A Notable Barrel Roll!
By Lorene (Foreman) Branson - BHS Class of
1949
From the September 2007 Senior Bulldogs
News
The article
by Robert 'Bob' E. Champieux in the June Senior Bulldogs News was so
interesting I read it to my husband Carl Branson (who is not a BHS graduate,
but worked as an aerodynamics Engineer at Lockheed in the 50's and is a private
pilot). Hearing the names Tony LeVier and Fish Salmon recalled this famous
story; I am sure many ex-Lockheed employees are acquainted with this, but for
those of you who are not, here is the famous story:
When
Lockheed (Burbank) moved their flight test facility to Palmdale, they purchased
a Beech Bonanza aircraft to ferry their pilots back and forth. One time when
Tony and Fish were returning from Palmdale in the Bonanza, they got a little
close behind a Lockheed Constellation that was landing. At 50 feet off the
runway the trailing vortex from the Connie flipped the Bonanza completely
upside down. Fish Salmon was flying the Bonanza and, being an aerobatic pilot,
he did not hesitate to roll the airplane in the direction the vortex had thrown
him, completing a perfect barrel roll just as the wheels touched the runway.
Tony LeVier
told this story himself and claims that if he had been flying they both would
be dead men. Only Fish Salmon, experienced as an aerobatic pilot, saved their
lives.
Needless to
say, it was the talk of Lockheed for MANY years.