Spectre623

I went to tech school on B-47's at Amarillo AFB Tx. in 1963 and was very interested in the article. A little research on the net shows 394 B-47's built at Lockheed as well as 28 modified for "Weather Recon and Atmospheric Sampling". Those were probably the ones with the stripe on the vertical fin as noted above. Also a bit of interest that is well known at Dobbins ARB ( which shares the runway with Lockheed) is about the B-47 that crashed into the lake at the on-base Fam Camp. They still won't let you fish in the lake because of the contamination. The lake is within a stones throw of where The C-130 HTTB crashed in 1993. Bill

Billy if you can see any sign in the picture saying it is somewhere in VN, that may be the clincher. A lot depends on the person handling your case. I hope you can find some paperwork putting you in county such as travel vouchers. Blanket orders don't work cause it don't prove you actually went TDY. Send the form in like I told about in this very first post. They found in my records an APR from my flight chief that says I had completed so many days TDY in country for that reporting period. My letter from them said THAT, proved boots on the ground. Good luck. Bill

Great read Casey. Bill

Good info Bob. I corrected the title. So we bought 20 C-27's for $486 million from the IAF, that's $2.43 million each and the Afghans sold 16 for $32,000 which is $2000 apiece for a loss of OUR money of $2.42 million each! I'll bet the Italians are still laughing at us. Bill

That's right folks ,16 of the 20 C-27A's that were bought for $486 million dollars by the U.S. for the Afghan Air Force, were sold for scrap for $32,000 or 6 cents per pound. That is $2000 per airplane!!!! Afghan air force said they did not meet operational requirements so they sold them for scrap to an Afghan construction company, says an article in this months Air Force magazine. Well dang, I would like to have had one for a weather vane in my front yard at 6 cents a pound. The only reason they didn't sell all 20 is because 4 are at Ramstein. The U.S. Air Force secretary is hopping mad and wants to know "WHO DUNNIT". Didn't we send them some C-130's too. Wonder what they will be sold for... 10 cents a pound? Who is running this madhouse anyway? Bill :(

Another "young Herk" was GhostRider which retired with only 13,989 hours in 38 years of flying, is way under utilized... but this is comparing apples to oranges since this is a gunship. I think it had a lot of good hours left to shoot up a bunch of bad guys. Bill

Rode that puppy 30 plus years...none better...never will be. Bill

Fine article...I love those "Rest of the story" articles. Bill

Lockheed called the H-2 the Super Hercules way back when we got them new from the factory in Nov 1982. My point was the writer danced all around the length of the -30 and LM-100J but stated the length of the plugs in the L-100-20. For Herk nuts most probably know the difference but for the vast majority of people reading the article the greater length of the fuselage on the -30 in inches or feet was not stated but that it carried 1/3 more payload. Is that in pounds or cubic feet? It don't say. Remember Lockheed stretched the C-141 to gain more cubic feet of space because we would cube out before we grossed the airplane out on most flights. Bill

Half way nice article about the Super Herks but nowhere did the article expound on the L-100-30 nor the C-130J-30 which IS the Super Herk. They spoke of the old L-100 and the L-100-20 "short stretch" but not the -30 which has the 100 inch plug fwd of the wing and the 80 inch plug aft of the wing. Except for the fancy J stuff they spoke of, half of what the "Super Herk" is all about was left out of the article. Just my thoughts. Bill

The 118th out of Nashville flew a roman nose A model into Dobbins when they picked up their first H model from Lockheed. Don't remember the number of the old girl though. Bill

Glad you didn't give up Graywolf88, you earned it!. Bill :)

You are right RavenFE about the HF ant. Must have had Ghost Rider on my brain as its pitot tubes are on the wings. Bill:)

And they vote too. Bill

I think you are right Tinwhistle about the cross hairs not being plumb. It looks to me like a standard ABCCC bird as you can see the 2 air conditioner intakes on either side of the forward fuselage and the 2 pitot tubes on the wing leading edges. I think all the Herks had this anti fatigue thing installed, called an auto pilot. Bill :)

John, only enlisted people are crew chiefs in the USAF. If your brother was a 2nd Lt. he was not an aircraft crew chief. If he ever cleaned up puke off of a C-130 it was either his own or he was a hands on helpful type of maint. officer, which would make him exceptional. We thank him for his service! Bill

Johnvan sounds like your brother was a maint. officer. At that time he could have been a job control OIC ( officer in charge) or assigned to an OMS, FMS or AMS maint. squadron as a maint. officer. And yes he would be in a Squadron which is under a Group and they would be under a Wing and they would be under a numbered Air Force and they would be under a major command, at that time at Forbes he would have been in the Tactical Air Command. If you could find any of his old AF paperwork that might tell you which unit he was in. Hope this helps. Bill

Welcome to the site MillyD. As a crew chief type my best advice on tough write-ups is to have a full formal debrief with at least one pilot, FE, nav and loadmaster. We also had a specialist from each shop present to quiz the crew. We went from a C/C debrief on the plane to a formal debrief and this cured a lot of our info problems. You also need a thick skin on this board, ha ha. Bill

We pulled the nose booms off but not the rest of the system on our birds at Hill AFB in 1971. Sure made the flt. deck quieter. Bill

Thanks Railrunner130. Do you know if it was still with the Cal. Air Guard or was it attached to the Rock when this happened? I guess it is beer cans by now. Bill

Just found a pic of my old bird I crewed , 851 (PB) at Pope during 1968-69. Does anyone know how it got it's nose smashed? Gallery pic # cn 3815J. Looks like it was attached to the Cal. Guard. Neat to see they used it as a MAFF bird. Thanks Casey and Bob...and all you fellow members who sent the pics in. Best collection I've ever seen. Bill

Thank you GMAC. All I can say is live and learn. I stand corrected. Wonder what else I learned at Lockheed that wasn't true, ha ha. Good thing I was there only 2 years...they could have scarred me for life ha ha. Bill :)

GMAC, one more question and I'm off this thread...why were there 2 different dash numbers on the pad? There was one for the military Herks with the piss tubes that dumped overboard and a different one for the L-100's which used piss cans. I was told by the folks that trained me at Lockheed it was a sacrificial anode and that is why it corrodes so easily. So, from your knowledge base what was the pad for? And what did you ever use it for? In over 30 years on the Herk I have never seen this pad used nor have used it for anything. Bill P.S. I love a good discussion like this about old HERK !!!

Scott, the aft fuselage support shown in the earlier post goes under the "Tail Skid" not on the anti-corrosion anode i.e." ramp closure pad". I installed that part on the Herk in the mid 80's at Lockheed. It is only screwed to thin sheet metal formers on top of the "belly band". It ain't a load bearing point. The tail skid is. The milk stool some folks mixed it up with, went under the aft end of the ramp while loading from a K Loader or fork lift. Bill :)

The round anode is NOT a hard point! It is an anti-corrosion device similar to those used on a ship to help ward off corrosion to the hull. This is not a load bearing point. Bill