Contents:
The DC-3 Aviation Museum
Presents:
"Douglas meets Datsun"
By: Jaime Carreon
jetmex@mindless.com
Hello,
You've published one of my stories earlier about my favorite Gooney, N102BL,
and I have another story about another incident with that airplane.
I was working for a small airfreight company called Pronto Aviation services,
which was based at the airport in Sunland Park, NM.
We had at that time three Beech 18's and
the DC-3, which was N102BL.
It was a really good situation, as we were the only airplanes on the field,
which had been built much earlier to allow the rich and famous to fly in
to attend the horse races at a neighboring track.
I had just purchased my first new vehicle, a 1980 Datsun pickup
and had been using it to make field trips in support of the Gooney and the Beeches.
The company owner, Jerry Burnett, had graciously offered to buy a camper shell for my truck,
mainly to keep all the tools and equipment I had been hauling out of the weather.
The order had finally been filled and the new camper had been installed on my truck that morning.
I then drove out to the airport to show off the new toy!
I parked in my ususal spot just outside our office, and next to the Gooney,
just under her left wing. A word of explanation is needed here.
The airport at Sunland park sits at the end of the mountain pass
that gives the city of El Paso, Texas, her name.
It was not unusual for random wind gusts to come howling down the valley
without warning, sometimes exceeding 40-50 kts for very brief periods of time.
It usually was just a freak thing, causing a lot of dust devils, but no damage.
Until this day.
I had just gone into the office when one of these gusts decided to show up.
I could see the dust coming down the valley, but didn't think much of it.
After all, they happened all the time, right?
The gust struck old 102 squarely broadside, must have been about 50 mph
because it blew all of our maintenance stands and
anything that was loose on the ramp all over the airport.
There was a loud groaning noise, followed by a sharp
"ping"
as the tailwheel lock pin sheared.
The tailwheel rotated 90 degrees, then 102 jumped her chocks and started swinging.
She would have ended up in our office, except for the fact my truck was parked there.
The left horizontal stabilizer hit the truck dead center in my brand new camper shell,
and buried itself all the way into the trim tab! Talk about noise!!
There was a dead silence after that, and then our secretary,
Mary, said, "My God, look at your truck!!"
My little black truck was tilted off to one side, with a Gooney bird sticking out of it!
It suddenly became all too funny and I started laughing.
Jerry stared at me for a while, then realizing there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it,
started laughing as well.
Soon, we were both doubled up on the couch in the office with tears running down our cheeks.
It really was a strange sight.
Poor Mary must have thought we'd finally gone off the deep end!
We eventually separated the two machines, laughing all the while.
The brand new camper shell was totalled, it had a huge stabilzer shaped gash through it's entire length.
My truck, miraculously, was undamaged except for a slight crease
in the back of the cab where the leading edge of the stabilizer had stopped.
I never had it fixed and it became a sort of badge of honor for all of us in the company.
The Gooney lost the stabilizer tip, and we had to replace the left elevator,
since it was too mangled to repair.
The new elevator was white, as opposed to the original aluminum dope,
and she flew the rest of her life with a white elevator with a little truck silhouette painted on it.
It was always easy to spot her after that, with the one white and one silver elevator!!
The best reaction was from the sales lady at the place where I had purchased the camper.
As I drove onto the lot she exclaimed
"What did you DO to MY camper!!??"
I had a hard time keeping a straight face while explaining
that I had been hit by a forty year old airplane.
The insurance company didn't believe me either,
they rejected my claim by saying the accident had taken place "off road".
I bet they're still scratching their heads over that one!
I've lost track of a lot of the people I worked with then.
I'll bet Jerry has one stashed away somewhere,
I hope he still gets a good grin out of it once in a while.
I have a lot of good memeories of working for Pronto.
Don Williams
from Aero Tech in Wichita Falls, TX,
if you're still out there I'd love to hear from you!
Thanks again for your time, and for letting me reminisce about my favorite airplane.
Jaime Carreon "Jetmex
Contents:
Home Page
Feedback