Intersting loads?

[gizzard]

Way to go, Chief. Sounds like the AC needed a little humanity training.............That sounds like something the E-9 I worked for initially would have done, Beyond a doubt, the BEST man I ever worked for.... CMSGT Gharles Regi!!

Giz

Giz

I remember Charlie. One of the good guys.

Bob

Edited March 17, 2013 by bobdaley

[jconner2]

Hauled Korean KIA's to Seoul. Really elaborate ceremony. They hung religious banners on the sides of the cargo compartment and tied down the remains with new out of the box straps. I was only allowed in the cargo compartment to do the take-off and landing checks. They cleaned the bird before loading and left all the straps after off-loading. Had a Monk bring them onboard and a Korean Major stayed with the remains back to Seoul.

[nascarpop]

I was working as Crew Chief on an "E" model at pope and we were preparing to drop a load of troops. The troops had been loaded and the crew was standing at the front of the aircraft waiting for launch time. I stepped into the crew door and the jump master was sitting there smoking a cigar. I asked him to put out the cigar and was told I didn't have enough rank to tell him what to do. I was an E-5 at the time.

I stepped back outside and spoke with the AC who was a Bird Colonel about the incident. He said come on. We went into the aircraft and the Sargent jumped to attention. The Colonel told him to put out the cigar, which he did immediately, and informed the jump master when he was speaking with me to just imagine I had "birds" on my shoulders also. There were a lot of yes sirs.

When we went back outside the Colonel told me it would probably not be a good idea to go to town alone for awhile. The Colonel also made the Jump Master clean up the mess of the cigar in the cargo compartment before we took off.

I did not fly on that trip.

[gizzard]

OnLangleye more from me...............Rigger school from Ft. Lee came down to, brought a duece and a half, rigged to drop,the other load master and I start doin' the inspections, and the guy in chagre of all these other guys tells us that we are supposed to check only the things that would affect the safe extraction of the load, the rest was the responsibility of his riggers. So we go through the routine, loadin' settin' locks, rigging the extraction chute and all that. We are gonna drop it at A.P. Hill, so off we go, everything goes good, green light, chute swings out, deployes, and janks the duece and a half out, and when the cargo chutes deploy, only two of them work right.............we saw that thing hit the ground and bounce about tweny feet, bet it was flat. Didn't think we could drop such a load, but we did, but I betcha those riggers had some remedial training.

[Dave in WV]

We had a crew go to Ft Dix to pick up some WV Army guard troops that had finished their summer camp. Most of the PAX were hung over and prolly still drunk. They wouldn't do what the LM was telling them to do so he went to the AC. The AC (a LTC) was a fine gent and a West Point grad. The AC asked for the troop commander to come up to the cockpit. He told the troop commander his troops had to do as the LM told them or he'd leave without them. The troop commander told the AC "you can't do that". The AC kicked them off the plane and left. The Army NG guys came home by Greyhound.

[gizzard]

"Nother one from the Giz........... Managua, Nicaragua, "73..... Haulin pax, some of whom probably were appeard. anyway, got'em on board, did the pax briefing, went out to start engines, got back on, started doin' before taxi, and countin' the pax(another trick a great loady instructor told me about to avoid possible difficulties), came up with thirteen instead of twelve.hmmmmmm. None of them seemed to be expecting when they came on, so that eliminated that.......Oh, that little boy there has changed my weight and balance calculations. Called up front, shut down, called the security guys, took him away, have no idea how he got on there, but he was strapped in and everything. I kinda figure I coulda caught some shit for that, can't remember where we went from there....... One more example how a good instructor can teach ya more than is in the books.

Giz

Giz

Went into Managua in 71 on rote with Dennis "Pewky" Minder as CP, George Simons INav, Dale Smith IFE, and Tom Hoffman ILM.

While we were waiting on the load we were out on the flight line watching the Nicaraguan AF fly. It was like a world war II flying circus.

T-28's C-47's you name it. All of a sudden these army trucks pull up and we were told we had to stand on grass on the edge of flight line.

The President of Nicaragua was arriving. How did we know? The Presidents Gooney bird was the only Gooney bird they had that had all its windows!

While I was standing there by myself I heard a noise behind me. I turned around and saw a big black panther coming right at me.

It was stopped by about a 7 foot chain link fence about 2 feet from me. I found out later that the panther was the mascot of a local squadron and they let it roam in the space behind the officers club. After changing my shorts we headed back to Panama.

Bob

Edited March 17, 2013 by bobdaley

[jconner2]

Went to some little jungle strip in-country to pick up a road grader with a flat tire to be returned to Saigon to get it fixed (Boy Scouts without adult leadership thinking). Even at 19, I thought that was stupid. Anyway it was just a short frame, motor and a big diagonal blade. Manifest listed it at some big weight (I don't remember the exact number but thousands of pounds) with the CW stamped on the frame roughly a couple feet of dead center. Had them shore the flooring and pull it in backwards. Chained it down and started raising the ramp. Noticed the ramp wasn't moving. Seemed odd. Looked out the side door at the weight and balance device (crew entrance door) and noticed it was kind of high off the ground. Looked closer and noticed the front wheel was off the ground (Heart rate climbs very quickly). Lowered the ramp (actually the front of the plane) and fortunately did not blow out any hydraulic seals; which I was sure was going to happen. Called the army shipper over and asked him how much the load really weighed. He quoted the manifest + so many extra K pounds. I asked where the extra came from. He said they had welded some iron plates on the back of the blade to keep it from hopping up and down after they stripped everything off. Few calculations later I figured we could pull it in front ways and be just a little nose heavy. Had my fingers crossed on T.O. Pilot commented it seemed awfully nose heavy. Thankfully it was a really short haul back to Saigon, I was really sweating that load.

[BobWoods]

I think it right before Tet 68, we were hauling special munitions from Guam into in country, I asked the briefing officer if there were any special fire fighting procedures, his reply was, " there ain't a fire extingister big enough, so don't worry 'bout it". Thus we were introduced to WP/CBU's

Does any one remember that load of ww2 vintage ammo that got shuttled back and forth that nobody wanted?

[pwylie]

Picked up a pig on a pallet at Bien Hoa, RVN in '72. Hope this picture downloads ok.

[SEFEGeorge]

Picked up a few pigs in my day, but none of them agreed to be restrained! :rolleyes:

[Mt.crewchief]

pwylie, Thanks for posting that picture. I almost think I recognize that pig!

Ken

Edited March 13, 2013 by Mt.crewchief
spelling

[gizzard]

looks like a tater sack full of door knobs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hey Pat, didn't she hang out down at that bar outside the King Street gate after some guy from the 38th brought her back?????

[Railrunner130]

I hauled a pallet of charcoal for the chow hall at our deployed base once. It was interesting getting parking instructions. Because it was technically a flammable solid, they wanted us to park out in East Jebip. Once we explained what it was and where it was going, we got rock star parking! Everybody loves steak night!

[jsummers72]

when the 7ABCCC returned stateside from Clark, after SEA fell, there were 6 EC-130E's at Hickam, stuffed to the brim. It took our CC all night to convince US Customs NOT to make us offload them. There was everything from a whole sqdn PCS'ing at the same time. 1 had my Honda 750 motorcycles in it. It must've taken 2 weeks to load `em all up at Clark. We stopped at Midway on the way over to see the world famous "gooney birds". Anyone remember this trip ?

[Flysafe]

How about a 14 foot Palm tree from Homestead to Pope. a general at Pope was retiring at Southern Pines and built a house with a glassed in area for the tree.

[pwylie]

Giz, Not his pig. The last time I saw this squealer it was headed out the front gate at TSN on a leash with the CP. Someone on this site said that they couldn't figure if it was his date or dinner. The CP was an Arkansas grad.

Pat Wylie

[dinahmoehumm]

Boxes and boxes of Cuban cigars out of Howard, along with enough rum to stock a bar for years. Allegedly.

Coolers full of halibut out of Elmo.

Stuffed to the gills with bootleg DVDs out of Kuala Lumpur. Allegedly.

Had an AC once that was married to a Korean, and we were RON at Osan. He bought a ton of kimchi and had it boxed up to bring back to Yokota. Well, we broke, and he left the kimchi on the airplane. In Osan. In July. When the MRT arrived a day or two later, and opened up the airplane, you can imagine the smell that greeted them.

The best thing I ever carried were the remains of MIAs out of Danang, Hanoi, and Phnom Penh on their way home to their families. Flying missions in support of JTF-FA were the most rewarding missions I ever flew.

[SEFEGeorge]

I mentioned earlier in the thread about a duck-butt trip to Korea in '83 our of the Dorf, with a number of stops along the way. Picture a fully augmented crew, empty bird except for comfort pallet, and some survival gear to kick out in case the C-12 we were escorting went into the water. Stops at Midway, Wake, Iwo Jima, Yokota, then Korea. Picked up some Tac-treasures along the way until Japan. Spent time shopping downtown (?). Ponys I think it was. Set of china, compact battery powered TV, etc., for me. Korea. Boxes and boxes of $5 sneakers, "Members Only" jackets, "Britannia" jeans, etc. Nine crew members, so the "load" was substantial.

Should have seen the customs guys when we landed at the Dorf!!!

The wife always wanted a black and white pearl ring so I picked one up for her. 75,000 yen I think it was (not sure about USD right now). She was very pleased. Nice homecoming! But should have seen her when she opened the credit card bill. It was listed in Yen. She pretty much went ballistic until I explained to her what the USD cost really was. She settled down. Whew.

[JimH]

1 - Picked up 2 155mm Cannon barrels somewhere in RVN in 1968 - had to put them in one with breech fwd and one with breech aft to keep the CG within limits ...

2 - In 1978, I was in the Reserves at Bergstrom and we had a trip to Mildenhall. I was restoring a 1963 Mini at the time, so I picked up some things I needed such as 4 mag wheels, 4 tires, a set of fenders, rocker panels and a couple of seats. Coming back, we had an MD-3 tied down in the cargo compartment - when the customs lady came on board and asked about the wheels and tires, I told her they were spares for the MD-3! Hey, they were 10" wheels so they looked close enough to the right size.. had the fenders and rocker panels up in the strap boxes - We put the ground loading ramps on the cargo floor (needed them there to unload the MD-3) and I put the seats in the door --- which was open when customs came onboard anyway...

[DC10FE]

Nice lookin' Mimi, Jim. Still have it?

Here's a load on PJ-TAC in Angola. We picked up these sides of beef in Lubango for the Angolan Officer's Club in Luena. I snapped this photo at just the right moment -- otherwise you couldn't see the beef because of the flies! Pungent odor, too.

[JimH]

Nice lookin' Mimi, Jim. Still have it?

No, unfortunately -- had to sell it in 1982. Wish I had kept it, it was a blast to drive - of course, I raced one in England in '72, so I'm familiar with fast Minis!!

[Bison501]

The most interesting so far was the Pope mobile. Well, two of them to be accurate [ATTACH=CONFIG]3383[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]3384[/ATTACH]

[Guest]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3389[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]3388[/ATTACH] This was my crazy load from my LM Check Ride!

[Herkloadie]

Nice lookin' Mimi, Jim. Still have it?

Here's a load on PJ-TAC in Angola. We picked up these sides of beef in Lubango for the Angolan Officer's Club in Luena. I snapped this photo at just the right moment -- otherwise you couldn't see the beef because of the flies! Pungent odor, too.

Okay, help me out here. Why are the sidewalls on this bird so slick?

[SEFEGeorge]

Okay, help me out here. Why are the sidewalls on this bird so slick?

I'm going to take a WAG but no sidewall bars for the sidewall seat backs. Not being a back-ender, it's only a guess.