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Sleeping on the hercules


lorencooper
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After flying as a pax and touring the flight deck cockpit I am wondering how in the world anyone can manage to sleep on the bed that is in the cockpit.Was it made for very small crewmembers or what?The mattress on the bunk had to be designed by a massocist!One load master told me that he had a hammock in his bag.I thought he was pulling my johnson but then he showed it to me.But still I was told that the bunk was mainly used to just store bags and stuff on.What gives?What is a augmented crew?And who gets the bunk?

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The best way to sleep, at least when on the ground and all was quite (not often) was to turn the Nav seat towards the Engineer's seat, lean the nav seat back about 45 degrees, put the arm rests out, put your feet on the engineer's seat, and chill.

The matresses on the flight deck are not that bad. When your exhausted, anything will work!

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Sleeping as an active crew member is forbidden!!!!!!!!!!HOWEVER, due to the conditions of their job, many load masters found intake plugs acceptable to cushion themselves for rejunvenational meditation. I,for one, really liked the cargo chutes on CDS drops. VERY comfortable!!!!!!!!!!! LMAO!!!!!!!!!! I never saw it, but the rumor was a crew chief had a write-up that said the crew bunk was lumpy. His corrective action was " function-checked crew bunk for eight hours, appears to be within normal limits."

load clear

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Our crew chiefs usually grab the top bunk if they fly with us. Sometimes, if we have an extra pilot, they will grab it. Trust me, you can sleep on the bunk when you are worn out! If someone wants to sleep on the bottom bunk they just crunch up their knees or hang them off the side. That bottom one isn't great, but it works when you are tired enough. I've flown a couple missions in an augmented crew, but they were both trips over the pond. The other FE and I would swap out when/if required. Oh, and pretty much every experienced load I know keeps a hammock in his flying kit!

Mark

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Sleeping as an active crew member is forbidden!!!!!!!!!!

BWHAAAHAAAHAAAA

Oh God stop it, your killing me:D

I have found that the top bunk is a great place to scan my overhead panel and engine instruments, if you lay with your head to the right side of the airplane you can correctly direct the right hand gear actuator to flip whatever switches that need to be flipped.:D

Way back, the top of the ABCCC capsule was a pretty good snoozing spot inflight, that is until we were over the middle of the Atlantic heading to Italy and the plane (62-1857) decided it wanted to go from FL 220 to about 2000 feet in thirty seconds:eek: (this was the same trip to DD that the EC-H lost the two engines and prop, we had landed right behind it at Peese, after a long delay for it to get off the runway that is).

It took me another decade before I could sleep inflight after that, but you will be glad to know that I overcame that neurosis:rolleyes:

Dan

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when i flew on my plane anywhere i could wasa comfy place,talon 2's dont have crew bunks .i slept on top of isu's ,a few times we was all loaded up for airdrops and i jsut founda spot on the dual rails undrneath the booster pump.one time iwas so tired a peice on armor on the cargo floor worked for me

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:DIf I remember ritely A litter on two 5000lb strapes between the wheel wells worked well on the over water missions to san salvador and back .

As a side note I rember a time when the crew chief woke me and said everybody up front was sleeping and he didnt6 know what to do . I told hime to wake the flt. eng up because he got paid the leasted . As for me I went back to sleep.

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For Nav's it went like this:

Roll up flight jacket, place on top of nav table, slump forward with head placed onto rolled jacket,.............."siesta time".

Other than that........whenever and wherever you can find a place. On the slick models the top bunk suited me fine, however, being a former crew chief I understood the work load he/she had awaiting them upon our arrival. So, the cc in the top bunk was always considered their territory as far as I was concerned.

TIP: Invest in a Therm-A-Rest mattress. I use mine all the time in civy flying. They are expensive but well worth the cost. Most camping/climbing stores have them. When FBO crew lounges are full and/or you are bushed but still do not have enough time to get to a far away hotel........'nuff said!

Kurt

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Davis, the hammock story got me wondering what ever happened to the one I bought at CCK for the same purpose! The first time I tried it we were taking a church group to Tokyo. The group consisted of mostly dependent wives and kids! No sooner had I gotten the hammock strung out and climbed aboard, everybody was watching me and I thought I was doing something interesting/dumb. Turned out that somebody had to go pee and guess who was in the bathroom!!! Of course I had to move and then show a male member of the group how the honey bucket worked! (for the ladies)! Men used the outside venting urinal! Of course, the privacy curtain was missing!!!

Didn't ever use the hammock again--still have it!

Ken

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Our WC's, ex-HC's, had 3 bunks in the cargo compartment - 2 above the left wheelwell and 1 above the right scanner window aft of FS 245. All of them that is, except 4 that had been converted to regular trash haulers in the early '90's before being reconverted back to WC's again. I guess the bunks have been removed from them all now.

I not only used them inflight (when there was a second engineer) but also slept at the Herky Hilton several times at the Sun 'n Fun Airshow!

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Ken, I never ran in to that problem always tried to get father up the door, as you know the higher up you could get the warmer it was.

I brought my hammock back from CCK to Littlerock and used it there till I got out of Service, I forgot and left it on the last acft. I crewed. stowed in the middle compment in the ramp door and some cans of food here and there on the airplane.

Edited by davis
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I just got an e-mail from a guy on this board and he said that I needed to understand that C-130(all of the variants???)crews are mission hackers.What does that mean?He seemed very mad and said that C-130 crews are not like the prima-donna clean cut manicured crews that are on the C-17 C-141 and others.He said that they probably have roll-away beds provided for them on there planes and have memberships to local spa facilitiys when they go TDY and get special TDY pay.Is this true?That does not seem very fair to me.I do remember one flight where I was a pax on a HC-130 going back to our home base at Moody.The crew seemed very uptight and tired.After the flight when i asked the flight engineer a question he told me to go figure it out for myself.When I told the major flying the aircraft(he was even smoking a cigarette!An officer!!!!!?)about how rude the flight engineer was,the major looked at the flight engineer and they both started laughing at each other then laughed at me!.So I guess I can see why the C-130 crews are nervous and stressed out.Is this a comparible thing as to what my email sender means?

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Bunks on the flight deck???Man,you Airforce types got all the comforts.As a Loadmaster on an F model in the Marines,we slept in the pax seats if nothing was going on that needed our attention.I had absolutely NO problems nodding out,as we were usually overworked and sleep deprived on our TDY missions.As a 19 year old,you can figure out why we were sleep deprived while in Hawaii,Okinawa,and the Phillipines.Sooooo many bars and so little time!!Semper Fi.

:D

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Web seats... no problem for me. Landing gear up, eyelids down. Back in the old days.... working mx on old E's...Nothing like flying all day just to have to work the kerchunk kerchunk kerchunk washing machine doppler antenna that broke on the way... And they needed it to fly the next day. Now-a-days, the front windows get more attention than the new type doppler installed. Technology does make a few things better!

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When flying with my Herk I would take out the blanket and pillow out of the life vest bag and curl up on the ramp. We some how ended up with 2 blankets and 2 pillows which we kept on the plane at all times. Prior to the blankets and pillows I would sometimes use a parachute as a pillow. Hardly ever had problems sleepingwhile flying cause I knew I had a long ight ahead of me when we got to our destination.

Wil

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Many years, many flights. Before my Talon days, I remember one time sleeping on top of stacks of missle cases, three high, four side-by-side, front to back. I was going home from a TDY; it was O.K..

In the early days, Talon I's actually had bunks, but normally only used as seating, maps, etc.

Flying mostly as MEGP, I almost always had a hammock with me for long flights.

Before the High Speed Low Level Aerial Delivery System (HSLLADS), the hammock was O.K. above the cargo door, but after they removed all the insulation aft of FS737, it was too darn cold back there when at altitude for several hours.

Hanging a hammock over the ramp ensured that everybody headed to the back for the urinals would jerk on the ropes to wake or startle me (nice guys, thanks again).

Once, had a hammock just aft of FS245 with my head near the flight deck airconditioner (MC-130E), when the turbine came apart--scared the crap outa' me.

Leaving Hickam on a flight, I swung my hammock about 7 feet above the floor across the cargo compartment--from above the aft end of the overhead oil rack, to structure just forward of the right hand side escape hatch (the Talon I's had 2 crew stations and a curtain there, I was above all that). After take-off, the AC (a short guy) came to the back for a break and never saw me up there; he walked right below me twice, looking all around. Then he went back to the flight deck and asked if anyone knew where I was; he thought they had left without me. Then he "advised me" that I was creating a unnecessary hazard and never do that again....Oh, well....

Edited by TalonOneTF
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I just got an e-mail from a guy on this board and he said that I needed to understand that C-130(all of the variants???)crews are mission hackers.What does that mean?He seemed very mad and said that C-130 crews are not like the prima-donna clean cut manicured crews that are on the C-17 C-141 and others.He said that they probably have roll-away beds provided for them on there planes and have memberships to local spa facilitiys when they go TDY and get special TDY pay.Is this true?That does not seem very fair to me.I do remember one flight where I was a pax on a HC-130 going back to our home base at Moody.The crew seemed very uptight and tired.After the flight when i asked the flight engineer a question he told me to go figure it out for myself.When I told the major flying the aircraft(he was even smoking a cigarette!An officer!!!!!?)about how rude the flight engineer was,the major looked at the flight engineer and they both started laughing at each other then laughed at me!.So I guess I can see why the C-130 crews are nervous and stressed out.Is this a comparible thing as to what my email sender means?

Please address my questions here.Thank you.

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