Posted by John Albers
on 10/3/2006, 5:24:26, in reply to "WC-121N buno 143198"
I was with the squadron 1-63 to 1-65, during the hurricane season in which an aircraft was damaged by Cleo and replaced by a "connie" out of the boneyard in AZ. The damaged craft was stripped of engines, parts, and towed to the end of the runway. Guess it is still there? We did an inspection of the new craft and found a written comments and signatures on the inside plastic flaps and covers of the radio and radar gear. A few of the radio operators knew & had gone to school with the folks.
I do not recall any hull name "Dora." Practice at the time was not to name the aircraft, but reference identification was made to the last digit of the bureau number, aircraft one through eight. The new "connie's" number was out of order. The name "Dora" could have been added for that reason.
I also recall, it was the skipper's "connie" which was damaged. It also had some type of side looking or dopler radar located in front of the upper radar dome, which was only suppose to be on one particular connie, attached to a research facility up on the east coast. Saw reference to it on another website. That ended the research experiments in VW-4. Wonder what became of the LT in charge of the project?
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