agarrett

No real info here but I was at Melang in 94 with the 1st SOS. One of their Herks was on jacks in the hangar we were working out of. It had been stripped like a Caddy in the hood(Can bird). It hadn't flown in 10 years.

They had a Herk there with refueling pods. I came taxiing by us one day with fuel pouring out of the right pod. Wasn't sure it was fuel untill we smelled it.

Sorry Bob, no tails for you. I don't even remember if they were B's or E's.

LOL that was a great one, had a really good laugh over that story when it was happening. I remember the crew was begging to jump ship on a helo to get outta dodge but they wanted to leave the crew chief, only to have the CC get on the radio saying "they will NOT be leaving the CC with the plane":p

Army guys didnt give a squat one way or the the other, the pulled up to get the fuel from Mr. Stuck in the Mud FARP plane anyways.

And if your a talon guy on dirt runway - remember centerline:D

Dan

I remember a story about a TalonII veering off and getting stuck, but if I remember right it wasn't so much stuck in the sand, it's brakes were locked up from overheating.

I also didn't know anybody carried crew chiefs on those types of missions, and I also wonder how the CC got on the radio.

Jeffy, I remember you telling me about signyousoildal(sp) sweeps at confrence room D(lots of good times there). Trenslates to \"Lets see if we can make this thing fall off\".

I think Jeffysan flight tested that thing back in 91.

agarrett wrote:

damnpoor wrote:

I will have to look it up but I think this statement was in a safety sup along with the earlier version of the rollback procedure.

\"Go Mechanical Now Stupid and dont forget the bleeds\" Which was Generator, MechGov, Null. Sync.

The paragraph about low voltage was in a safety sup that swowed up in \'88.

Tha warning was added when this message was released.

damnpoor wrote:

SEFEGeorge wrote:

The official report said fuel starvation, but shortly afterwards bulletins were sent out by the air force about rollback and syncrophasers. Many people accuse the Air Force of not conducting the investigation properly and coming to the quick and easy conclusion instead of admitting that known sycro problems were to blame.

\"HQ AFSOC/DOV APR97 MSG 165

SUBJ: THlS MESSAGE CONTAINS INTERIM SAFETY SUPPLEMENTS FOR THE C-130 AIRCRAFT

ENGINE POWER-LOSS

LOW VOLTAGE ON THE ESSENTIAL AC BUS CAN CAUSE ALL FOUR ENGINES TO LOSE TORQUE. WHEN THE AC VOLTAGE IS BETWEEN 50 AND 70 VOLTS, THE SYNCHROPHASER AND TEMPERATURE DATUM AMPLIFIER CAN MALFUNCTION CAUSING TORQUE TO DROP 2,000 INCH-POUNDS OR MORE. AN ANOMALY INVOLVlNG THE ESSENTIAL AC BUS CAN INDUCE AN EFFECT AMONG MULTlPLE SYSTEMS RESULTING IN A SIMULTANEOUS OR SEQUENTIAL POWER LOSS, NORMALLY AFFECTING ALL ENGINES. INDICATlONS MAY VARY AND INCLUDE ANY COMBINATlON OF ABNORMAL TORQUE, RPM, TIT, AND FUEL FLOW.

WARNlNG

IF CORRECTIVE ACTIONS ARE NOT INITIATED PROMPTLY, FLAME OUT OF ALL ENGINES IS POSSIBLE\"

I will have to look it up but I think this statement was in a safety sup along with the earlier version of the rollback procedure.

\"Go Mechanical Now Stupid and dont forget the bleeds\" Which was Generator, MechGov, Null. Sync.

wysongj wrote:

C-130E crew loses power over Little Rock

The Associated Press

Posted : Monday Nov 10, 2008 7:26:18 EST

JACKSONVILLE, Ark. — On a practice flight, an Arkansas National Guard crew was put to the test when all four engines of its C-130E lost power in the skies over the Little Rock Air Force Base.

They remained calm, however, in the seconds-long emergency Sept. 9 and landed safely.

As it turned out, a one-in-a-million fluke caused the problem and was fixed with a $2,100 purchase of a new part, Air Force officials say. The so-called four-engine rollback is so rare that crews are not even trained for it.

“What makes this exceptional is this is a very (rare) problem we see. There is nothing in the manuals on how to handle it,†said Lt. Col. Dom Sarnataro, safety officer for the guard’s 189th Airlift Wing. “There wasn’t a clear-cut emergency procedure to take care of this. There was no checklist to run through, no manual explaining how to save the day. This is not found in (flight) simulator training.â€

Sarnataro said the crew members’ experience and the relatively light plane were what worked in their favor.

Pilot Maj. Dean Martin, co-pilot Lt. Col. Rich McGough, navigator Lt. Col. Alan King, flight engineer Master Sgt. Doug McGroarty and loadmaster Senior Airman Amber Sowder had started the day preparing for a training mission with a student instructor pilot. But the student pilot did not feel ready to fly so the mission changed to a practice flight.

The original plane on the day’s docket also broke down so maintenance crews prepared Tail No. 1788 for the flight. The plane was built in 1963 and was older than most of the crew.

Moments after takeoff, the plane was about 1,000 feet in the clouds above the western edge of the base, when each of the four engines lost power. The propellers churned barely enough to keep the empty, 50-ton plane aloft.

Even with their experience, the crew members did not know what was causing the problem.

“Something was happening that we’d never seen before,†Martin said.

The main concern was keeping aloft. McGroarty, the systems expert, started analyzing the symptoms, looking for ways to put power back into the engines.

“We had no idea what was going on,†McGroarty said.

He shifted to mechanical governing, manually controlling the electrical power to the engines and propeller speed. He turned off the temperature datum system, which controls the amount of fuel to the engines based on the temperature of the engine turbines, and took manual control of the fuel flow. Three of the planes four engines immediately recovered.

Martin looped the plane around the field and landed minutes later.

Engine experts say McGroarty’s actions bypassing the automated electrical system prevented a full failure of all four engines that was likely seconds away. At 1,000 feet above the ground, the C-130 would have become a glider and the crew would not have time to react.

Two days into their investigation, mechanics discovered the cause of the power failure. An electrical contact relay had partially failed, sending bad data to the system that regulates how much fuel the engines need. If all three phases of the relay had failed, indicator lights would blink and the system would have automatically switched to a backup. One bad contact on an otherwise good relay, however, sparked a silent and rapid progression toward disaster.

The plane’s temperature datum system automatically cut back fuel to the engines because the bad contact told it the engines were overheating. And it did so without the knowledge or direction of the crew. There were no warning lights or sounds, just a blank radar screen and four underpowered engines.

Aircraft electrician Master Sgt. George Durley found the culprit — a three-phase relay that had partially failed. It was built in 2004 so age wasn’t a factor. And for $2,100, the relay was replaced with a new one.

“I’m confident that there’s not a problem, but I’m having everyone continue to look at it,†said Gen. Arthur Lichte, commander of the Air Force Air Mobility Command, which oversees all airlift operations and planes.

On June 27, a C-130 from Pope Air Force Base, N.C., crash-landed in a field north of Baghdad shortly after takeoff. The crew and passengers survived the landing, but the plane was so damaged that it had to be destroyed in place with explosives later. The investigation into what caused the loss of engine power is still ongoing, but the basic cause was classified as a four-engine rollback.

In December 1996, an Air Force Reserve C-130 plunged into the Pacific Ocean, killing all but one crew member. An extensive investigation revealed that a mechanical glitch caused a four-engine rollback. It, too, was believed to be tied to a failure in the electrical system. But that failure caused a total loss of power, while the Arkansas crew only lost partial power.

After studying the Sept. 9 event, it was determined by the Air Force that the situation was a singular — and unusual — event.

“We immediately published some procedures. We keep watching it every day,†Brig. Gen. Wayne Schatz, commander of the 19th Airlift Wing at Little Rock Air Force Base.

Hmmmm...We cover this here in class and in the sim. Had a Talon crew from Duke here last week. Gave them this same malfunction right after take off. They ran the new procedure and climbed out of it.

Anybody from other sim sites want to comment?

Oh yeah, reporters need to let someone(in this case a Herk Pilot/FE)proofread their stuff before printing.

Dan Wilson wrote:

Yep just sounds like bleed back through the priming check valve (24 hour check valve). Some bleed back is normal over time but if it fails completely you will have a huge mess on and in your floor:angry:

Now here is a real poser, many planes will show normal levels flying UNTIL you get up to altitude and the quantity will slowly go down - sometimes way down- until you descend and the quantity will come back up. Anybody?

Dan

You would have loved flying on the old whistling shithouse Dan. The hydro fluid was always playing “musical reservoirsâ€. Standard practice was after everything was cranked up and running the IO would mark the reservoirs (Utility and Aux) and check them often.

AC-Hs are 69 Es stolen from Little Rock when they were new. They were AC-130Es for awhile but when -15s were hung on them the series was changed to H.

Both airplanes have been through several mods/upgrades over the years.

The Talon needs to be changed to MC-130Z to get the E stink off them.

How was the airplane configured when it happened? Engines in low-speed, ATM or APU? Do you have a Lockheed service rep? If you do ask him about EMF or Ripple voltage.

US Herk wrote:

....Don\'t want the TF radar to think it sees something that isn\'t there...

Or vice versa

TalonOneTF wrote:

64-0500 was at one time intended to be a testbed for some MC-130 modification concepts, but for the most part was used for other programs. The Dual Nav station was installed like the Talon 1s, but the Talon TF radar was never installed.

Quiet Knight testing was as close to a Talon program as it got. Mostly was used for Senior Scout, and other misc. projects.

It also had the 94pnd flt deck AC, bleed air regulators, divider valve, APU with generator, ATM generator, -15s, and 90kva generators. When I heard it was going to Sheppard I tried to get the folks here at Hurbie to keep it or trade 7898 for it. Nope.

99 was when I flew a few sorties on it out of Eglin. Was 4 for 4 on time. I thought it was a good plane in spite of it sitting at Waco for many months before I flew on it.

TalonOneTF, do you know if it had a SOF center wing box?

What I was told from an old B model eng was the original \"brush type\" generators did not put out clean enough power for the instruments on those buses so the inverters were installed to provide the stable power needed. They ran the inverters all the time. The AC Inst bus was set up to switch from the \"Normal\", or inverter, position to \"Standby\", AC. Along comes \"brushless generators that made clean enough power to fly with the switches in the standby position thus saving inverters and, as Dan said, money.

Again, this is what I was told, I haven\'t seen any documentation as to why or when the change was actually made.

My neighbors\' father in law is a retired B model eng. I\'ll ask him next time I see him. Maybe he can corroborate the story.

Pressurization? Crew door? Who needs em?

What I meant was... what prevented you from hooking up a fuel hose to the SPR and pumping fuel out/in?

Cool, thats what the P model schematics I looked at show, and the MC-P HC-N dash 1s state.

All others indicate, as well as our field tests here that the offload valve will open.

Shadoif, any idea why some HCs would have to be modded for FARRP?

Again, the curiosity was raised when we did a FARRP with a NON UARSSI HC-130.

Visual inspection tonight revealed that the offload valve was in the center dry bay.

On this airplane, the offload valve had to be opened with the offload valve switch when the master switch was placed in the drain position.

Dave, we covered this before. You say that UARSSI changed the function of the offload valve switch. I’m saying it didn’t.

If the refueling job guide tells you to place the offload switch to open on all UARSSI airplanes, not just P models, then I challenge the job guides accuracy. You, being in QA, are in a position to research this, verify it, and recommend/submit changes.

We verified that the offload valve opened when the SPR switch was placed to drain on AC-H/Us, MC-E/H/Ws and the ex Harrisburg ECs that we have here at Hurbie. Check your T-IIs at the “Hole†and see what you find.

The other question still stands. Does anybody know why the ex-rescue airplanes, or any others, were wired that way?

Not just why you can but why you have to.

Hey, Dan dumped all his Shadow brain cells when he became a WombatB)

We got curious about this because of a non UARSSI airplane doing a FARRP.

Art M. called me with the location. Its in the line way up above the SPR panel. Moving it would make sense if that is where the fuselage tank manifold ties in to the refuel/defuel/dump manifold because the offload valve needs to be aft of that.

Now, why its wired the way it is is still a mystery. According to an HC-H dash one it was wired that way before UARSSI.

Someone correct me if I\'m wrong but every other Herk I\'ve checked, if you put the offload switch to open during drain it takes power away from the offload valve relay and the ofload valve will close.

Where is the offload valve on a P model. Is it not in the center dry bay like the others?

Also, any idea why the offload valve is wired different than any other Herk.

PS; Dan Moen wants to know.

Jeffysan wrote:

\'Twas I. How are things going @ Jurrasic Park, Al?

Things are going good Mr. Olderthanme.

That orange flight suit made it easier to find you at Jonnies.

Jeffysan wrote:

I thought 0565 was the first Mod 90 acft. TalonOneTF, am I correct or losing it?

I remember some dude climbing off of 565 here at Hurbie wearing an orange flight suit back in 90?

Can you help my memory?

Dan Wilson wrote:

Okay guys, thanks for the answers.

What had me screwed up was I thought that 103.5 is what we always taught for fuel topping, but then I read that Lockheed manual the other day that said 104.5 to 105.5! Unfortunately I don\'t have any other references left to check it against and my pharmaceutical soaked brain just couldn\'t get out of the vapor lock it got into.

I really wish I would have kept my books, but after I was med disqualified I got rid of a lot of stuff; it was pretty painful for the first year, still in the Air Force and in a flying squadron but cant fly anymore:( (they just didn\'t want to go for that 15th waiver) At least I finally got past that point so now when I see one of you guys buzzing the house I can say \"you lucky bastards\" and not hurt too bad!

Dan

Dan, does “the fuel control starts to reduce the fuel to the engine at approximately 103.5 percent rpm†sound familiar?

So the 103.5 was never a hard number, at least as far back as I can remember.