To: bigdog 1971
But hey my hat goes off to that hard B@rstard who deliberately ditched all those Sik horseys into the ocean........
Several years later that same pilot was promoted to Captain and was the Skipper of the Coast Guard Air Station in San Diego. The US Navy had commissioned several PBM-5As and they turned them over to the Coast Guard to test them to destruction. The Captain would walk through the hangar and pick out a crew from the available personnel.
He would then take the PBMs to the roughest water and make all types of open seas landings including stalling the aircraft out and coming straight down. He accomplished what the Navy wanted and destroyed both aircraft. After his demonstration the Navy scuttled plans to build more PBM-5As.
Needless to say the crew was not too thrilled to be picked out for the tests.
