Landing gear problems and a 500-mile wild goose chase, Vietnam 1970-1971

[alanwbaker]

Flying an empty C-130 around Vietnam and a flight engineer buys the beer.

http://vietnamairlift.com/snafu.html

Enjoy,

Alan

[DC10FE]

Alan,

That reminds me of my first trip "in-country" to TSN. I was a 2-striper mechanic on B-models on rote from Langley to Clark in 1965. We stopped somewhere to drop off some cargo and as we were taxiing out the FE (TSgt Al Marchman, I still remember) started moving his right foot around the floor by his seat. At that time, the nose gear pin was this big wedge thing and I had installed it -- that was my job as a 2-striper. The reason I remember the FE's name is because he chewed my ass until it bled -- telling me, "Do not touch that gear pin again until I'm in the stag bar drinking my second beer!"

Don R.

[Paycheck]

I always kept a spare pin with me and used it to hang my helmet bag on the copilots seat. That way I could always say "it's right here" and then once on the ground I could retrieve the real pin. A good plan that fortunately never got put to use!

[alanwbaker]

Wow. My engineers were clever but not THAT clever!

[larry myers]

Departing Athens early morning. Entire crew suffering some degree of hangover. Although we often overflew Athens we seldom got to ron there. As such we took full advantage of Greek hospitality. Therefore the -6 and -1 preflights were somewhat abbreviated. As we were taxing I was standing behind the AC looking down and noticed the nlg downlock (the big one) was not in its usual place. Most FEs placed it on the flight deck floor to their left. But some would stow it behind the flt. deck ladder. So looked, but not there either. Tapped the FE on the shoulder and asked if he had removed it. Got the deer in the headlights look. Told him not worry would take care of it. So went in back told the scanner of the problem. Asked him to get on the intercom and advise the flt. deck there seemed to be fluid coming from number two engine fwd. mast. By this time was back on intercom on the flt. deck. Quickly keyed the mic and offered to get out and check the problem. When we got to the eor run-up pad I got out removed the downlock. Got back on the acft., advised everything OK and off we went. Needless to say, after that, whenever that FE and I were at the bar I didn't buy much beer. He was especially gratefull as his AC was not an understanding fellow.

[alanwbaker]

Larry, you earned a lifetime membership in the Engineer's Protective Association.

Alan

[spec13fe]

I left a nlg pin in we change acft went to the spare got in a hurry forgot about it, Squadron ops officer was the AC, guess what I was presented at the next ops meeting, yep my personal nlg pin with streamer, still have it.

Mike

[RRSmith]

The last thing I checked before getting on or launching my plane was look in the NLG area to make sure the pin was out--out of all the times I did this I only found one pin and it was on a student engineer with an instructor on board--the plane was flying a local and the FE instructor knew the student had forgot the pin--I pulled the pin and stuck it in my hip pocket and went out front to block out the acft--the instructor didn't say anything until they had done eng run-up and then told the pilot about--the student ran outside to discover the pin missing--that caused some confusion but the crew went on an took off and flew their mission--I blocked in the acft on return and put the pin back in--the pilot didn't know whether to chew my butt or leave it along--we just left it along and went on our merry way

Smitty