Hey Speed ...

[wingman]

Brad, I just ran across an old Air Classics with another great John Lear parody about "Ralph Hurt" and a B-26. Just curious about whether RLP ever commented on the piece and was he amused...

[speeddemon]

Re: Hey Speed ...

Brad, I just ran across an old Air Classics with another great John Lear parody about "Ralph Hurt" and a B-26. Just curious about whether RLP ever commented on the piece and was he amused...

Oh my gawd....RLP said that that one article caused him to never speak to John Lear again.

I mean, everyone made fun of Ralph because he was a true 'been there, done that' kind of guy. And you always had to take some of the stories with a raised eyebrow. But if you truly knew him, he pretty much walked the talk.

John Lear's "The Colonel" stories were absolutely hilarious. The one about the Col. going air racing is so dead-spot on that you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Same thing about the Great Tonopah Air Races (a spoof of Mojave) where Fey Racy rolls the DC-8 and then bellies it in, blaming it on Snoopy was a direct slam at the Human Fly from 1976. I wish we could get copyright permission to post those stories here.

But all of Lear's stories were way, way, WAY over the top. And the people he took shots at seemed to be most of the old Skytrails gang from Van Nuys. Most of it seemed in good sport. But I think the B-26 story just went too far.

Now granted, it has been said that RLP had more time in the backseat of more P-51's than anyone else in history...but he really was a pilot in his own right. What were the true natures of his credentials? I can't say, because I never SAW his pilot's license. I know Norma and I have since shared a lot of stories of things he/they did...and Norma has no reason at all to imbellish the truth. My ex once tried to pin RLP down to ask him "just what exactly DO you do?" With that big toothy grin and drawl, all she could get out of him was "Oh...a little bit of this....little bit of that."

And yet, at RLP's memorial, two guys who I had never met before, who knew him from the California boat racing world, related a story from back in their "government" days. Seems they were filling out the paperwork for their passports, and there was a section for 'Emergency Contact'. These guys said they looked at each other and both decided that Ralph was the ONLY guy who they needed to put down, because no matter where the government could possibly send them, Ralph was either friends with the President, the head of the military, or the General who was ABOUT to overthrow the government in an armend coup. They figured that no matter where they were, Ralph could get them out of trouble.

It seems kind of far-fetched, but yet it's not that much of a stretch of the truth.

So. I never did get a story about a specific incident about ferrying a B-26 from Santa Monica to Van Nuys. Perhaps John Slack may be able to shine some more light on it. But I know that whenever I broached that one article with Ralph, it was like opening the floodgates in a tirade against John Lear. And pretty soon after that, Lear stopped writing the "Col." stories.

And its certainly not the first time Lear has pi$$ed someone off by going too far with something.

[speeddemon]

Re: Hey Speed ...

Something else I thought of about Lear's articles. I recall that in the 'air racing' spoof, The Col. is out flying Miss USA (which naturally is Miss America), climbing in the turns, diving in the straights, belching huge quantities of black smoke, and something to the effect of flying a race line oblivious to everyone else in the race...all the while 'racing' at half-flaps because the 'great milk bottle experiment' broke in the cockpit and the bottle came to rest on the flap-handle....unnoticed by the Col.

(For those who have never read it, the Col. finishes in last...pulling out on the 5th lap, thinking it was the last lap, executing a climbing victory roll....at which he gets too slow, stalls out on top, and executes something akin to a split-s that recovers right at home pylon, directly at the crowd, just as the rest of the field is coming around to take the checkered flag--scattering them like birds!)

When Z asks the Col. afterward why the engine was smoking so much, the Col. replies that he kept picking up speed in the straights, and was approaching the pylons too quickly, so he'd pull up and pull back on the throttle to slow down....make the turn....and then firewall it again.

Ha, ha. Good fun at Z's expense.

HOWEVER.....maybe Hacker can chime in here, but when he interviewed Bill Montagne about the Machbuster several years back, Montagne said that the 'air race goons' didn't know anything about how to race...that the Machbuster was designed to be like a car....on the throttle when in the straights, off the throttle entering the turn, and on the gas coming out of it.

Wow.

[RandyGoss75]

Re: Hey Speed ...

"Damn it Snoopy, when I say gear down- I mean gear down!"

[speeddemon]

Re: Hey Speed ...

"Damn it Snoopy, when I say gear down- I mean gear down!"

....And Snoopy never flew as Co-Pilot again.

I'm trying to remember all the guys that Lear parodied throughout the series. The stories were usually told from the point of view of 'a guy named Dave', who was a young ramp rat at Van Nuys who hung around as a kid. Sound familiar to some of the guys on this board? Z got lambasted a lot. So did Dwight Brooks (the great Lysander project). Clay Lacy was a multi-time spoofer, as was Ralph Payne (who usually played the role of Lacy's 'safety inspector') I remember Jerky Doody was a slam at RARA Director Jerry Duty. Biplane racer Stan Brown caught a few slams, as did Howie Keefe and Miss America. Then again, Lear even lampooned his own father in the articles on several occasions...referencing the crazy inventor who had just rolled out a steam-powered something.

I also remember there being a running 'inside' joke about some g.a. pilot from Van Nuys. In every story there was some incident (Miss USA groundlooping and running into an ANG firebottle, or the Col. doing a high-speed, short-field landing in front of everyone in a Lear and locking up the breaks, blowing the tires, etc.)...and every time someone would pipe in over the radio "Hey, is that __________?"

As over the top and sometimes downright mean as the stories were, they always pointed directly at the Colonel character. Never figured out who the Col. was a spoof of. But the stories were certainly an insight to what life was like at Van Nuys and Skytrails during the heydey of the 1970's.

[wingman]

Re: Hey Speed ...

I never met RLP, though I have listened to some obscene mutterings from Kerch about the time Kerch (apparently quite seriously) challenged him to a fistfight and Ralph wouldn't take him up on it. I suspected that Ralph's reaction to the piece might not have been real positive. I agree that this was one of the meaner Lear bits, but it was funny.

I too would really love to see these things republished or at least on the internet somewhere. Lear is still around somewhere isn't he? I wonder if anybody's ever asked him.

I need to go find that slide for Slack...

[Tosg]

Re: Hey Speed ...

That would be the year that RLP was the chief tech inspector for the unlimiteds while Kerch was crew chief for John Crocker on #6. RLP had most of the teams really worked up from his pre-qual inspections. Kerch was absolutely livid about some of the stuff that RLP had them do. It got so bad that flyers were handed out throughout the pits for a boxing match billed as "Rotten Ralph" vs. "Killer Kerch" to be a bonus attraction at Phil Wallick's slide show down at the Comstock hotel. 1979 maybe?

Back in the good ol' days.

[speeddemon]

Re: Hey Speed ...

As Slack will attest, RLP was a No-Bullsh#t kind of guy. Safety was not just the first priority, it was the only priority. And his steadfast approach of refusing to 'look the other way' when it came to safety pi$$ed a LOT of people off at him.

But as John has said before...the ones who didn't like what RLP had to say usually were the ones who didn't want to admit that he was right--and ended up with egg on their face when Ralph's words came to pass.

I have never been able to figure out who the pilot/airplane was, but I heard him tell me once about a pilot who was trying to qualify at the Whittington's race in '79 in Miami. I guess it was a friend of the Brothers, and Don came to Ralph after this pilot had miserably failed his pilot qual, asking to give him another try the following day. Ralph's response was something to the effect of "Unless you can teach that boy to fly formation overnight, the answer is still going to be no."

And as Ralph admitted....'and I considered Whittington a friend, too'.

Can't play favorites in a game like that.

Same thing with when RLP and the contest committee wouldn't let Slovak race Mr. Mennen in '72 because of the date with the stewie from Continental.

Where do you draw the line?

Ralph often said that he wasn't in the business of creating widows and orphans.

I tend to agree on his standpoint of safety.

[wingman]

Re: Hey Speed ...

I dunno, Brad -- I did hear some interesting discussions of the gender and species of Ralph's immediate ancestors that week -- with some neat adjectives thrown in too. Here's Kerch showing that the incident even made the newspapers!

Hey -- jerking on Brad's chain is kinda fun. We need to do this more often. He's kinda fun when he's a bit worked up!

And the year was 1980 -- there were several pits where emotions were running high, anyway. For instance #6, #69, and #77. Not the best of years for difficult and excruciating slow tech inspections...

[speeddemon]

Re: Hey Speed ...

I dunno, Brad -- I did hear some interesting discussions of the gender and species of Ralph's immediate ancestors that week -- with some neat adjectives thrown in too. Here's Kerch showing that the incident even made the newspapers!

Hey -- jerking on Brad's chain is kinda fun. We need to do this more often. He's kinda fun when he's a bit worked up!

And the year was 1980 -- there were several pits where emotions were running high, anyway. For instance #6, #69, and #77. Not the best of years for difficult and excruciating slow tech inspections...

Oh, that is BEAUTIFUL, Neal!!!

Hey, no jerkin' my chain here. Its all good. There's ALWAYS two sides to the story, you know? And like I said...the old man pi$$ed off a LOT of people over the years.

[wingman]

Re: Hey Speed ...

Aw Brad, now you're spoiling all the fun I thought I was having...

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Hey Speed ...

Hey -- jerking on Brad's chain is kinda fun. We need to do this more often. He's kinda fun when he's a bit worked up!

LOL... yea... so are you... sort of...

[wolfee]

Re: Hey Speed ...

This has been a great read!

We need more story posts like this, even if it is all hearsay or made up.

[stuntflyr]

Re: Hey Speed ...

As Slack will attest, RLP was a No-Bullsh#t kind of guy. Safety was not just the first priority, it was the only priority. And his steadfast approach of refusing to 'look the other way' when it came to safety pi$$ed a LOT of people off at him.

But as John has said before...the ones who didn't like what RLP had to say usually were the ones who didn't want to admit that he was right--and ended up with egg on their face when Ralph's words came to pass.

I have never been able to figure out who the pilot/airplane was, but I heard him tell me once about a pilot who was trying to qualify at the Whittington's race in '79 in Miami. I guess it was a friend of the Brothers, and Don came to Ralph after this pilot had miserably failed his pilot qual, asking to give him another try the following day. Ralph's response was something to the effect of "Unless you can teach that boy to fly formation overnight, the answer is still going to be no."

And as Ralph admitted....'and I considered Whittington a friend, too'.

Can't play favorites in a game like that.

Same thing with when RLP and the contest committee wouldn't let Slovak race Mr. Mennen in '72 because of the date with the stewie from Continental.

Where do you draw the line?

Ralph often said that he wasn't in the business of creating widows and orphans.

I tend to agree on his standpoint of safety.

I think he is mentioned in the Bible when he was walking on water with Jesus, wasn't he?!!!

Did he ever mention N5005 much?

Chris...

[speeddemon]

Re: Hey Speed ...

I think he is mentioned in the Bible when he was walking on water with Jesus, wasn't he?!!!

Did he ever mention N5005 much?

Chris...

I heard him spout off a couple of times that the airplane shouldn't have passed tech inspection on numerous occasions. It wasn't anything personal...he said he knew Mike Geren, and liked both him and Ron Reynolds. Just that the maintenance on the airplane was less than stellar--lots of leaks, lots of worn lines, things like that. Like most warbirds at the time, they weren't the 'investments' that they are today, so they weren't all that expensive, and guys with more money than ability (not to question them--if I recall, they were both TWA captains with Lyle).

But if I remember, that airplane had had at least two landing gear collapses in the months leading up to the wreck at San Diego, and the maintenance just didn't appear to be up to snuff.


Beautiful airplane, though. One of the best Bearcat paintjobs ever.