The following two incidents occurred on the same flight.
We were going to perform a 120-hour check and had to move our aircraft into the Navy hangar. In order to get the nose wheel cranked sufficiently to move into the hangar we disconnected the nose wheel scissors. Among other things we changed the plugs, set the mag clearance, set the valve clearance and changed the oil on each engine. After completion of the check we pulled the aircraft out on the apron and got it ready for flight. Since I was flying on the check flight I requested one of the other mechanics to reinstall the bolt on the nose wheel scissors. I assumed that he in fact did this. That was my first mistake in trusting that he would do the requested task.
We started the engines and when all the temps were up and the oil pressure stabilized we started to taxi out. When we were going down the taxiway the aircraft started to shudder. We were flying with a short crew (one pilot, one flight engineer and one radioman I had to put out the ladder and get under the nose wheel doors. I found the bolt, the nut and the cotter pin where I had left them. I got a wrench and proceeded to install the bolt. At that time, the pilot wanted to do a mag check. At 2300 RPM the nose started to dip down and commenced to bounce up and down. I got so shook up that I did something in my pants, which made the flight a bit messy for me. No, I did not do number 1 or number 2. If there was a number 3 then I did that.
Once the bolt was installed we continued our test flight.
Everything was going along fine. We started the flight very late in the afternoon and by this time it was dark. I was sitting at the panel looking out of each window checking the color of the exhaust headers. If all was well they were cherry red. That way you could monitor for a cold cylinder and at the same time monitor the cylinder head temps as indicated on the gage. I cross-checked the instruments against the color of the exhaust headers and I noticed that the color of the left engine headers was getting darker. Soon, I could see the right engine headers but not the left engine. I opened the left window and got sprayed with hot engine oil. We had sprung a leak. I checked the oil tank levels. The right engine had 40 gallons of oil and the left engine had less than twenty gallons. I told the pilot and he headed back to Corpus Christi. Several miles out we declared and emergency and shut down the left engine and feathered the prop. If we had run out of oil we would not be able to feather the prop and the windmilling engine would have destroyed itself.
When we got back on the ground we ran a check stand under the oil soaked engine and peered into the cowling. The nose gearbox sump plug had not been lockwired and it fell out. This job was supposed to be done by a striker. This is a non-rated mechanic that works under the supervision of a senior mechanic a mechanic senior to me. This senior mechanic was the same guy that forgot to install the scissors bolt.
To: Nopax
I'm sorry for the loss of your friend and I did not read the book.