THE L-19 BIRD DOG - International Birddog Association

spent its first 10 years at Fort Rucker as a trainer, then worked its way through the Wisconsin Army National Guard and the CAP. Sold to the civilian market, it was wrecked towing sailplanes in '87. The last owner bought and rebuilt it. However, it wasn't restored. When that owner needed money to finish his G-model Bird Dog restoration, he sold it to me in 2005. I have a photo of every paint scheme it wore since it was new orange, glossy OD, blue-and-white CAP, and orange again. PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK FLEETWOOD, CONNOR MADISON, AND NICK MOORE "Like I said, it was rebuilt, not restored. It had no interior panels, an ugly light-blue Naugahyde front seat, rotted green canvas over the 1952 foam on the aft seat, two missing instruments, wiring that came and went nowhere, etc. I put a NOS [new old stock] interior in it; added instru- ments; removed extraneous wiring; updated the comm, transponder, and now ADS-B; and added a GPS. To bring it back to its military configura- tion, I installed an arming panel, replica rockets, old radio heads, usable first-aid kits, and cockpit lights. I redid the seats with Comfor Foam, relo- cated equipment, overhauled instruments and accessories, and added a smoke system and retractable skis. However, I'll never actually be done working on it." www.warbirds-eaa.org 49 BILL FINNEY EAA 243573, Warbirds 9632, Muncie, Indiana Bill had more than his share of time watching L-19s do their job in theater: He spent more than 700 hours in Vietnam, where he usually flew well above them in RU-21D Utes and military King Airs -- which, Bill said, "were equipped with direction-finding dipole antennas for locating the transmitters the enemy was using. The large ones on the wingtips were for VHF, which the Viet Cong used. The equipment was calibrated for use between 8,000 and 10,000 feet, so we were well above small-arms range. One of the guys I went through flight training with was in a Bird Dog outfit on the same base and took me on an actual Bird Dog mission while I was there. "I first saw my airplane when it was listed in Trade-A-Plane," Bill said. "It was in Redding, California. I had originally learned to fly in Aeronca Champs and then got some O-1 time while I was at Fort Rucker. In fact, this airplane was a trainer at Fort Rucker while I was there in 1970. I'm not sure if I flew it then or not, but I might have. It was processed out of the Army in 1970 and was owned by a sheriff's department for a while. I bought it from Dennis Mathews after he had it painted and learned to fly in it. "I was fortunate in that it had a 1-year-old paint job and was a good-flying airplane, so I didn't have to do any work on it. In fact, my first flight in it was from Redding, California, to Winnemucca, Nevada, and I had zero problems. However, as with any old airplane that has some history, I did add a few things and fixed a few. I installed an arming panel, reupholstered the seats, replaced the oil strainer with a spin-on oil filter, added mounts for two M1 carbines in the baggage compartment, and replaced lots of mis- cellaneous parts such as the tail wheel, flap motor, flap cable, etc. The usual stuff. "There are a lot of things I like about the air- plane. I like that it is all-metal, good power, and demands your full attention on landing. It's a really fun airplane to fly and has great visibility. Passengers are impressed with how well they see in every direction. "I'm sometimes asked if I'm going to go to a bigger warbird, but I've had the Bird Dog for over 32 years, so I don't see me going to anything else. Can't afford to anyway. When I bought it, I figured I would keep it for a few years and then move on to something else. You can see how that worked out." PILOT RESCU BALL FRONEY NES MARINES 22452 MARINESE 50 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 DANERT PIL От ASTROS BE Amee Photon BLAKE BOSLEY EAA 1257519, Warbirds 604849, Richmond, Texas Some folks wind up with Bird Dogs because they've been a part of their lives forever. Blake Bosley falls into that category. "My father started flying in his late 40s with his buddies, and the Bird Dog was his pride and joy," Blake said. "He took me up a few years later, and I was hooked. He owned a Cessna 170A, a Cessna 182, and the Bird Dog. Unfortunately, he passed away not long after that at 52, and I inherited the planes. [He told me] to get my license and fly them or to donate the Bird Dog to the Smithsonian if he passed away. His buddies who are aircraft mechanics took me under their wings and taught me as much as they could about aviation and maintenance. I owe a lot to them. "The only time my father and I ever flew together, shortly before he passed away, was in the Bird Dog on a flight to a pancake breakfast in Jasper, Texas. He was in the front seat, and I was in the back observer's seat. I have our names permanently displayed on the side of the fuselage with his name in the front and mine in the back. Pilot: Jimmy 'Chuck' Bosley. Co-pilot: Blake Bosley." Blake's Bird Dog is unusual because it is essentially a newly manufactured airplane. "It was built in 2001 from new old stock spare parts left over from the Vietnam and Korean wars. There were enough spare parts to build nine all-original 0-1 Birddogs. All parts are new or original surplus, including the arma- ment, rockets, and tubes - high-explosive and white phosphorus (Willie Pete) rockets - demilitarized, of course. Air Repair Inc. in Cleveland, Mississippi, built up our Bird Dog, and it was [the fourth] of the nine built. "What I like best about the airplane is that it is a beauti- ful taildragger that will keep you honest and humble at all times. It requires you to never get relaxed on landing because it is a ground loop waiting to happen. It also has 60 degrees of flaps, so it can get in and out of almost any back- country strip. It has a great military history, and I have had the privilege of showing it at a few Vietnam Bird Dog Squadron reunions and have met many men who flew them in combat. It is a great honor to hear their stories. We even have a Vietnam Bird Dog pilot who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously - Capt. Hilliard Wilbanks. "I plan to never sell my airplane. I hope to pass it down and keep it in the family." PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK FLEETWOOD AND CONNOR MADISON www.warbirds-eaa.org 51 DAVE HARNITCHEK EAA 324245, Warbirds 553333, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dave said he comes from a long line of aviators. "My father, Harry, was in the Army Air Forces shortly after World War II but wasn't a pilot. Both of his brothers were Air Force pilots. His younger brother was in the first class to graduate from the Air Force Academy, in 1959. His older brother was in B-29 school when World War II ended. He flew C-47s during the Korean War, mostly on night missions over enemy territory. My grandfather, John Sr., was a carpenter who enlisted during World War I and wound up on Kelly Field working on Curtiss Jennys. I still have a half-size prop he made in 1918 with a wind-up clock in the hub. He saw so many fatal crashes that he begged his boys not to be pilots. Only my father listened. I loved talking to my uncles about flying and made up my mind to be a pilot when I was a kid, but I couldn't afford lessons until after college. "At the time I got my L-19, I had a Stearman. I really like flying Stearmans - I have another one now - but living in the Northeast, there's just too many months when it's too cold. A friend of mine with an L-19 talked me into getting one. I enjoy flying airplanes with nice controls and, despite its utilitarian looks, the Bird Dog really does have a nice feel to it. It's a great plane for hamburger hops and, with 40 gallons of gas, it's not bad for travel. It's not fast - 115 mph for mine -- but both seats are very comfortable, and there's a decent amount of space for baggage. The view, of course, is spectacular. "I didn't actually go looking for a Bird Dog. This one found me. I was selling my Stearman, and the owner of N5167G offered to trade, so I accepted. I didn't fly it until the day it was delivered. The seller had a friend of his fly it up from Texas. He checked me out in the Bird Dog and flew back to Texas in the Stearman. "It's kind of funny but, after all these years, the old dog is finally doing what it was designed to do: reconnaissance. I'm a volunteer pilot for a conservation group, LightHawk. So far, I've made two flights with LightHawk passengers in the back so they could see and photograph areas they're work- ing in. It's exactly what the L-19/0-1 was designed to do, and it's still a great platform for it. "The airplane's history is absolutely astounding to me. More than what the planes went through is what the pilots went through. Imagine going to war in Korea and Vietnam with about the same performance and protec- tion of a Sopwith Camel! I hadn't realized how much combat these planes saw until after I had bought it. It was an honor for me to have veterans that flew the Bird Dog come up to me at Oshkosh and talk about the plane and their experiences. "I have been asked why I own a Bird Dog, and I often say it's because I can't afford a P-51. Well, that may be true; I can't afford a P-51. However, even if I could, I'd still keep my Bird Dog. I give it a pat on the nose every time I put it back in the doghouse and thank it for being a good dog - I really do." 52 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 == ARMY USARMY N3946K KEVIN MILLER EAA 435703, Warbirds 600139, Dallas Kevin's family history includes his father retiring as the most senior pilot in American Airlines. At the time he had a Culver Dart and a Bonanza. When Kevin lost him, a stepfa- ther became part of his life, and an L-19 did, too. "Sometime in the early '80s," Kevin said, "a bunch of Dad's friends in McKinney, Texas, brought in a trailer load of L-19s-10 or 12 at least - from overseas. Italy, I think. Regardless, the logs were in a language no one understood. They got them flying, but my stepdad wasn't into restoring. Just flying. So we flew it pretty much as it was. Then he had an engine failure and put the airplane down in a muddy field, where it slowly went over on its back. He hauled it out and got it flying again, with no paint. He was interested in utility, not looks. Then, in the early '90s, he parked it in a hangar, and it sat there for the next 25 years. He passed in 2015, and I pulled the airplane out of storage and started actually restoring it. "I got my pilot's license two weeks before I got my driv- er's license, and my dad took me to Oshkosh for the first time when I was 5 years old. So I love flying. However, with the L-19, its history somehow hooked me, and I became determined to make this one as original as possible, equip- ment-wise. This has paid off in awards every year I've had it at Oshkosh. I did update the engine to the later -15 0-470, which still delivered 213 hp but let me put a constant-speed prop on it. I mounted all the ordnance, antennas on wings and tail, original seat coverings, etc. Everything I could find that belonged on the airplane went on it. I took it to Oshkosh for the first time six years ago, and I do my best to show up at as many vet reunions as I can. I figure I owe them at least that." Bird-Dogging Its Way Into History In slang, "bird-dogging" can mean finding and supplying something to someone who wants it. In this case, it is sup- plying the pleasures associated with flying a well-tuned, well-designed airplane. The fact that keeping it in the air also keeps an important era of America's past alive just sweetens the experience. AMEX= WARBIRUO PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACK FLEETWOOD AND LAURIE GOOSSESNS www.warbirds-eaa.org 53 >FORM FIVE 54 VU.S. APMYT 2457 ARMY Cessna L-19/0-1 Bird Dog A quick virtual checkout with Bill Finney BY BILL FINNEY, AS TOLD TO HAL BRYAN Welcome back to Form Five, a column named for the Individual Flight Record document used by USAAF/USAF pilots to track flying time and experience. Form Five focuses on what it's like to fly some of yesterday's most magnificent military machines and features a new aircraft in each issue. Now strap in and listen up as retired Army pilot and longtime Bird Dog owner Bill Finney gives us an abbreviated virtual checkout in this classic warbird. FIRST THINGS FIRST To start with, my airplane is a trainer version that was at Fort Rucker at the same time I was, but I don't know if I flew it then or not. Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of tail numbers back then. Anyway, there are five notable differ- ences between the trainer version and a stock L-19. To start with, instead of being just a small knob, the throttle has a bigger handle with steps on it. It has two push-to-talk but- tons on the throttle handle - one to transmit, the other for the intercom. Next, there's a kill switch the instructor can use to shut off both magnetos, as well as a pedal that the instructor, sitting in the back seat, can use to slide the front seat forward, making it easier to bail out after the student has departed the airplane. Finally, the instructor's seat has an override switch to take control of the flaps from the stu- dent, as well as a full set of rudder pedals with brakes (nontrainer variants merely have fold-down pedals in the back that connect to the front pedals via cables). PREFLIGHT In the Army, the first thing you'd do is review Form 781 to see if whoever flew it last had noted any problems with the airplane. Next, you should check the mag switch to make sure it's turned off, and check the battery and generator to make sure they're turned off. Then put the fuel selector on the main tank and set the elevator trim where you would want it for takeoff. Make sure the fire extinguisher is installed and properly serviced and that the first-aid kit is in place. Then take off the control lock, which also sets the parking brake. There's no danger of taking off with the control lock on, because it attaches to the stick, and you can't get in the seat when it's in the brake and locked position. From there, go to the exterior inspection. First, check the nose for oil leaks, and make sure the windshield is clean. Drain a little bit of fuel from the fuel strainer and check it. Check the exhaust stack, the battery drain tube, and the right landing gear and tire. Then check the right wing's fuel quantity. There are direct-reading fuel gauges in the wing roots, so they're easy to check. And there are steps on the side of the fuselage and on the strut so you don't have to have a ladder to get up and check the fuel caps on the wing. Examine the wing for dents, cracks - anything that doesn't look right. Go out and SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM BUSHA AND AL SAUER check the nav light and make sure it's in good shape. Check the aileron and flap hinges. Then go down the right side of the fuselage, checking the skin for damage. There's a rotating beacon on the bottom of the fuselage, so you'll want to check that. Check the static pressure source and make sure it's unplugged. There's a lift handle right ahead of the stabilizer, so you'll need to make sure that it's retracted if you don't need to use it. Then check the tail, including the tail wheel and the nav light. Swing around to the left side and check the same things there. The pitot tube and landing light are on the left side, so give those a look. Check the auxiliary fuel pump drain port, open the cowling, and check the oil. From there, you can check the prop and go to the interior. BEFORE START Look over the instrument panel, check that the controls are free, and make sure the seat's adjusted the way you want it and that the seat belt is in good shape. Make sure the radios, nav lights, pitot heat, landing light, auxiliary fuel pump, and battery are all off. Check that the cir- cuit breakers are in, set the altimeter and clock, and adjust the cabin heat and defrost as desired. Test the nav lights by turning on the battery and cycling the light switches, and then restore all switches to the off position. AIR FORCE 0-16957 www.warbirds-eaa.org 55 56 >FORM FIVE STARTING THE ENGINE When you're getting ready to start the engine, check that the mixture lever is full rich and that the carburetor air lever is running filtered air. The battery switch should be off, with the throttle open about a quarter of an inch. The auxiliary fuel pump switch should be off. Turn the fuel pump on until you get fuel pressure, and then turn it back off in warm weather. If it's cold out, you'll want to give it some prime. Next, turn the generator switch on, check that the propeller is clear (I insist on calling "clear" and then waiting a few sec- onds to really be sure), put the ignition switch to both, apply the brakes, and press the starter button. If it doesn't start right away, hit the auxiliary fuel pump again and get the fuel pressure back up. In my experience, it will always start the second time if it didn't start the first. Once it starts, set the throttle to about 800 rpm and look at the oil pressure gauge - make sure it's coming up. It'll take it a few seconds to get up to operating pressure. You should give the engine a little time to warm up before you start moving. Turn on your radios and get them all ready to go, and then check to make sure that the gyros look like they're working. Before taxiing, make sure the fuel system is on. Look at the instruments, electrical system, and flaps; double-check to be sure that the chocks have been removed; and then check that the area is clear before you start to taxi. The visibility in a Bird Dog is fantastic; you don't have to worry about doing S-turns on the ground. You can see over the nose better than you can in just about any taildragger I've ever flown. U.S.ARMY 24512 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 N354 ARMY == PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM BUSHA BEFORE TAKEOFF On your way to the runway, check your brakes and get situated for the run-up. First, you're looking at oil pres- sure and temperature. Next, it's stick back and brakes on as you run the engine up to 1700 rpm. Check the load meter on the generator, then check the magnetos. Then set the carburetor to unfiltered (alternate) air. It's a pressure carburetor, so there's no carb heat, and you're simply checking to make sure the alternate air source is available as a backup in case the air filter is plugged. Because the unfiltered air is coming from within the engine compartment, you'll see a small rpm drop, which is normal. After the run-up, check the mixture, leaning it slightly to watch for an rpm drop; now you can set the flaps. Some people are surprised to learn that we exe- cute all takeoffs with 30 degrees of flaps, but that was the Army way. Now it's mixture rich, shoulder harness locked, flight controls free, and it's time to line up on the runway. FAGEN FIGHTERS WE RESTORE WARBIRDS. WE FLY WARBIRDS. WE SELL WARBIRD PARTS. MUSEUM. Home to over 15 flying warbirds, working ground vehicles, and so much more! RESTORATION. Currently restoring a SB2C Helldiver! Upcoming: Multiple P-40s and P-51s! PARTS. We house over a million NOS and used warbird parts and sell all over the world! GROUND EQUIPMENT. We fabricate ground equipment custom to your warbird and liking. GET CONNECTED. Of www.fagenfightersrestoration.com www.warbirds-eaa.org 57 >FORM FIVE USJARMY 112141 ARMY 58 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2022 =4= TAKEOFF If you're making a short-field takeoff, hold the brakes and run the throttle up to wide open. You also need to hold the stick back or it'll try to nose over. Check that you have at least 2100 rpm with a wide-open throttle. When you're ready to go, let off the brakes, keeping the stick all the way back. Once it starts moving, you just kind of let go of the stick and let it go wherever it wants to go. Our instructors always said that whenever the tail starts to come up, you need to catch it when it's 8 inches off the ground. They didn't want 6. They didn't want 10. They wanted 8. When they started telling us that, I thought, "Well, they're crazy. How can anybody do that every time?" But I'd watch the other airplanes taking off, and every one of them would come up 8 inches and stay there in the takeoff roll. And I fig- ured, "Well, I must be doing that because I'm not getting yelled at." Then you just keep your tail in that same position until it flies itself off the ground. CLIMB AND CRUISE On climb-out, you're trying to hold the airplane at 80 mph. The airplane is limited to five minutes of full throttle, so once you get it climbing and you're clear of obstacles, you'll want to pull the power back to 2300 rpm. It'll go to about 2600 or 2700 until you do that. When you level off, you should pull the power back to 2100 rpm, and that will give you a cruising speed of about 100 mph. I like to do every- thing in miles per hour because it's too depressing to put it in knots - you'll never see triple digits if you do it in knots. The handbook says it'll burn 7.1 gallons per hour, but I've always planned it at 8. It's a low-compression engine, so you can burn auto fuel if you want. The Bird Dog needs a lot of rudder. You don't fly it with your feet on the floor. It needs more rudder than most airplanes in order to keep it coordinated. Otherwise, it's a good, stable airplane, and you hardly have to touch it at all. Stalls give a good break, but it doesn't have a tendency to drop a wing. We did spins in Army flight school, even though the placard right above the battery (which, believe it or not, is right between the pilot's feet) says that all aerobatics are prohibited. You can fly with both front windows open at speeds up to 120 mph, and with the back windows open, you can fly at speeds up to 145 mph -- though I don't know how you'd ever get a Bird Dog up to 145 mph. However, when we were training in Alabama and landing on all kinds of grass strips, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM BUSHA AND JIM KOEPNICK we'd close the windows before landing. There were a lot of cows around those strips, and they'd leave their calling cards in the grass. Most of the air- planes had stains on the bottoms of the wings and on the horizontal stabilizer in line with the wheels. You definitely didn't want any of that "debris" coming into the cockpit. LANDING When you're ready to come into the pattern to land, come in just at the cruise speed about 100 mph. The Army wanted us to pull the power completely off as soon as we got even with the end of the runway. Hold the nose level until it slows down to about 80 mph. Put down 30 degrees of flaps. Turn your base leg and put down 45 degrees of flaps. Clear the engine if you need to. If the aircraft is a little high, you could just do a quick clear of your engine. And if you're too low, you could do a longer clear of the engine to set your- self up a little better. When you turn final, put the flaps all the way down to 60 degrees and proceed, while maintaining at least 70 mph. With 60 degrees of flaps, you don't want to start pulling your nose up until you're just about on the deck, because it'll slow down really abruptly. The Army insisted on three-points and didn't even teach us wheel landings. 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