Towing a FFH

[hybridbear]

GOOGLE has realized this and plans the same philosophy, People are poor backups for real-time automated systems.

This is very true. I loved letting the LKA drive the car during our road trip.

[acdii]

Tony, had I not had a hardship discharge in 1983 we might have crossed paths as I was scheduled for that field in the Army. A friend of mine is restoring an E model B17, link is in my signature.

Edited January 22, 2015 by acdii

[TonyHzNV]

A friend of mine is restoring an E model B17, link is in my signature.

acdii, that is VERY cool. It would be great to be involved in a project of that magnitude and what a feeling of pride will be shared by all who had a hand in it when it's finished someday! Kinda makes ya tear up! My Dad was in the 96th Bomb Group, 339th Bomb Squadron, 8th Air Force over in England, Ipswitch if I remember correctly. I've talked with him at length about his experiences on video because I didn't want to lose that history and I wanted my brother and sisters to hear more about it because he never talked about it much. I guess because I spent all that time in the Army, he felt a little more at ease opening up to me. He just turned 90 in November and still doing pretty well for his age, but his memory is slowly fading so I had to get in there and get it while I could.

 

Well, who knows, acdii, we might have shared a cockpit had you not gotten out. I graduated from flight school in March of 1981, so that would have been entirely possible, unless you're one of those guys who wanted to fly gunships! :-) Bell AH-1G Cobras in those days. Not me! I knew from the previous ten years that I would get a lot more flight time in the utility helicopter world, and it wasn't so much of a suicide mission as a Cobra which had to sit there and wait until a missile hit its target (because they were wire guided). It wasn't like the Apache of today that can fire off multiple missiles for the grunts and leave while the grunts guide their missiles to their targets with laser designators. I don't regret taking the track I did and I think the 2 tours I did in Medevac were probably the most rewarding years of my career since we got to actually help people and I became a better pilot due to flying in all kinds of weather and darkness to do it. Sometimes I really miss it! Take care.

[corncobs]

I'm more and more impressed with the group of people on this forum.

 

It's really fun to read (flight) stories like the ones above.

[GrySql]

This ^^^^^^

[acdii]

I think this particular 17 was part of the 8th when it was used for training. We think it was called Tangerine at that time. There were two names buried under the paint, Tangerine and Desert Rat. It would be ironic if it was one of the planes he may have trained in.

Edited January 22, 2015 by acdii

[TonyHzNV]

Dad told me he did his gunnery training at Kingman (AZ) Army Airfield. He left for Europe sometime in Feb or Mar of '45. He said his crew went to an Army Air Corps base he thinks in New Hampshire and picked up a brand new B-17G and they ferried it over via Greenland. They delivered the plane to Ipswitch, England then went on to their own assignment near a small English town called Kenninghall where they were given, in his words, a very well used B-17F that had been there for a while and they were told: "She's your baby now." I once asked him if his plane had a name on it, but he said that it didn't because the crew hadn't decided on a name by the time the war was over. Of course, you know, the war was over a few months after he got there, so he didn't see that much action, but he did see some and he DID get shot at. He has a story about how colorful the flack was as it was exploding within the formations of B-17s and how the new German jets would come screaming through the formations with guns blazing as well.

 

Could you imagine if we had to mobilize this country today like back then? We would be so screwed. Pretty much all the raw materials come from somewhere else nowadays, so many of the major companies that could produce airplanes at that pace are long gone, and I'm not sure sure you'd be able to get people to go work in the factories to build all that stuff anymore. You know, my Mom worked in a factory building aircraft fuel cells during the war and my Dad was building tires before he got drafted.

 

Did you know there were actually 3 different companies building B-17s per Boeing's drawings? Yup, there were Boeing, Vega and Douglas referred to as the BVD's just like the underwear! When Boeing needed to make room for B-29 production lines, they got out of the B-17 business and Vega and Douglas kept on building the 17's out in California. Boeing built 512 "E" models. The BVDs built 3400 "F" models and 8680 "G" models making it the largest production variant and it was also the last standard model of the B-17. Additionally, more "G" models were lost than any other single B-17 model.

 

Should we start a thread for "Fun Flight Stories"? :)

Edited January 22, 2015 by TonyHzNV

[TonyHzNV]

Think it's time to move this conversation to the Off Topic Lounge.....

[airbusguy]

Back on thread, while in the Scottsdale Ford dealer AutoNation, I was in the car with the Service Manager when the MFT started doing weird things, a good minute after the car was push buttoned off. It started to go into energy save mode -battery save- even though everything had been off. End result, they tested the 12volt - just as they stated they did less than 2 weeks ago and "found it good"- and replaced the 12volt under warranty They used a new part number that only popped up in the system about a month ago.

BXT99RT4

I guess that throws the theory of no 12volt problems in FFH out the window. It might even solve my tow problem. It looks like a lot of systems are adversely affected by low voltage and cause really unexpected results.

Still waiting for a tow fix from Ford - thanks to forum members we can do it ourselves - but that's not what I paid for when I purchased the car!

[garymkrieg]

AirbusGuy, I have a 2015 Fusion Energi and will be getting the baseplate installed in about a week. I was looking around trying to figure out how they will run the wire for the tail lights. My question is how did they run the wires to your tail lights? Did they go through the firewall or underneath the car and come up through the trunk or some other way entirely? I will be using magnetic lights on inside rear shelf near the rear window of the car. What I can not figure out is how to get the wire back to the lights that will be mounted inside the car.

Gary

[airbusguy]

Gary

I had the baseplates installed by Roadmaster at their factory. I was the guinea pig for a FFH with ACC - was a slightly different fit than a non ACC. I had them wire in a harness for the tailights. Unfortunately I don't know where they spliced or ran the wires or diodes. They work great though. You might get information from them or if you live in WA, they're in Vancouver WA and the rates are really reasonable.

[garymkrieg]

Thanks maybe I'll give them a call.

 

Gary