Word: pilot
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Between pilots and their airplanes are secrets that no groundling can ever know. Each airplane has special tricks and foibles, and the pilot who fails to seek them out and test them will one day discover them in time of peril, and perhaps too late. Each pilot, for his part, learns that the well-designed airplane is more forgiving of his own tricks, foibles and lapses of good sense than he has a right to dream. Last week a great airplane's tricks met piloting foibles in a combination that was a heroic test of both sides, almost with...
...airplane was a brand-new model of the four-jet Boeing 707, the first 707 destined for Braniff International Airways. Its special trick, as Boeing Test Pilot Russel H. Baum, 32, was trying to demonstrate to veteran Braniff Pilot Jack Berke, 49, was its eccentric reaction to an excessive sidewise skid, or yaw. Skid her too far one way or the other, he explained, and she will flip over.*At 12,000 feet over Seattle's suburbs, Pilot Berke, flying slowly with flaps down 40 degrees, tried to get the feel of impending trouble by kicking right rudder...
...Quickly Pilot Baum took over, told Berke to help him roll the giant plane back to the left. The 707 came up straight and level, then rolled beyond to the left. With only the right inboard engine remaining, Pilot Baum thought fast, decided that he lacked the power to roll the plane back to the right, so, taking advantage of the momentum, turned the airliner into a maneuver for which it was never intended-a barrel roll. Under Baum's practiced hand, the huge 707 went through its full roll till finally it was right side up again, flying...
...fuel exploded. He could not raise his flaps or lower his wheels, for the loss of three power plants had disrupted the hydraulic and electrical systems. As Baum headed for a pasture. Flight Engineer George Hagen worked to get the flaps and landing gear back in operation. Boeing Pilot William Allsop, two Braniff men and a representative from the Federal Aviation Agency headed aft to take seats near the rear of the plane; another
Braniff man, Pilot Frank Staley, grabbed a seat near the front. Baum made a couple of descending spirals, wove between hills near the town of Oso. He was only 200 yds. from the pasture. But the 707. torn and tossed far beyond the limits of its carefully engineered endurance, gave up. The fiery wing exploded, and the plane splashed into the Stillaguamish River. The forward section disintegrated on impact, killing Baum, Berke, Engineer Hagen and Frank Staley, The tail section hit a sandbar, and the four men inside crawled to safety...