BAD SNAKE Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 I know Carroll Shelby was / is a pilot. Does anybody know of his flying career? I see pictures of him wearing a hat with a B-24 on it, did he fly military? What ratings does have, how many hours, types of airplanes he has flown? Is he a member of AOPA, http://www.aopa.org/ If he is a member I'm sure it's a very low number. Just wondering if anybody has followed that part of his life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingram4868 Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 Didn't know that, perhaps others can fill us in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olblue1062 Posted December 29, 2008 Report Share Posted December 29, 2008 Several bios briefly describe his aeronautical leanings...His love of mechanics led Shelby to enlist in the Army Air Corps where he eagerly embraced the ultimate thrill-ride in flight school. It was during WWII that Shelby's spirit began to soar. He not only repaired aircraft engines but also took on the risky assignment of testing planes that had been grounded and, hopefully, repaired. While catapulting through the skies over Texas, Shelby showed his daring by dropping love notes stuffed inside boots from his plane onto the farmland owned by his fiancée's family. Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the sound barrier in powered flight, of was one of his instructors. B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAD SNAKE Posted December 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2008 Several bios briefly describe his aeronautical leanings...His love of mechanics led Shelby to enlist in the Army Air Corps where he eagerly embraced the ultimate thrill-ride in flight school. It was during WWII that Shelby's spirit began to soar. He not only repaired aircraft engines but also took on the risky assignment of testing planes that had been grounded and, hopefully, repaired. While catapulting through the skies over Texas, Shelby showed his daring by dropping love notes stuffed inside boots from his plane onto the farmland owned by his fiancée's family. Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the sound barrier in powered flight, of was one of his instructors. B) Thanks for the scoop olblue1062 Great information on CS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FastPhil Posted December 30, 2008 Report Share Posted December 30, 2008 Several bios briefly describe his aeronautical leanings...His love of mechanics led Shelby to enlist in the Army Air Corps where he eagerly embraced the ultimate thrill-ride in flight school. It was during WWII that Shelby's spirit began to soar. He not only repaired aircraft engines but also took on the risky assignment of testing planes that had been grounded and, hopefully, repaired. While catapulting through the skies over Texas, Shelby showed his daring by dropping love notes stuffed inside boots from his plane onto the farmland owned by his fiancée's family. Chuck Yeager, who was the first man to break the sound barrier in powered flight, of was one of his instructors. B) I bet I could be fast if I got lessons from Chuck not Just to round out his heritage, when in Terlingua, he told me that his GG Grandfather was Govenor of KY, thus Shelby County, and Shelbyville among many other things here are named in honor of his family.... Truly an amazing man with an impressive history to say the least. FP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olblue1062 Posted January 1, 2009 Report Share Posted January 1, 2009 Found this story related in a history of Carroll's ranch.... “ Shelby had ranch foreman Harold Wynn cut a landing strip to include a windsock so as to make a safe landing. So Shelby could fly a group into the ranch aboard his DC-3”. Aboard for the ride were the usual suspects including Tony Webner from Good Year and a Franciscan monk named Father Duffy. Bill Neale told me. “The first discovery of the weekend was made upon landing when we found that Harold Wynn who before this didn’t really know what a windsock was, had sure enough got a real Windsock and put it right in the middle of the runway on a piece of three inch oil pipe. When we came rolling down the runway one of the DC-3s wings hit that pipe which took out the deicer on the leading edge of the wing and sank into the wing about eighteen inches”. Neale went on to say.”When Shelby got off the plane he went over to Harold Wynn and put his hands on both of Harold’s Shoulders and told him how much he appreciated all the work Harold had done on the air strip and all but that he would like it if Harold would put the windsock off to the side of the runway”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingram4868 Posted January 1, 2009 Report Share Posted January 1, 2009 WOW a DC3. Another American classic. Probably as hard to find today as a Classic Shelby Mustang. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shel-b001 Posted January 1, 2009 Report Share Posted January 1, 2009 Great post he never ceases to amaze me, I knew he flew but never heard those stories. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAD SNAKE Posted January 2, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2009 WOW a DC3. Another American classic. Probably as hard to find today as a Classic Shelby Mustang. I dad was a pilot in Viet Nam and he told me one time he was flying into Cambodia and he saw probably 50 C-47's parked on the tarmac for sale for $50.00 a piece! They were missing parts but if you bought enough of them maybe you could get one flying. This one flies over my house every now and then and only on nice days, must be his Sunday flier. :D http://www.flickr.com/photos/65483667@N00/2471978258/ The C-47 / DC-3 is still around, they did build over 13,000 of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbroski_00 Posted January 10, 2009 Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 "Flying attracted him like a moth to a flame. He had been bitten by the flying bug at an early age and spent a good deal of his high school years out at the local airport near Leesburg, Texas, trying to cadre rides. You have to remember that Lindburgh had flown the Atlantic a few years earlier and was every American boy's hero at the time. After high school, Shelby thought he'd see the world through the military. He joined up with the Army-Air Force in 1941, before Pearl Habor, and almost didn't get accepted because he was a only 5'2" weighing barely a 100 lbs. He wanted to be a pilot but there was this requirement that you had to be a college graduate in order to fly. But Pearl Harbor (Dec 7, 1941) changed all that and, at some point during the war, the Military bent the rules and started a special school for pilots who didn't have college degrees. It's graduates were derived by some as the "Flying Sergeants"... many ditinguished themselves in combat. One of Shelby's instructors happened to be Chuck Yeager, an honored name among WWII flying heros. Shelby earned his 2nd Lieutenant's bars but his plans to see the world didn't work out. He spent the entire war in Texas at one base after another. It was a fairly uneventful war for Lt. Shelby (thank God for that...) if you didn't count the plane crashes, all of which occurred while teaching young airmen to fly a variety of planes. He was also a test pilot, testing planes that had been repaired to see if the repairs had been done fright." IT WAS WORLD WAR II "The bomber flew low, dangerously low, thought the co-pilot. But the pilot had something in mind. The pilot tripped open the bomb bay door , and stood up, lurched forward toward the rear, leaving it up to the co-pilot to take over the controls. The pilot dropped something out of bomb bay and the co-pilot saw what it was- an Army boot. The pilot came back and sat back down with a grin. The pilot said he needed something to weigh down his love letters. Outside, the co-pilot could see, on the lawn of the farmhouse below, a lady in a flowered dress was waving the boot and smiling. A few months later, it was night , and the bomber was the same, but there was a new crew. the same pilot was walking toward the back, same grim look on his face as he zipped up his sheepskin flight jacket. He jerked a thumb toward the smoke pouring out from under the instrument panel. We're headin' out the pilot said. He opened the bomb bay door. He pointed toward the first man in line with his chute rigged to the static line. You 1st Eddie the pilot said. The young airman gulped, then leaped into the darkness. One by one, they leaped into the dark black void. The plane flew on as the night air filled with with their parachutes. The last man to jump after everyone was safely out of the plane was the pilot Carroll Shelby... He grinned to his crew as his chute opened and said cool as a cucumber... Relax boys, we're only over Texas!!!" R/ J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BAD SNAKE Posted January 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2009 Any idea what type of bomber? B24 or B17? Thanks for the great story!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbroski_00 Posted January 11, 2009 Report Share Posted January 11, 2009 Any idea what type of bomber? B24 or B17?Thanks for the great story!! Not sure... R/ J Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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