is all air cooled that
• 1:20:01
  that perforated shroud that's along the fuselage
• 1:20:05
  there all the air gets sucked in there and then
• 1:20:08
  there's a big fan on the back side of the the pistons
• 1:20:11
  and the cylinders and it just pushes all the airflow back
• 1:20:14
  through the motor okay nice and it's
• 1:20:17
  set up with quick disconnect cables there on the
• 1:20:20
  left hand side that you're basically looking at right at in
• 1:20:23
  the middle of the screen that's you know hydraulics and
• 1:20:26
  fuel lines and it's got an inch fuel line so i mean yeah
• 1:20:29
  it's a lot of
• 1:20:32
  how big is the fuel tank how many gallons does it hold i think
• 1:20:36
  it's just over 300 gallons it's got three tanks the the
• 1:20:39
  marine corps version has it
• 1:20:42
  doesn't have transfer tanks when you're in forward
• 1:20:45
  flight you know you've got a little bit of a tip anyway so gravity works from
• 1:20:49
  your back tank all the way through the middle tank to the front tank but the
• 1:20:53
  navy version which is what my dad flew in the commercial civilian world had
• 1:20:58
  transfer tanks because the Navy used the H 34 as a sonar dipper. Okay.
• 1:21:03
  So they're, they were sitting in more of a hover all the time.
• 1:21:06
  So they'd run out of fuel if they didn't transfer the fuel in. Okay.
• 1:21:10
  And yeah, it's amazing how some of those guys thought of that stuff, you know, 70 years ago.
• 1:21:16
  And just for reference, so you just said it has a one inch fuel line.
• 1:21:20
  The, the water main coming into your house, people, 99% of the time is half inch.
• 1:21:28
  Yes. Yes. Think of your sink running at full blast and you've got twice as large a line coming in.
• 1:21:35
  Yeah. Well, a garden hose, a garden hose about three quarters of an inch.
• 1:21:38
  So it's bigger than a garden hose yeah holy shit right yeah she's she's thirsty
• 1:21:44
  girl 12.4 12.4 gallons of oil you know 120 weight oil it's like like molasses
• 1:21:51
  when it's cold buckets under in the when you park her,
• 1:21:56
  we've got a roll around pan. Cause I mean, if she ain't leaking,
• 1:21:59
  she's out, you know, and that's, that's the old adage with any helicopter,
• 1:22:03
  you know, joke was always crew chiefs would get told by somebody who's riding as a passenger.
• 1:22:09
  Hey man, it's leaking over there. He's like, I don't care. That's a good thing.
• 1:22:13
  Wake me up when it stops leaking. Yeah. When it's not leaking,
• 1:22:15
  we got problems. Yeah. We got problems.
• 1:22:18
  So when are you guys going to be able to come up here and help me fly this thing? I need commitments.
• 1:22:25
  Well man i'm jammed we're jammed up i'm
• 1:22:28
  jammed up through the first week of june because we're going to cherry point for the
• 1:22:30
  sundown of the bulldogs the great american bulldogs nice
• 1:22:34
  yeah i'll be there yeah i'll be there for that too it'll it won't be till uh
• 1:22:38
  late you know the end of june and then i'm good the rest of summer june may
• 1:22:43
  and june i'm ruined okay we'll definitely get something together do you guys
• 1:22:49
  do you follow or do you know you know keith buckley cat box right I don't think so. No.
• 1:22:54
  He's a buddy of mine. He just took over as the executive director of this aviation museum in Ohio.
• 1:23:06
  Maps. Maps. And they just got a Harrier that he flew in his squadron.
• 1:23:11
  I don't know if it was a 214 or an Ace of Spades. Well, Ace of Spades dropped
• 1:23:15
  all their airplanes off all over the country at museums.
• 1:23:18
  Yeah. I bet. And so it's probably that.
• 1:23:21
  Yeah. Maps, Maps Air Museum, Military Aviation Preservation Society.
• 1:23:28
  So he just took over as the executive director.
• 1:23:31
  All right. It's a 214 bird. Where? VMFA, VMA.
• 1:23:36
  Where in Ohio? Canton.
• 1:23:39
  Canton. Canton. Huh. Okay.
• 1:23:45
  Yeah. You need to look him up. Good guy. Damn good guy. We went through flight school together. Nice.
• 1:23:53
  Nice cat box you can imagine where he got that call side he probably stunk like a cat box,
• 1:24:01
  well we're always good at that i get you know i i work
• 1:24:05
  with a bunch of air guard guys and it irritates the hell out of me how they
• 1:24:09
  all get call signs for just breathing and and they get cool call signs like
• 1:24:14
  laser and blazer and you know we get call signs because we screw something up
• 1:24:19
  Like Pig and Otis the Town Drunk. Yeah.
• 1:24:25
  Yeah. Yeah. You guys need to get that guy on.
• 1:24:29
  Or did you have him on? The guy who wrote a book about call signs.
• 1:24:33
  Yeah, we had him on. Oh, yeah.
• 1:24:34
  We had him on. You had him on, yeah. I think, episode 97. I'll double check.
• 1:24:37
  Yeah, because he wrote down how those guys got their call signs.
• 1:24:42
  That was probably one of my favorite episodes.
• 1:24:44
  Yeah, there were some good stories.
• 1:24:47
  There were some good stories from that episode talking about that.
• 1:24:51
  Yep. Yeah. Tuba had a guy named Tuba, tight uniform, big ass.
• 1:24:58
  Sweet. What was that? Little man can't, little angry man can't handle our program.
• 1:25:05
  And they, and they put a no step sticker on his helmet.
• 1:25:13
  I knew a frog guy, his call sign was fetus. Cause he was like five foot three.
• 1:25:18
  He could barely touch the tail of her pedals.
• 1:25:21
  But he also had like 11 kids, you know, so what a, what a dick. It was a real jerk.
• 1:25:28
  What was the, uh, what was the
• 1:25:30
  one, the guy that married the stripper that ended up being a crack whore?
• 1:25:34
  It was an acronym for, uh, I remember that one. Oh, what was that? Yes.
• 1:25:40
  So, so you, so, uh, I can't, I'll get up to, I'll get to go back and listen to it now.
• 1:25:46
  I'm in love with the stripper.
• 1:25:49
  Weird. Yeah, it looks like a bad thing Oh man,
• 1:25:53
  I don't know. What do you say? We probably need to consider landing the airplane.
• 1:25:58
  Yeah. Yeah. And we'll just plan on having Duber back at the end of the summer
• 1:26:01
  so we can hear where YL-37 went and how it's going and what else we need to
• 1:26:10
  talk about. And we need some other Marine Corps stories.
• 1:26:11
  We didn't hardly touch on any of it, man, from your HMX-1 days and flying presidential
• 1:26:17
  and vice presidential helicopters and doing advanced party stuff.
• 1:26:21
  I mean, you've got to see some pretty cool stuff. A lot of shit I'm sure you can't talk about.
• 1:26:26
  A couple things, but I got to tell my kids, I'm just a guy.
• 1:26:30
  I did some cool stuff once, but I'm just an Iowa farm kid.
• 1:26:36
  There's more humility and leadership there. Go figure. Another one of those
• 1:26:40
  guys with a bunch of humility. Weird.
• 1:26:44
  Wow. And a spare drive shaft for an 1820. You had a de-lethalized M60 on your desk. That's it.
• 1:26:55
  I'm going to use this as a hat rack. This thing's massive. Fantastic.
• 1:26:59
  Well, thank you, Duber. Thanks for sharing. And keep us posted.
• 1:27:03
  And all his information is going to be on our website, right?
• 1:27:07
  Absolutely. On our website, right?
• 1:27:08
  Okay. Absolutely. Get the QR code up. QR code. The website address, yl-37.org.
• 1:27:16
  We'll put that up there and, yeah, some cool stuff. So, well,
• 1:27:20
  Duber, thank you for your service.
• 1:27:21
  We are deeply grateful to you for that. And thank you to all the families out
• 1:27:25
  there who help the service members do so distraction free.
• 1:27:31
  That's you sacrifice as much as the service members often, sometimes more missed
• 1:27:36
  anniversaries, birthdays, funerals, weddings, all that stuff. And so thank you.
• 1:27:43
  We got to send out a shout out to Dave Hamilton, backbeatmedia.com.
• 1:27:52
  Absolutely. He's the guy that helped us put it all together,
• 1:27:55
  right? Gave us the bandwidth and the know-how and really gave you the bandwidth and know-how.
• 1:28:00
  I just show up and talk. Well, there's that.
• 1:28:03
  Good thing you do because I couldn't do this shit alone. So thank you,
• 1:28:09
  Dave. appreciate all your help and cash life for the bandwidth that makes that happen.
• 1:28:14
  Then there's the folks over at patreon.com stheriwows.us slash patreon if you
• 1:28:20
  want to defy your financial advisor sound advice and help keep this show going,
• 1:28:25
  check out over there or go to stheriwows.us slash donate and there's options
• 1:28:29
  for direct donations through Venmo and other such things.
• 1:28:33
  But you know what? Maybe take a week and go over to yl-37.org and help Duber
• 1:28:40
  keep this flying memorial go alive.
• 1:28:42
  Several people on here have stated that they've either already given or are
• 1:28:45
  about to. So thank you for your generosity. That's the one thing we can count
• 1:28:49
  on this audience. They are super generous.
• 1:28:51
  And hey, there's somebody out there right now that's listening now or going
• 1:28:56
  to hear it after it goes live that knows that Silicon Valley tech guy that's
• 1:29:03
  already made his bajillions of dollars and could fund this thing into perpetuity.
• 1:29:08
  And wouldn't even feel it so let's make that happen let's
• 1:29:13
  make let's make that happen come on all right heck yeah all right hey hold on
• 1:29:20
  a second wait wait just one second yeah you know it's almost it's almost bikini
• 1:29:24
  season and we have a merch store so there i was i don't have oh dude i'm gonna drive you up one.
• 1:29:33
  While you're wearing one i gotta see it model wear one
• 1:29:36
  with i gotta see it model nobody make sure you trim a little bit first to see
• 1:29:40
  that so there i was dot us slash merch hey we've got uh if we don't have it
• 1:29:45
  it's probably not made but check it out and we do have a bikini house right
• 1:29:49
  i don't see any dubers on there let me see if the guy's contact info still on
• 1:29:53
  here we'll get some Yeah, there you go.
• 1:29:55
  Right on. His phone number's still on.
• 1:29:59
  So there I was. That US slash rate is where you go and give us five stars.
• 1:30:05
  It helps other people find the show. So there I was at US slash rate.
• 1:30:08
  We could really use a five-star rating from you. Not a four-star, not a three-star.
• 1:30:12
  Don't even think about two or
• 1:30:13
  one, or we're going to have Duber hunt you down and toss you out a YL37.
• 1:30:19
  He'll throw the non-functional M60 at you,
• 1:30:23
  that'll probably hurt worse yeah right butt stroke
• 1:30:26
  you with this damn thing seriously we we are
• 1:30:29
  trainable and if we if you can't give
• 1:30:31
  us five stars tell us why if you gotta if you can't give us give you
• 1:30:35
  to give three stars give it to somebody else right repeat exactly then
• 1:30:38
  come back and give us five stars and tell us what we can do
• 1:30:40
  better so and share the show for crying out loud share the
• 1:30:43
  show with somebody this right you know word of mouth is
• 1:30:46
  the best way it really is tell somebody
• 1:30:49
  about the show and that there's bound to be a story in these 208 episodes that
• 1:30:54
  that you love and you know someone else will love i mean it's hangar talk it's
• 1:30:59
  aviation yeah it's flying it's great flying stories i'm thinking of yeah the
• 1:31:05
  guy that takes the most awesome aviation photography pictures.
• 1:31:09
  Brad Silcott, BDS Aviation Photography, also known as Badass. He's a big supporter.
• 1:31:15
  And he was here earlier, I think.
• 1:31:18
  Thanks, Badass. I think so, yeah. And then Sticks and Bago, they are usually in the background.
• 1:31:24
  Sticks was here, and then he was gone, and now he's back. He's out seeing patients
• 1:31:28
  and has the poor taste to show us some really gross shit now and then with pictures. All anonymized.
• 1:31:35
  Yeah, anonymized. Of course. I don't want to talk. We're violating HIPAA here, but oh, my God.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah. I saw something last night that I can't unsee. No. We're scarred for life now. Stop it, Stick.
• 1:31:47
  Choke it. Just saying. All right. Thank you so much, guys.
• 1:31:54
  You're awesome, buddy. I'm hearing something. Are you getting some noise in the background?
• 1:31:58
  That's the F-16 guys that make the Air Force sound good. The Dos Gringos.
• 1:32:03
  Both of them. Yeah. Both of them. thanks boys for letting us use your music
• 1:32:08
  we're grateful, if you're having a bad day go listen to some of those gringos
• 1:32:12
  it will lighten your heart, I promise,
• 1:32:15
  so and go to wild, and go to yankeelima-37.org and make a donation a big one.
• 1:32:23
  Huge, huge please do and thanks Dick, Dick says he refuses to be traumatized
• 1:32:29
  alone, so hey that's why he has to show us all that shit that's okay brother,
• 1:32:32
  that's okay you can tell us, if it helps you, you can tell All right.
• 1:32:38
  Until next week. Don't sit on the collective.
• 1:32:47
  Well, there I was.
• 1:33:18
  Never over. And of course it isn't coming out now. Son of a bad word.
• 1:33:23
  Oh, well. It ain't over until we say it's him.
• 1:33:28
  And we are out.