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bob130ab

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Posts posted by bob130ab

  1. My first airplane ride in the Air Force was out of Dyess in 1966 - we took 63-7880 (it was silver) from Dyess to Sewart to be painted camouflage. Memorable for me - I was sitting on the bottom bunk and I got sick and threw up down the stairs! Got to help the Crew Chief clean it up! I ended up with 3000+ hours on Hercs and loved every minute of it (after the first flight, I only got sick on the low level training missions!) John Conner can probably relate to that - 100+ degrees in the back with drop loads made from creosote logs (lovely smell), 500 feet, 250 knots, lots of turbulence ... yep, great times!!

    Great to read a post from you.  I enjoy Ed's 924th newsletters that you help with keep up the good work.

    Bob Martin 924th LM

  2. Yes Bob I made a few X country weekend trips with them.  They were with the 705th (A model school).  I was with the sister squadron. the 924th we was a TAG.

    Both Larry and Henry have attended our annual 446 TAW reunion in Houston.  But not in the past 5 or so years.

    Bob M

  3. Hi Bob, Wish I could join you when you visit 0497. This is the ac that my crew stalled over the Gulf in about 1970. It was configured as a Light ship then and reconfigured to a std TAC ac later. One of two, the other 0493. The published stall speed was incorrect due to the additional drag of the external systems.

     

  4. One Friday night back in the late 70's we dropped an US Army reserve Green beret unit over the desert at Ft Bliss. On the next pass we dropped their jeep and other supplies. Prior to the equipment drop me and my second Load removed a case of C ratios for each crew member and stored them in the cargo door.

    On Sunday morning we picked them up at Biggs Field. Their NCOIC complained about their shortage of rations, I told him that next time he should anticipate how much c ratios the AF crew would steal and pack accordingly.

    We spent the weekend in El Paso and of course my crew visited Juarez,

  5. I don't know how many C-97s were converted to Guppys. There was a Mini Guppy, Pregnant Guppy, the one in the photo and the newer version that the French Gov bought or modified. The Mini and Pregnant Guppy had recip engines. This was before my time. I have seen photos of the Pregnant Guppy. It was loaded from the rear. The tail was removed and rolled away. It and ours belonged to a private company. NASA would charter them to move oversize space articles. Between the time span of the Apollo and Space Shuttle Programs the company went out of business.

  6. Yes for me on desent and landing, the pilots didn't control the throttles, the FE did and we didn't use head sets to talk to each other. On approach the pilots would call out power setting to the FE and sometime as we desented to fast they would start calling for more power. The Guppy is a modified C-97 and I understand that many of Boeing's earlier large ac was configued that way. The Supper Guppy's fuselage was 25' in diamerture but we couldn't use all of it as we had to raise the loads to accomodate the conture of the Guppy using the adapters in the photo. we had different hight adapters and sometimes we stacked a couple of the shorter ones. We moved a bunch of A-7, F-14, and sections of the B-1 fuselarge for DOD.

    After a few mission me and the other two LM normally didn't fly with the Guppy as the preplanning and load preperation proved to be more helpful for us to fly commerical ahead of the Guppy and have the load ready and loading crew organized prior to the Guppy's arrival.

    Watching the Guppy land and take off looks weird. Because of the airflow under it's large fuselage it would lift off of the ground with the main landing gear first then run on the nose gear for a ways before lifting off and climb the same way. Also it touched down on the nose gear first. This Guppy had the turbo prop engines from the C-133. We used up all available props after operating it for 9 years, it's now at DM. After I retired NASA purchased another Super Guppy from the French Gov that is equipped with engines from a C-130H and is still operating but is about to run out of work due to the Space Shutttle program ending.

  7. I remember four, five times right at 155K, real tight on %Mac, once, in Turkey, orginally was about 158K, downloaded some gas and away we went........How does the balance limits work on a helicopter????? Scary thing is how do you know the weights, and for that matter, the moment arms are accurate???????

    I can't think with those high numbers, Our C-13O-As were limited to 124,200 lbs gross TO, landing gear restrictions (if my memory is correct).

    Bob M

  8. Ken & Frank,

    If I were to sell it, you two guys would have first dibs on it. I actually don't know why I keep all this crap. I still have the whizz-wheels (TOLD computers) for the E & H-models. When I was digging through the box looking for the C-130 horn button, I also came across a nav computer that I used to use in flight. It's a miniature version of what the nav used in his back room to make his magic. Since I got a new scanner, here's a photo of it. I haven't a freeking clue how to use it now.

    Don R.

    I still have my C-130A load adjuster, sometimes I get it out and pretend that I'm computing a dummy load or maybe I'm the dummy.

    Bob M.

  9. The answer is No. By the time the AC-130s were deployed to Ubon, LBJ had ceased offensive actions against North Vietnam and they did not resume until 1972. We operated over North Vietnam in LAMPLIGHTER missions in C-130A flareships but that ceased in late 1966 or early 1967 due to the proliferation of antiaircraft in the Route Package One and Two areas where we had been flying. C-130s can't survive in a high threat environment. Get a copy of my new C-130 book. It has a list of all C-130s lost in Southeast Asia, including gunships and rescue (there were two lost on the ground at Tuy Hoa). As it was, the gunships took heavy losses over Laos.Six gunships were lost - which is 50% casualties considering there are 12 airplanes in a squadron. FYI, 62 C-130s were lost in Southeast Asia. 52 of those were airlift, six were gunships, two were rescue and two were USMC. Two of the airlift airplanes were C-130E-(1)s, one on the ground and one flew into a mountain on the Lao/North Vietnam border.

    Hi Sam, I have a copy of your book "C-130 Hercules Tactical Airlift Missions 1956-1975" copy wright 1988. Do you have a newer book out? How is it different from this book?

    Bob Martin

  10. As everyone knows this is an early A Model 55-0023, It has the window over the Nav station an it has the fuel panels for the original external fuel tanks.

    The tanks were a lot larger than the 450 Gal one we ended up with on the A model. You could transfer the fuel in to the main tanks thrugh the cross feed system with one of the panels and there was two boost pumps in each tank, fore and aft. The large thanks were about the size of the Elint pod on the C-130A-II acft. You can save and blow the picture up but still can not see the panels too good. I at one time crewed 53-3134 and it had both the window and fuel panels in it. Window cracked one time so we just plated over the opening.

    I crewed 3134 for 2 & 1/2 years at Ellington AFB, Texas as a LM from April 1972 until Nov 1974.

  11. I flew 56-519 out of Udorn RTAFB between 67 to 69!We flew her over Laos and North Viet-Nam. She was sent back to the states in late 1970 and went to a reserve unit! Then she was flown back to Viet-Nam and given to the South Vietnamese Airforce sometime in 1973 she ended up in 1975 being flown by the North Viet-Namese untill they couldnt keep her flying.

    She was last seen to my Knowledge at Ton-Son-Nhut airport in 1999!

    924th/925th TAG, AF Reserve, Ellington AFB, TX, had 56-519 from the middle of 1970 until sometime after Feb 1972.

  12. Correction

    This C-130 was moved by NASA on its Super Guppy in July 1980, to Hayes Corp. Birmingham, AL for repairs. I was the NASA loadmaster (Cargo Mission Manager, job paid more that of a LM). I was a civil service employee with the Johnson Spce Center which owned and operated the Super Guppy that loaded the AC. At the same time I was an AFR C-130B LM assigned to the 924th TAG, Bergstrom AFB, TX. The Warner Robins Depot built wooden cradles to support the fuselage, the landing gears were removed and the fuselage was cut at FS737 and as much weight was removed as possible to meet our weight restrictions.

    NASA purchased the Super Guppy to move oversized loads for the Space Shuttle and Space Station programs, We would move oversized loads for DOD, DOD contractors and other goverment agencies to keep the Guppy busy and help pay the bills.

    I have located the pictures and I'll post them later.

  13. That was 433 TAW aircraft in the picture. This picture has been published several times, in print and on the Internet. Story goes that some heads in Wing Ops got in trouble after someone reviewing the photo determined that they were flying below 500 ft, which was our minimum over populated areas in those days.

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