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Loadmaster Question----Viet Nam era


Mt.crewchief
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I was having flashbacks the other day of my times in Viet Nam as a crew-chief and was thinking of all of the different configurations our planes went through during the course of our stays at CRB. For instance, I remember my plane leaving in the early AM loaded with food etc. aka "milk run", and coming back approx 7 hrs. later configured for a medivac mission! Which of course I had to completely take down and stow in the upper racks etc. and get it ready for whatever the next day's mission involved! I know how hard it was for me (sometimes alone) to do all of this but have always wondered how you load-masters managed to get the job done enroute!!

Also, I remember the configuration we called "replacement pax" which of course wasn't any problem for the crew chief etc.. The question I have about it was how many troops were carried during this configuration? I do remember the passengers weren't too excited to be on the plane for one of these missions!!!!

I went on a few missions in-country, and I helped the load-master all day and was damned tired when I got back to base!!

I guess it all can be summed up in one statement---you guys worked your butts off!!!

I guess I will thank you guys for your service as not many people realize how hard you worked while flying missions in Viet Nam!!!!

I know you guys have some good stories to tell. Maybe some of you can let some of the younger guys hear some of your stories!!

Thanks in advance for your stories,

Ken

Acft. 56-475 Naha

Acft. 62-1804 CCK

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Loadmasters perfected "multi-tasking" as they call it to day. I am certain my brother loadies out there will agree with this staement-"We just did what we had to do." Like everybody else. One example, Try hangin' an extraction chute bouncin' around all over the place. yeah there was supposed to be a step for that, I just used my 'Mark 1-A" Ass jack. In country PAX briefing, at least to those who spoke English ' Sit down, shut, and don't S*** in my chain boxes." Those will be enough to get things started I think..........Does anyone out there remember the loady who shot a village chief's cow, water buffalo, whatever when he tried to take it on board during an evac mission? I don't know if it is true or not, but one hell of a funny story. How about havin' the fire department wash the cargo compartment out?

Ken, I think you would a made a great loadie, just from the sound of your posts........

load clear

giz

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I remember as an asst.CC going in country and helping whoever needed the help.

If there were mechanical problems I would help the FE and so would the LM.

If no mechanical problems the FE and I would help the LM.

I also remember Pilots and Copilots on a B1 stand helping remove starters and Gens. and installing plates.

Most of that was when we went to Clark from Sewart, and when I first got to Naha.

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Hery Giz, I remember the whole crew reconfiguring the cargo compartment, even the LCol was in the back humping uprights and litters. bob woods

I can remember many times that was the case, and I remember many times, too, the crew chief throwin' in as well. They didn't have to, nobody asked, it just happened. Just about any challenge got taken care of, like the time my crew chief and I, truth be known more him, figured out a way to connect a 120V AC incubator to aircraft power, to take a premature baby from Kinetra, Morrocco to I think it was Ramstein. Short story, we ended up swipin' an extension cord from somewhere, cuttin' the plug off, strippin' the wires and connecting it to the prongs on one of the hot cup locations. I used rigging tape to secure it to the prongs and down and under the flight deck steps. It sure as hell was not in the -9 or whatever, and probably violated ten safety issues, but it needed to be done. It worked, but the baby died almost on downwind at Ramstein. There was a very sad crew got off thatplane that night, I cantell ya.

Giz

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While I can't comment on Vietnam, OIF/OEF used to run a lot like that. You pretty well knew if you had a slick floor, you were either flying empty or getting a full load of pax. Maybe a vehicle with a pallet on the ramp. All you could do was wait and see.

I had a Joint Forge rotation that I was the only Loadmaster on the crew and we had a bunch of Aeromeds on board. The MCD mentioned that they needed seat set-up practice. They got it!

This last OEF rotation, knock on wood, we did very few large configuration changes. Lots of CP-3 to CP-4 and vice versa. But that's no big deal. For the big stuff, we usually are fortunate enough to have front-enders that are willing to come back and help out. The Army ATOC (I think they're called ADAG or something like that.) usually knows what configuration they have to utilize before we leave our MOB. Sometimes they ignore it.

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Hey, Runner, did you guys ever just put down pallets on the main floor, lock'em in, put 5,000# straps across them, maybe four or so, #can't remember, and use that as "high density seating?' If ya left the straps loose, sometimes they were smart enough to put their legs under and hang on, sometimes, well that's what ya get for flyin' trash-hauler airlines. I always made'em face backwards, so I could sit on the ramp, often with the smell so bad, my O2 mask on, and let'em see, at my AC's standin' order, my 38 was loaded. Guess that just made it heavier if I threw it at them. I don't ever remember doin' this kind of loading except engine-running, I would not have wanted to put them in there and then go out and start engines. One funny to all this, it used to crack me up when we would button up, and my FE would crank the air conditoning so low you could freeze beer,and the vapor would come out of the overhead ducts. they must have thought it was nerve gas or somethin'.

Giz

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On the slick floors we made use of the "J bars".

On one flight I was sleep deprived and we had a stack of the big pallets so I strapped myself to them and went to sleep.

We had som Pax on that flight and they gave me a strange look when I did it. All I had to do was close my eyes and I was out like a light.

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Probobly the same as the Johnson bar.

Had a metal lip that would slide under a box or pallet small wheels and a long handle, maybe about 5" long.

Put the lip under the load and push down on the handle and the load would raise enough to move it.

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That would be it, can't believe they hadn't replaced that thing, put the wrong parts of your anatomy in the way of the thing, it is gonna hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They actually came from the old cargo handling on the railroads, in the old box cars and such, maybe even longshoreman work, from what I remember.

Giz

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donwon, hate to sound dumb, but what's a"J-Bar"? We had a pry bar we called a 'Johnson bar", but that's as close as i can come. On the E's we didn't have slick floors, unless a bunch of troops puked all over that is

giz

J-BAR ,Johnson Bar - same same.In the 45 plus years I've been out of the USAF I can't tell you how many times a J-BAR would have come in handy!

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You are so right, GVS.. One of those things would sure saved my back a few injuries over the years. I think we had another name for it as well, but I can't remember for sure, was it 'Toothpick?" I dunno. That's the problem with this site, so much wonderful old stuff comes along, my frazzled mind won't let me recall all of it, but keep it up, guys. A mind is a terrible thing to lose!!!!!!!

Giz

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Once upon a time in a land far away, we were doing a normal trash hauling mission. we were several hours into the day when we got to TSN. The "B" model that had the air evac mission had broken down. We were told to re-rig and take the air evac mission. We were flying a former Blind Bat bird and when we started re-rigging we discovered there was not enough equipment on the plane , so we went to the next revetment and borrowed lots of stuff from the broken "B" model. Never did find out if we got in trouble for borrowing that stuff.

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We don't put empty pallets on the floor for seating purposes. I have had to combat load troops, but we just used a slick floor. I can't remember how the troops were secured. I think they might've had some restraint belt. That was only once, back on '03. The "kinder, gentler USAF" wants us to utilize seats and takes it very seriously when we don't.

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I only remember using a j-bar one time it was in scotland we had our sq comander with us and he was showing me how to load two jet engs into the cargo compartment off a lorry. At this point he told me he would run the winch wile I used the j-bar to raise the palet up to ramp level. So as a good loadmaster I told him I was the only one aloud to operate the winch do to other damage in the past. He than grabed the j-bar and told me to start the winch. I hit the button the winch started ,the j-bar slaped the col in the side head he stumbled backwords almost fell out the troop door. At this point he rejoined the rest of the crew out under the wing and I finished loading the aircraft . As a three striper than I new I couldnt laugh than but it still brings a smile to my face when I think of it now.

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Hey, Runner, did you guys ever just put down pallets on the main floor, lock'em in, put 5,000# straps across them, maybe four or so, #can't remember, and use that as "high density seating?' If ya left the straps loose, sometimes they were smart enough to put their legs under and hang on, sometimes, well that's what ya get for flyin' trash-hauler airlines. I always made'em face backwards, so I could sit on the ramp, often with the smell so bad, my O2 mask on, and let'em see, at my AC's standin' order, my 38 was loaded. Guess that just made it heavier if I threw it at them. I don't ever remember doin' this kind of loading except engine-running, I would not have wanted to put them in there and then go out and start engines. One funny to all this, it used to crack me up when we would button up, and my FE would crank the air conditoning so low you could freeze beer,and the vapor would come out of the overhead ducts. they must have thought it was nerve gas or somethin'.

Giz

Giz, That's what I call "replacement pax" I would help the loadmaster secure the straps across the cargo compartment and the fully armed and ready troops would sit like you describe facing towards the rear. The loadmaster would sit on the back with the ramp open while I was marshaling the plane as it backed out of the revetment.

I think the mission the Army troops were about to embark on was not a fun one as two different times one of them ran right out the back and jumped off the ramp and ran over to me or the expediter truck! Of course the loadmaster would stop the process until things got sorted out! Both times, the troop left his weapon on the acft. and I think he got in big trouble!!! I felt sorry for the individuals as I think by the time an Army jeep showed up, they wished they had stayed on!!

A question I still have, is about how many troops could we accommodate? By the way, whenever my plane got back from one of those missions I could usually count on a tire change or two.

Then, of course is the fuel bladder missions!!!!!

Thanks for the responses so far,

Ken

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I once had 245 Vietnamese civilians on board loaded like that. Hauled much lower numbers of troops as well, all vietnamese. I can still smell that damn Buddha juice or whatever it was...................... Once had a load of Vietnamese 'Tigers' I can't remember the number, but anyway, we were bouncin and floppin' all over the sky, and one of them threw up. Now, I am certain many of you out there are parents, and have changed many a nasty diaper, but this was WAY worse. Of course, i don't have my nose-hose on. Well this is runnin down his shirt, onto the pallet, down onto the floor. How that little @#%^& ate that much i have no idea. anyway, one of their senior NCO's says '' NO worry, I take care of." he goes over, slapped the puker about the head and shoulders about a dozen times, yanks his cap off, makes him rake all the crap up in it and put it back on his head. It starts drippin' down his face, I'm almost up to the ramp and door joint, tryin not to laugh, and this other dude beside him, starts laughin' at him too, and this NCO beats the crap out of him. Had to have the FD come wash out the plane, it was that bad and that much on the cargo floor. Real true story.................

load clear

Giz

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Yep, we called the Johnson Bar a J-Bar. They weren't used much because 90% of the cargo we carried in SEA was palletized and the other 10% was rolling stock. J-bars were used mainly to move crates. As for air evacs, I flew over 1,500 sorties and only remember one air evac in-country. Army and Marine helicopters did most of the air evac work although there were some scheduled air evac missions with Herks, plus the 6485th Ops Squadron - later the 20th Ops Sqdn - had some C-118s that flew scheduled missions. The one air evac I remember flying was in early 1967 and was a night mission into Dong Ha, which was under attack. There were several air evacs into Dong Ha about that time, all emergencies and all at night. We were at Da Nang when we got the word and almost immediately the alert air evac medical crew came to the airplane. We rigged the airplane while we were taxiing out and inflight. After the mission I derigged the litter stanchions and replaced the straps while we were on the way back to Cam Ranh. I don't remember any air evacs at all during my tour at Clark in 69-70. As for seats, before the C-130 operating locations were set up, a crew never knew when they were going to get paxs and if a load was scheduled, the crew rigged the airplane. It was the loadmaster's responsibility but the rest of the crew helped. After the flight the loadmaster derigged. In 1965 the crew chiefs were sometimes with us and worked with us. After the C-130 operating locations were set up, scheduled passenger missions were run each day. Naha had several loadmasters at Cam Ranh as duty loadmasters and we rigged and derigged the seats with some of the ground crew working with us. 315th AD came out with "combat loading" which was putting the pax on the floor on pallets with 5,000 pound tiedown straps across for them to hang on too. After that policy came out, if we had a full load of pax, we combat loaded them. If there weren't enough to require rigging the center aisles, we dropped the nylon seats and they sat on them. If passengers got sick, the loadmaster had to clean it up. I was on one troop mission into Tonle Cham when we lost an engine while on approach. We had a plane load of troops on board on pallets and they had been sitting in the sun at Bien Hoa drinking beer. Their captain was up front on the bunk. When we lost the engine we were trying to get in ahead of a thunderstorm and we were bouncing around a bit. Every single one of the troops got sick and started puking. The captain up front threw up all over the cockpit. When we got back to Tan Son Nhut the crew chief got mad and started ranting. The fire department sent out a water truck and I hosed it down. At least it wasn't blood this time. I think the crew chief cleaned up the cockpit but I'm not sure.

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Jim,

That first pic is exactly what I was referring to!! Of course the loads with American troops on board didn't look anything like that!!! There were probably about half as many men, and were sitting in an orderly fashion facing to the back!!

Of course they weren't prisoners. Although some of them may have thought that!!!

I never did see that large a group of prisoners. Usually several walk on's chained and heavily guarded.

I am glad I didn't have to clean up after a group like that!!!!

Ken

Edited by Mt.crewchief
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