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timcoppin

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Posts posted by timcoppin

  1. I worked 224 as an assistant crew chief in the Ca. Air Guard from 1983 until Patrick got her in 2000 when we got the MC's. While I was there, she had Dave Cantrell, Wayne Watt and Rommel Struckus her crew chiefs. Took her on numerous SARs and trips, good airplane.

    224 has the distinction of assisting in the longest (at that time) over water SAR involving a help. 1986, an ocean going tug, midway between Hawaii and Seattle had an engine room explosion. 224 launched, arrivived on scene, and after dropping a 4 man PJ team, dropped all of the emergency water jugs in the back. After coming home, she sat for a day, then escorted one of our HH-3's out to the USS Ranger(about 1000 miles) that had changed her heading to meet with a Japanese freighter that had changed course to meet the tug. The following day, 224 escorted a Navy C-2 carrying the victims back to the burn center at Stanford hospital. Once the Ranger got to 500 miles out, 224 again went out and escorted the H-3 back.

    I understand she had to get a new vert stab due o corrosion, and was having center wing issues, and it sure is sad to see her go away.

  2. I saw this many, many moons ago on 60221. It was doing the same thing, only with the E-4 autopilot, and as well had been doing it for many years.

    The fix was found to be the elevator trim tab actuators (jackscrews). The maintenance books say to ops check them you run them up and down. What they wern't saying (and was figured out by another crew chief, Tony Jeffrey) was there needs to be an air load applied to the trim tabs whiole running them. Do this by allpying a small amount of pressure to the tab just aft of where the actuator attaches to it while running the tabs. What you will most likley hear is a banging coming from inside the elevator, at the forward end of the actuator. This is the internals of the actuators slipping. The actuators have no time change (we asked for this several years ago, late 1980's), and are a real "mother" to remove. I'd recommend removing the elevator and soaking the bolts with penetrating oil. We did this on 60223 in around 2001 when the banging was discovered on it. After a week of "whenever anyone walks by, squirt oil on the bolts", it still took using a rivet gun and angled rivet set to remove the bolts, as they were siezed in the rod end that rotates. Also, keep in mind, that the trim tab cables used to be a 6000 time change, don't know if they still are, and are usually "forgotten" due to the fun of replacing them, so this would be a great time to replace them, too.

    We asked for changes to the books several years ago, to add in the simulated air load and a time change for the actuators, but were ignored.

  3. Hence the problem. Hey, if I got to do without, so be it. I do know that as long as we as Americans continue to send our manufacturing overseas, we\'re in real trouble. Does anyone remember what got us (the Allies) thru WW2? It wasn\'t France building the best airplanes, China building the cheapest widget, Mexico building the trucks. No, it was the U.S. Industry building most of the equipment for all the Allies, including the USSR. We as a society need to reset the pride that this country used to have. If that doesn\'t happen, God only knows what will happen.

  4. The thing that bothers me isn\'t losing my job, but the precedance that was set by:

    1. Buying the Falcon for the Coast Guard from outside the U.S.

    2. Buying the Dolphin for the Coast Guard from outside the U.S.

    3. Buying the replacement for the H-3 for the Presidential fleet from outside the U.S.

    4. Now, the tanker from outside the U.S.

    This is a direct slap in the face to EACH AND EVERY AMERICAN and should not be tolerated. Send all of your rep\'s an e-mail. Send the White House e-mails. Hell, send e-mails to the SecDef, SecAF, anyone that has some pull. We as a collective need to stop the sell-out of America!

    Starting yesterday, I am not buying anything that is not assembled by American workers. If a country has their tech support outside the U.S., I refuse to deal with them and am sending their corporate folks e-mails. It\'s time to retake our country.

  5. When we had our HC\'s until 2000, they all had the flare launcher system activated. The LUU-4\'s were stored on racks on either side of the cargo door (6 each side), the MK-25\'s and MK-6\'s were stored in the cargo door. When we received the MC\'s in 2000, the flare system was working (they all leaked, but worked) and we had to replace most of the LUU-4 brackets. And Dan is right, normally the loads would just toss the pryo out. I do remember tubes 9, 10 being loaded during night, overwater AR training flights, tho. Always fun to find a tube loaded during the BPO.

  6. The only hydraulic actuated pyro on the HC/ MC-P\'s are the flare tubes on the cargo door. All other pyro is ECM. My guess is you haven\'t had to check the system before because when I left rescue in 2005, there wasn\'t much use of the system.

  7. ec130crewchief wrote:

    [quote

    Helped pull the ODS system out of the HC\'s in the late 1980\'s-we all thought that it was the wrong move. The removal had nothing to do with the SOFI mod-it predated that mod by a few years.]

    I was in one of the last units (Moffett) that had ODS\'s on our HC\'s. When we gave up 981 and 221, they both still had their\'s and that was 2000. 983\'s had been removed in 1990 during H to P conversion, and 224 had lost her\'s during PDM in 2000, just before Patrick got her. I beleive New York had their\'s taken out during the 241 mod. The biggest problem (besides being a head smacker) was parts. The only things we could get were the intervelometer and possibly the cable, but that was about it. And, taking it out saved, IIRC, 1500lbs. The only thing we used it for was taking the Benson tanks in and out, and for Shuttle Launch missions. NASA had a requirement for an MA-1 kit to be rigged, as well as having 3 RAMZ packages.

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