Fred

Looks like @ Clark...? I think I see a "grey ghost" '73 model, and a palm tree, and an F-4 in the background...

Well...ummm....ahhh...never mind...

Hmmm...rolling down the runway on a touch-and-go...IAS 125...flaps 50%...torque zero...pull on the yoke and it will lift off....

During the 1980's, there was no such thing as an "E Flight" in either of the 374 TAW's airlift squadrons. The wing did have some recurring classified missions. They were SAMs (not SAAMs)...

Well, Rick was copilot in "the seventy-second" 74-75 time frame; I left in '76. A very, very personable guy; had a big green two-door boat-tail Buick, if I remember correctly. No stories or anecdotes though.

At least as good as flying a B-25 or goonybird or 123 out over the water, and have to assume that an active SAR is not some frivolous joyride... My $0.02

Thats right. Exactly.

I was a "Captain" more years than I care to remember, and I'm definitely with tenten on this...good advice.

"Used to be" 20 and 25 knots..so many flight manuals floating around out there nowadays...use whatever yours says in the emergency procedures chapter regarding flight under partial power or with one or two engines inoperative....if it just says not recommended; well that's what it is. My guess: yours still says 20 and 25 knots... My $0.02

80s, Korea, Philippines; get the airplane going in time to meet ORI mission closure; training ex-141 FEs who hadn't gotten complete phase II tng or needed to see a buddy start for some reason. Nothing unsafe about a buddy start if you do all the steps in the right sequence and you have a clean runup area. I think FODs the biggest worry. "Put your nose under the tail"? No!

In the interest of preventing mid-airs, I believe; the FAA mandated illumination of landing lights when operating below 10,000 feet altitude. Flying airspeed limit is also generally 250 knots below 10,000 feet as I recall. Speed limit on the original lights extended was 165 or168 knots. Bob: must be confusing with another airplane type.

Hmmm; so how many are operational now? Where will the work be done? What wll be the production rate? Anybody know the real deal?

Heard about this new geewhiz mod 9 years ago...are they building any yet?

Thanks, Bob; does that include C-17,C-5, C-141, C-123, C-7, C-xxx, etc.?

I mean by enemy or adversary action: small arms, AAA, SAM, fighter, etc. Airlift; not gunship, rescue, spec ops, civilian etc.?

Well, it was surely an improvement. My intro to transports was MAC C-130s when they had Air Weather Service, Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service, and RC-130s photomapping/recce whatever that was called. Had to carry a lot of books and suffer the usual copilot humiliations. Got to TAC on a SAC base and got to become fleet service on top of the rest. MAC had "hard crews" for a while. Anybody remember Paul F. Carlton, General USAF, COMAC/CINCMAC and "hard crews"? Mercifully, that went away when he went away. Hard crews as a good deal? Must not have been on a crew with a motormouth, an idiot, a know-it-all and a fanatic born-again-Christian. Thought the train-in-the-left-seat-from-the beginning would fade away too; seems to be more resistant. Once again they have MAC, ACC, USAFE, PACAF and God-only knows what else C-130s. Rescue gets kicked around to whoever will take them; I guess TAC at the moment. Single manager for airlift was a good idea. Still is, but MAC probably still doesn't really want to screw around with propeller airplanes. I think the Air Force has lost its mind in a lot of respects; could start with flight manuals and checklists...end of rant. My $0.02

Joe Spigone was in the other section of my nav school class. The other guy from our class that got that CCK assignment was Jeff Speetjens, as I recall. They were both passengers on the airplane that crashed fall of '70, enroute to their first ops assignment. If I'd known anything about anything at the time, I'd have tried hard for the CCK assignment when we made our choices. As it was, I stayed at Mather for NBT.

Used to be; not the case now, due to recent mods.

Well, your ACC EC-130 aircrews go to the simulator at McChord for refresher training, I believe; so that would be a place to start. But you better get your requests in early, probably too late even for next quarter: July - September. I believe that they have cancellations occassionally and "slots" open up on short notice. Your unit's aircrew training office should have a contact phone number.

Well, the question is why did it "jump" the chocks? Did it roll over the chocks or did it skid them out of the way? Brakes fail? Not set? "Set" with no hydraulic pressure? RCR 5? Airplanes don't "jump" on the ground; they roll or slide. Wonder if the data and voice recorders were operating? Either training or supervision or both. Failure to use tech data? Checklists? This kind of goes in cycles. At one place 25-30 or so year ago, we were taking run-qualified mx out on a Sunday morning when nothing happening and putting them in the left seat for an engine start and taxi around for a bit and simulate a run and I'd hold the brakes and let 'em go suddenly to simulate brake failure/sliding forward. I specifically remember one kid who was taxiing better and smoother than most pilots, after a few minutes explaining what's happening before we started. I do remember occasionally spending the night sitting around the flightline or the squadron and riding out in the blue bread truck to an aiplane on "taxi/engine-run" crew duty at Dyess back in the day. Great if 'ya got the people and time to spare. My $0.02

I remember it as a pilots' flying continuation training requirement before about 1981. We did them at 17 TAS and not at 21 TAS, so somewhere in there "they" must have decided too tough to maintain or not cost-effective or sumthin'. As has been said, seemed to work OK, as I recall. Like mentioned above, you had to get to the "gate" by some other means...ARA, GCA, ASR, doppler computer, NDB, TACAN, VOR/DME, cross two VOR radials, etc. Don't recall if an identifier code was transmitted. Probably still be a cheap, effective way to get there if your INS dies. LF/MF or UHF beacon/transmitter, ADF, TALAR, good field elevation and good altimeter setting and you wouldn't even need a navigator...you be the navigator My $0.02

You must mean Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service under MAC at one time. Since then (correct me if I'm wrong) they got picked up by (or kicked over to) TAC then ACC then Spec Ops then back to ACC or whateever. I guess its just a shadow of its former self. Don't know what that implies...maybe since nobody much is getting shot down these days it must not be so dangerous like back in the day when the 105s were going downtown to hanoi, or earlier in Korea and WWII. Seems like we'd lose as many 105s in a day as fighters have been lost since this whole AOR deal cranked up 20 years ago. Probably these days the Army or Marines or Navy'd have the guy picked up already by time rescue got alerted, cranked and over there...just one man's ramblin' opinion.

I hadn't seen that quote; who was it that said that? I believe General Schwartz said something like its nice but we can't afford it. My $0.02

I think that the first time I heard that story, it was a car and a bomb bay...B-47 or B-52...

I was in 54 WRS at Andersen when the crash off rwy 6 occurred in 1974. Those who've been there will recall that the runway is kind of concave shaped--slopes down to midfield, then slopes up. Nothing but pitch black off the end of the runway(s) at night. Perfect setup for spatial disorientation, as mentioned. No FDRs or CVRs in USAF Herks those days. Accident investigation was a lot of best guesses back then--still is. I was in 17 TAS when "Much 66" crashed at Sparrevohn AFS, Alaska about 2PM April 28th, 1978. Best guess was mishandling of flaps on approach or missed approach/go-around. Gear was down, engines all pulling high power, flaps were retracted. Indicated airspeed at impact was 65 KIAS. My own guess is flaps were called for 100% and set to 0% mistakenly, and like the book says "less stall warning in the cruise and landing configuration" or something like that. Snow showers in the area at the time. In those days, the approach was: complete procedure turn on 225 bearing from the radio beacon between 10 and 15 miles from the beacon; fly contact to the field. Weather minimums were rather high 1500-5 or something like that.