Boy Scout Troop 175

Saturday's visitors at the Cold War Air Museum included a group of Scouts from Midland, Texas.

Scouting provides excellent leadership training for young men and we are glad to have such groups of visitors.

We hope the young men and their group leaders had a good time.

During their day in Dallas they visited the CAF and Cold War Air Museums before continuing to the National Scouting Museum located nearby, in Irving, Texas.

A Cold War Ace, Brig. Gen. Steve Ritchie

Recently, several of the directors of the Cold War Air Museum had the pleasure of attending a meeting with General Steve Ritchie. General Ritchie was one of only two American pilots to become an "Ace" during the Vietnam conflict.

The presentation included stories about his experience.

And his Wikipedia article is linked here.

An F4 Phantom, like this one, was flown by Ritchie when he destroyed five MiG-21's in air to air combat between May and July, 1972.

Director Jon Boede took this opportunity to thank General Ritchie for his service and invite him to the Cold War Air Museum

Although American pilots in conflicts from World War One through Vietnam earned the distinction of "Flying Ace", the changing nature of warfare has decreased the number of Pilot v Pilot conflicts and added weapons operators firing missiles to the combat mix.

Regardless of the nature of the combat, we wish to take this opportunity to thank and salute all of the brave men and women of the armed services who place themselves in harm's way to protect and defend our nation.

"Operation Baby Huey", delivering a UH-1 at the Cold War Air Museum

A new arrival joined the Cold War Air Museum as dawn broke today.

Most of the aircraft at the museum are owned or sponsored by individuals. Respecting their privacy and the privacy of ongoing negotiations for aircraft acquisition has given rise to some coded conversations. Such as, "do we know when the baby is due yet?". Accordingly, the acquisition of the UH-1, more widely known as the "Huey", inevitably gained the moniker above.

With so many projects ongoing, space was temporarily cleared beside Mi-2, Bord 213 for the delivery of the newest member of the Cold War Air Museum family.

As the morning progressed, help arrived from just down the road. In addition to being one of the leading aircraft recovery companies in the country, Air Salvage of Dallas is owned and staffed by guys that are genuinely knowledgeable and great to work with. As a source for aircraft parts and information, they can't be beat.

After a successful offloading, John, shown here with Museum President Bruce Stringfellow, heads back to Alabama. John not only worked with the acquisition team to make this happen, he drove through the night in order to meet the delivery schedule. One of the side benefits of working with the museum is meeting a continuous stream of interesting people.

After offloading, the Huey is bedded down for now beside one of our Mi-2s. Over the next few weeks, this acquisition will be carefully inspected and decisions will be made about how to proceed with the restoration.

A proud delivery crew poses beside the aircraft. Pete has extensively researched the history of this aircraft and we will have more posts in the future about the aircraft's history and its restoration.

One thing about this panel, we're not going to have any problem with space for radios. Even in its present condition, the cockpit is an opportunity for some of our associates to sit and reminisce.

Presented with a ceremonial role of 100mph tape, Johnny officially christens the project, "Can-do".

MiG-23 Tire Change

Following the taxi test of the MiG-23 at the Cold War Air Museum during Soviet Big-Iron Saturday, we began noticing that the port tire was losing pressure. We had anticipated replacing the tires that came with Bord 022 and fortunately, our replacement set was already on hand.

A particularly handy thing is to keep a spare tire already mounted on a spare rim to minimize the time needed to "rescue" an aircraft in case a tire should "blow", or go flat during operations. One of our "spares" was already mounted on a rim, simplifying this replacement process.

However, this did not eliminate the need to read the instructions. The MiG-23 wheel assembly consists of approximately 60 individual components, not including nuts and washers (so much for Soviet Simplicity, this time anyway). Here Jon is seen trying to figure out what does and, more importantly, does not need to be taken apart in order to replace the wheel.

The massive disk brake mechanism incorporates an anti-skid system and uses six big rotors and seven heavy-duty stators in each wheel.

The amount of heat that can be generated by the brakes poses a serious bursting issue with the tires. To prevent this, the designers at MiG incorporated two interesting features. The first is an electric fan. Mounted in the center of the axle, the fan activates when the "weight on wheels" switch signals that the aircraft is once again on the ground.

Shown with the axle fan is the nut that holds the wheel on. A keeper ring goes between the fan mounting bolts and the axle to keep the fan and the nut from turning as the tire turns. In the picture below, Jon is inspecting the electrical connection for the fan motor in the center axle.

The second feature is a solder plug that melts at 140°C, allowing pressure to escape before the tire can burst. On fast landings or after any extensive brake use, MiG-23 pilots may alert their ground crews so the wheels can be doused with water so the plug doesn't melt.

Sliding the tire on over the six rows of rotors is a little like working a combination lock, but with a little light on the subject and some patience, Jon and Sean were able to get the tire on fairly easily.

All that remains is re-mounting the mud guard, applying safety wire and cotter pins to various keepers, and... of course... next, the replacment of the starboard tire.