Paul Mantz operated a single TBM in the late 1940s and through most of the 1950s. He had it modified and used it for early efforts at rainmaking and, later, converted it as one of the first large air tankers. Mantz was directly involved in the early experiments of air attack on fires.
The TBM type were Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers built by the Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors at Ewing, New Jersey. Eastern built 550 TBM-1Cs through the summer of 1944, with another 4,000 improved TBM-3s built afterwards.
TBM-1C BuNo 46122 was delivered to the Navy by Eastern on May 4, 1944, towards the end of TBM-1C production. It was subsequently assigned to four domestic Navy torpedo squadrons, VT-85, VT-10, VT-95, and VT-151, between its delivery and March 1945. After March 1945, it was reconditioned at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, and then assigned to an aircraft pool at Norfolk. In August 1945, it was assigned to the Marine-Air Infantry Training School at MCAS Quantico, Virginia, remaining there until January 1946. It was then sent into storage at NAS Clinton, Oklahoma, where it was stricken from the Navy inventory on April 30, 1946.
By early 1946, NAS Clinton held thousands of surplus aircraft, mostly Navy. The stored aircraft at Clinton were turned over to the RFC for disposal in early-1946, and BuNo 46122 was one of the 1,039 TBF/TBMs and 8,839 total aircraft stored there. These aircraft were made available for individual sales up through June 18, 1946, when this field and four other RFC fields were placed up for auction as scrap sales. The Sherman Machine and Iron Works was awarded the bid that transferred the aircraft at Clinton for scrapping.
There is, however, a bit of a mystery of how BuNo 46122 made it out of Clinton intact. Most likely in the period between April 30 and June 18, 1946, BuNo 46122 was sold to one William R. Stout of Teterboro, New Jersey, and the civil CAA registration of N9394H was reserved. However, there are no sales records or registration information held in the FAA aircraft file for this transaction.
Paul Mantz, however, came along on June 5, 1947, and purchased N9394H from William Stout, evidently still at Teterboro. Shortly after his purchase, the TBM was used for the filming of 1948’s On An Island With You, a Hollywood musical with location filming on Anna Marie Island near Sarasota, Florida during the summer of 1947. The first request for an airworthiness certificate was made on June 5, 1947. It was issued an experimental certificate, thus NX9394H, with the specified use being “Exhibition and Movie Work.”
The TBM appears in the film in what most likely was its last Navy colors, with the addition of red stripes to the Navy insignia as per the post-1947 aircraft markings. An abbreviated “9394” is seen on its vertical stabilizer also.
Mantz flew the aircraft to the location site and was based at the Sarasota airport for much of the filming. There is an account here that talks about the filming and Paul Mantz (though the dates cited contradict the documented filming dates).
Though the plane was being operated by Mantz, he had neglected to actually register it with the CAA. The CAA inquired about the TBM in January 1948, and he subsequently submitted the bill of sale and registration application to the CAA, citing “inexperienced office help” to explain the oversight. In any event, the CAA then advised that the TBM could not be registered until a chain of custody from the manufacturer to Mantz was documented, as the CAA had no records of the aircraft. The next two months saw a chain of communications between the Mantz’s people, the WAA, and the CAA. In the end, no chain of custody could be established but the CAA was satisfied enough and issued the registration in the name of Paul Mantz Air Services at Burbank on March 31, 1948. The engine type was documented to be a Wright R-2600-8.
The name Weath-Air, Inc. was painted on TBM N9394H in 1948. Weath-Air was Mantz dabbling in making rain. Both this TBM and his B-25H, N1203, were modified to carry the various tanks and equipment for cloud seeding. Note: the state of California has no record of a corporation of that name. It is possible the company was established in another state which seems unlikely but can’t be ruled out. Or, Weath-Air was another “doing business as” company for United Air Services, and the “Inc.” was added to the name as a nice touch.)
A May 13, 1948, article in the Daily Iowan (Iowa City, Iowa) interviews pilot Tommy Mayson, one of the Paul Mantz Air Service pilots. He relates that with two partners, Mantz formed Weath-Air to test a new rainmaking idea developed in conjunction with experimental data from the General Electric laboratories. He notes that Mantz had modified the TBM, the B-25, and an A-20 (as yet unidentified but probably A-20J 43-21709 N67932) for the rainmaking mission.
On July 9, 1948, Paul Mantz advised the CAA via letter that the “this airplane (the TBM) will also be used for the seeding of clouds with dry ice or silver iodide to induce artificial precipitation.” The extent that the TBM was operated as such is unknown at this time, though it is known that B-25H N1203 was assigned to several cloud-seeding missions in both Arizona and across the southern border in Mexico between late June through October 1948. Both Mantz and Mantz chief pilot Stan Reaver flew those missions. Whether or not the A-20 was also flown has not been determined. In the end, it appears that the rainmaking activity was not particularly successful and there is nothing in the record to show further flights by Weath-Air after 1948.
The next identified project for which Mantz employed N9394H was the 1951 filming of Thunder of the East, which IMDB describes as “…in a remote region of post-independence India, the love of a blind British woman pricks the conscience of an arms dealer.”
The TBM appears in at least one sequence and for the film, painted in a light gray (or possibly aluminum?) color with only the abbreviated tail number of “9394” as a marking. See also the imdbp.org entry for this film.
As of June 6, 1952, aircraft records indicated a total airframe and engine time 410 hours. By September 3, 1955, that had increased to 473 flight hours, an increase of 63 hours over the span of just over three years. By March 6, 1957, this had increased again to a total of 601 flight hours. Five months later, in August 1957, the airplane had a total of 639 airframe hours, so the airplane was being flown.
Part of that flight time was spent supporting Operation Firestop, a 1954 USFS-California (multi-agency) study to determine if new tools could be effective in annual fight against forest fires in the state. Aircraft had been used earlier in fire-fighting efforts, going back to the 1930s with both military and civil aircraft. Operation Firestop, though, was an effort to accurately study how air attack (and other tools) could be used in fire-fighting. Both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft were used, and Paul Mantz was given a contract to accurately test the use of pattern of water dropped from varying altitudes and speeds. Using TBM N9394H, the bomb bay was modified with a design by Otto Timm. The doors were removed and a temporary wooden container was built into the bomb bay. The container was made water tight by using two 750 kg weather balloons. The doors of the containers were secured using four bomb rack shackles on each door. The shackle release mechanism was controlled by switches in the cockpit. Eight drop tests using the system were conducted at Orange County Airport.
Teenager Jerry Farquhar, a friend of Paul Mantz’s son, was on hand to witness those tests, and he provides these details about one episode during the testing.
“Mantz had contract from Cal Forestry to test idea of water bombing fires. His TBM was fitted with plywood panels in torpedo bay to give a smooth surface for inserting weather balloons. Everybody expected water to rapidly turn into a mist, so it was assumed a low-level drop was needed. It took hours to load water from a garden hose. High-speed cameras were set up on grass between runway and parallel taxiway (at Orange County Airport) and a limed circle was laid as aiming point. Mantz made multiple passes as cameras were adjusted for the live drop. This attracted the attention of an airport deputy, who decided to go investigate. The deputy made a turn onto cross taxiway near the camera crew as Mantz made the drop from an altitude of 40 ft. Water from the burst balloon did NOT turn into a mist. It came down as a solid blob, which hit the side of deputy’s pickup. Water entered an open door window and washed the deputy out, blasted the driver’s door, bent the truck bed, bent all 4 wheels, and basically destroyed the truck!! Mantz had that film converted to 16mm to add to his collection of great ‘outtakes.’ He used the lower saloon on (his yacht) the “Pez Espada” that had a bar on the starboard side with a projector to show small reels of ‘outtakes.’ The deputy who was soaking wet was a young and rather ‘officious’ type, and Mantz swore he did not see his truck drive in front of his plane when he dropped the water bomb!! And he never admitted otherwise!”
Noted aviation historian and photographer William T. Larkins states authoritatively that two drops on an actual fire were conducted on September 1, 1954, using the Mantz TBM. The fire was in the Cleveland National Forest near Lake Elsinore in southern California and later dubbed as the “Jamison fire” by the fire fighters. Interestingly, newspaper accounts of that fire do not make mention of any water drops by aircraft, something that should have been notable at the time.
Also, a contemporary newspaper report on August 29, 1954, states that Mantz was scheduled to make an Operation Firestop demonstration water drop the day prior (August 28) at Camp Pendleton, a large Marine Corps station not far from the Cleveland National Forest fire. This demonstration was for various agency fire officials but Mantz was unable to make the demonstration due to technical problems in solving “the problem of how to get the huge weather balloons containing the water into the specially-constructed compartments in the torpedo bay of the plane.” Other reports state that he later did successfully demonstrate water drops at Camp Pendleton, which must have been during the same week as the Jamison fire.
Nonetheless, while there is some question about Mantz or one of his pilots making water drops on the Jamison fire on September 1, usually-accurate Bill Larkins states it as a fact and those water drops are considered to be the first use of what has now been called the modern air tanker on an active fire.
Mantz otherwise put N9394H to use as needed. There is at least one example of it being used as a camera platform, that being the 1956 Cinerama feature Seven Wonders of the World. Mantz primarily used his B-25H, N1203, for the filming but at least on one occasion the bulky three camera Cinerama contraption was mounted on the TBM for some air-to-air filming of the B-25 itself, as can be seen below.
On August 10, 1956, an administrative change was made for the aircraft ownership. It was essentially changed from “Paul Mantz Air Service” to “Paul Mantz Air Services, A Corp.” though there is no indication in California state records that it was actually incorporated in California. It is presumed that the company was being operated as United Aircraft Services doing business as Paul Mantz Air Service. We await more information.
In 1957, TBM N9394H was used for a film sequence in the September 1957 release of Tip on a Dead Jockey, which IMDB describes as “During the 1950s in Madrid, an American veteran pilot with a gambling problem is forced to accept a high-paying, dangerous smuggling job.”
For the role, the TBM had French markings added and the civil registration number was shortened to a tail serial of “9394.”
The film also featured Twin Beech N80356 and Mantz BT-13 N53317, which was used for a dramatic crash scene. Filming details and who flew the TBM have yet to be determined.
In August 1957, after its use in Tip on a Dead Jockey, the airplane was formally modified as an air tanker. A 515-gallon three-door metal tank for water or borate was installed. To accomplish this, the bomb bay doors were removed and the tank was faired in on the forward end. The specified use for the aircraft moving forward was for motion pictures, aerial photography, and water and borate drops on forest fires.
Presumably, N9394H joined expanding ranks of air tankers for the balance of the 1957 fire season, and was assigned as an active air tanker for 1958. Sadly, it crashed and was destroyed on August 19, 1958, while fighting a fire near Springvale, California.
Based at the Porterville Airport and flown by Mantz pilot Joseph Anthony, several drops had earlier been made that day on the forest fire. It was one of four air tankers based at Porterville fighting the fire. On the third drop at about 4:30 pm, the TBM reportedly crashed into a hill about six miles above Springfield in the Sequoia National Forest. After hitting the hill, the plane disintegrated, killing the pilot. A media report states that Mantz himself later flew over the crash site to get some idea of what had happened. It was reported to be the first death of an air tanker pilot while actively fighting a fire.
Despite the loss, Paul Mantz continued to develop his air tanker fleet, modifying several B-25s for that use. Two of his B-25 air tankers were used to assist fighting a massive forest fire in Venezuela in 1960.
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