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Aviation History

Leaking, Not Leaping

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There are a couple of errors in your November 2000 story on the photographic B-24 Peeping Tom (see “People and Planes”). While in St. Joseph, Mo., the B-24 was not called Leaping Lucy as you stated, but Leaking Lucy, because she leaked oil like a sieve. No doubt the first of the three engine changes you mentioned occurred before she started her new career.

And also since St. Joe was an Air Transport Command OTU, she was not used in training bomber units there, but instead was utilized in long-range navigation training flights. Her nose art was a Pony Express rider mounted on a galloping horse with an ADF loop on its head and a sextant flying back. (St. Joe was the home of the Pony Express.) My late husband was a check pilot there, and while I never saw Lucy myself, I heard the guys talking about her–you know how men gossip about a troublesome gal!

Anna F. Pennington
Wilmington, N.C.

Lockheed P2V

Lockheed test pilot Jay Beasley was aware that he was not in jeopardy when he demonstrated the ability of the P2V-6 to make turns into a dead engine (see “P2V Neptune: Forgotten Warbird” in the November issue). Here’s how I can be sure of that. Sometime during the late 1940s, the Lockheed P2V structural test airplane was at the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Md., for its official structural limits demonstration prior to its release for Navy tests. Stan Beltz, a Lockheed engineering test pilot, was expounding on the P2V’s flying qualities and capabilities to some of the Navy pilots. He claimed that the P2V could do any maneuver the Grumman F7F twin-engine fighter could do. One of the Navy pilots questioned its ability to slow-roll into a dead engine–a no-no even for a fighter airplane.

Beltz picked up the challenge and invited the Navy pilots and everyone else in the vicinity to “just watch.” He had all the loose equipment in the P2V removed or secured. Then, with a minimum crew, he made an unscheduled and unauthorized flight. As he made a shallow dive to no more than 100 feet above the Patuxent River in full view of a crowd of observers, we all saw that he had one engine shut down. True to his word, he slow-rolled into the dead engine. He did it twice, once left and once right. Upon his return to the flight line, the Navy pilots were incredulous. They agreed that the P2V had unexpected flying capabilities but didn’t think much of the exposure to risk.

By that time the word had spread all over the base. The commanding officer let it be known that he had missed seeing the maneuver. Consequently, Beltz repeated the demonstration, this time right over the field. I saw both demonstrations.

In 1953, when I joined Lockheed as a flight test engineer, I met Stan Beltz and flew with him on many Constellation test flights. I also learned that Lockheed management did not appreciate the extent to which Beltz went to demonstrate the P2V’s flying capabilities.

Martin A. Snyder
Dublin, Calif.

‘Soapy’ Lord Quest

I have enjoyed my subscription to Aviation History, especially the articles profiling notable aviators. One whom I’ve not seen profiled and often wondered about is Major Frederic Ivery “Soapy” Lord.

As a lad, I used to read some of the articles in a pulp periodical of the ’30s and early ’40s called Flying Aces in which Lord related some of his adventures and opinions. In my very young eyes, he cut quite a figure, telling of fighting with the Royal Flying Corps during World War I. If the printed word is to be believed, he shot down 23 enemy planes, was shot down twice himself and wounded. In 1919, he joined up with the White Russians fighting the Bolsheviks, was shot down again and evaded capture, making it back to his own lines. The major next surfaced in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War flying for the Loyalists.

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