Army Air Forces Floyd J. Good, B-25 Pilot Training at Columbia Army Air Base: Flight Records and Base Photographs with Cockpit Checklist, 66 Item Archive, 1943 to 1945

U S. Army Air Force

Archive

Army Air Forces B-25 pilot training at Columbia Army Air Base documented in the records of 2nd Lt. Floyd J. Good: flight records, a B-25 questionnaire, training papers, base photographs, and an associated TB-25 cockpit checklist marked “Horg, L. M. / 45-B / C-1.” Good served in the 376th Squadron, 309th Bombardment Group, and his records track day and night flying, first pilot time, instructor time, combat crew entries, and related duty. One later flight sheet notes that Good was “killed in accidental explosion July 1944.” The Horg checklist, dated January 26, 1945, contains working cockpit procedures for takeoff, single-engine drills, supercharger use, landing, and shutdown.

1943 to 1945, chiefly Columbia Army Air Base, Columbia, South Carolina. Mixed archive of 66 items, including 17 Individual Flight Record sheets, 29 black-and-white photographs, Good’s Pilot’s Information File and related training, status, medical, and administrative papers, a multi-page “B-25 Questionnaire” with handwritten answers, and one folding “TB-25 CHECK LIST” with printed procedures and pencil notes. Good’s flight records and training papers date from 1943 to 1944. Seventeen Individual Flight Record sheets and related forms record his progress through B-25 training, including aircraft type, flight hours, instructor time, medical classification, and duty status. The B-25 questionnaire contains handwritten answers concerning hydraulic pressure, emergency brakes, landing gear, flaps, bomb bay doors, and cockpit procedure.

Columbia Army Air Base photographs, circa 1943 to 1944. Twenty-nine photographs include classroom instruction before a chalked airfield diagram, formation drill, a band and flag ceremony, barracks leisure, barbering, reading room interiors, B-25 activity on the field, and aircrew posed in flight gear before aircraft. Several versos carry crop measurements or layout marks.

The presence of a wartime B-25 flight checklist dated January 26, 1945, records this period in which B-25s remained in active combat service. Horg, L. M. “TB-25 CHECK LIST.” Folding cockpit checklist marked “HORG” and “Horg, L. M. / 45-B / C-1,” with sections for pre-inspection, starting engines, taxi, single-engine stopping and starting drills, before takeoff, climb, landing, and stopping procedure. Pencil reminders include “BOOSTERS ON / WHEELS DOWN,” “LEARN,” and “150 FLAPS.” The checklist remained in use during the final wartime training cycle, when Army Air Forces pilots were still being prepared for medium-bomber operations for seven months before Japan’s surrender. Its dated procedures add a wartime cockpit component to Good’s stateside B-25 training material, including instructions for an aircraft then used in Allied tactical bombing, anti-shipping, and ground-support missions.

Columbia Army Air Base trained medium-bomber pilots for B-25 operations that included tactical bombing, anti-shipping strikes, airfield attacks, and ground-support missions across the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters. Good’s records include flight time, medical status, instructor approval, and technical examination requirements. Horg’s checklist specifies cockpit procedures including single-engine control at 140 m.p.h., supercharger use above 11,000 feet, booster pump commands, landing-gear timing, and radio calls. The classroom photographs, personnel and training papers, flight records, and cockpit checklist preserve distinct stages of B-25 pilot instruction, from ground training and administrative qualification to flight-line work and emergency cockpit procedure. Documents and checklist with toning, filing holes, creasing, soiling, and handling wear; photographs with light fading, silvering, and occasional surface abrasions. Overall good condition.

Item #23362

Price: $1,250.00