McChord 80\'s

[bobgrun]

On the wall inside C-branch in the 80\'s we had a beautiful, wall-sized front view mock-up of a gear down 130. If I recall (as, of course I have absolutely NO knowledge to neither confirm nor deny this) the story goes that it was \"borrowed\" from a building at a certain East Coast US 130 base at the end of an ORI or ORE.

Anybody know what ever became of it when the Hercs left McChord?

[skipife]

bobgrun wrote:

On the wall inside C-branch in the 80\'s we had a beautiful, wall-sized front view mock-up of a gear down 130. If I recall (as, of course I have absolutely NO knowledge to neither confirm nor deny this) the story goes that it was \"borrowed\" from a building at a certain East Coast US 130 base at the end of an ORI or ORE.

Anybody know what ever became of it when the Hercs left McChord?

It was part of a flight of three over the stables at Ft. Bragg at one time, so I have heard, it made it\'s way up to McChord at the end of an ORI, had a short life in the C-Branch hanger and when the C-130\'s were let go it made it\'s way to the sim building, and has had a pretty good life but is in dire need of refurb.

It has been the topic of discussion for over 20 years now, some of the customers here have actually offered to refurb it but in something other then the old style cammy, white with orange stripes, or white and gray with red prop tips.

I\'m sure some of the characters that were involved in the plane napping will respond to this as the statute of limitations has past by now.

[bobgrun]

So it lives on still, that\'s good to hear. From what I\'ve seen only one of the crew of \"plane nappers\" visits the board on any regular basis, so I\'m not sure if we\'ll hear too much more of their exploits.

When it landed at McChord, one of the wings had broken so it was sent over to the Fab shop where they were more than willing to lend a hand in repairing it. Which was also a good thing as the poop kinda hit the fan in regards to one Commander calling another Commander to complain about the disappearance. Much more so than any other trophy that C-Branch had aquired over the years. Since only a VERY few Crew Chiefs knew of its existance, let alone where it was at the time, (even most of the flight crew who flew it \"home\" was unaware of their extra cargo) everybody they asked truthfully said they didn\'t have any idea. In fact, MOST of them had never seen it before when it was at Pope as only a DCC going to a briefing would even be over in that area.

It was a couple months later when we got a phone call from the Paint shop that our 130 was ready and they were tired of looking at it. The culprits had pretty much forgotten about it for the most part, having moved on to various other forms of mischief. Imagine their surprise when they assembled a tow crew, got the Coleman on the way down there and Victor 5 dropped off a load of guys only to find an empty hanger. With a basic Crew Chief \"WTF?\" we wandered into the office to see what was up, and to everybody\'s surprise there was a nicely repaired, and newly repainted to look like a McChord bird, prize! The best part of the entire thing was Mike McDevitt. He\'d just come over from Pope about 2 weeks prior. He was all too aware of the finger pointing and arguing and threats and such from when it was a hot topic. I can still hear his southern accent doing a wonderful \"Schultz\" impression... \"I see nothing! NOTHING!\" as he wandered right back out the door to the truck.

But... of course... this is all just what I\'ve heard... since I have neither the clearance nor the knowledge to confirm or deny information on this topic at this time. Further inquiries should be directed to... ;)

[Guest cobra935o]

Nothing good ever comes out of those models, (well maybe some of the stories)! If you have one someone is always just trying to steal the damn thing!