Sometime in June of '86, Sentimental Journey is sitting on the parking stand at Salem Municipal Airport. We're in week two of our annual barnstorming trip around the country. A couple of TV crews from Portland stations are there, and we're going to give them rides to Hillsboro. A bit of a tight schedule as they need to get their stories up for their five o'clock newscasts.
The pilot is cranking her up while I stand with the fire bottle out front. No. 1 starts fine and settles into an idle. No. 2 cranks and starts; it is looking good. Of course there is lots of the customary blue oil smoke that you get from round engines when you first start them. The media folks have no clue that it's normal of course, so they are a bit wide-eyed about it.
Co-pilot starts to crank No. 3. Nothing, not a pop out of it. Try again, still nothing. "No fuel pressure", yells the co-pilot through his open window. "The boost pump isn't working." The pilot shuts down number one and two on the left side and I put down the fire bottle and head for my tool box in radio room of SJ.
A couple of minutes later, screwdriver in hand, I have the Zeus fasteners loose and the fairing over the bottom of the boost pump drops away on its hinge. I tell the co-pilot to hit the boost pump switch. Nothing, no sound at all, and the end of the pump motor shaft isn’t turning. No wonder No. 2 won't start. A Wright Cyclone R-1820 needs fuel boost pressure to start; it’s just not going to happen without it.
I grab a 3/8ths inch nut driver and slip it over the nut on the end of the boost pump motor shaft. I give it a turn, or try to anyway, and it doesn't budge. The motor shaft is locked up tight. Not a good thing to find this late in the day. Replacing the boost pump would put us a day behind on the tour, and we'd look kind of silly to the media folks. We need them to do their stories so the public will turn out at the three barnstorming stops we're making in the Portland area over the next few days. Got to pay the bills.
Using the nut driver, I try to rock the motor shaft back and forth, but it’s jammed tight. I have the co-pilot hit the switch a couple of times. No joy. Back to the nut driver and rocking the shaft. Co-pilot hits the switch again. Nada. Damn, not looking good.
I recall some persuasive language that I learned in the Marines, thinking it might come in handy. Just as I start to tell the boost pump what I think of its dubious parentage, its lack of divine qualities, and my general overall displeasure with its lack of cooperation, I see movement to my right. A TV camera is pushing over my shoulder, literally next to my ear. Some very foul language instantly turns into, “Golly gee, this darn thing just won’t turn.” The change was so quick that I nearly sprained my tongue.
About that time the pump shaft started to turn. A crunching sound and a corresponding vibration in the nut driver handle told me that there had been a blockage in the pump impeller. Whatever it was had broken up and the pump began to turn freely.
Tools put away and fire bottle in hand again, we went through the start-up procedure again and got all four mills turning. The media was loaded aboard Sentimental Journey, all of them jockeying for the best seats in the nose or at the side gun positions. I climbed in, secured the hatch and found a place to sit.
Off we went into the wild blue yonder.
