larry myers

OMG!!! That might be extremely uncomfortable for numerous posters on the web site. Would this invite include Crazy Jane?

Dan, Living in a 39 ft. trailer will surely test the strength of your marrage. If your still together upon completion of your rebuild your marrage will withstand anything.

davis, No dave, although it would probably increase the rate of climb don't think J truss mounts would take the power. If I had to choose it would be the T56 since I knew how to work on it. Didn't know anything about the TF30 except it was unreliable and a bear to work on. One good thing was in zone 5 (max. afterburner) you could roast marshmallows at 50 feet.

Dave, This radome was part of the classified gear carried by both the A and B Rivet Victor acft. As such it was operated and maintained by the Security Service personnel that flew in the back of the acft. Because of the classification the acft. flt. and ground crews had little or no knowledge of this equipment. That being said we had one acft. 56-535 with this radome. There are several photos in the gallery of A-II and B-II acft., however, because the radome was between the MLG it can't be seen. If memory serves, seem to recall the -1 stated the acft. could be landed with the radome extended without damage to the radome. This, however, proved to not be the case. We had an incident wherein the radome failed in the extended position inflight. The acft. was forced to land with the radome extended. This resulted in heavy contact with the runway which in turn caused extensive damage to the radome. So much for -1 guidance.

Pat, Piece of cake. Worked on the flt. line for about twenty three of my thirty year career, mostly around C-130s and F-111s. When my wife and kids started to complain the TV was too loud decided to get a hearing exam. Made an appointment at the Wright Patt Medical Center. Sure enough, hearing shot. Talked to the VA rep. Several weeks later had brand new state of the art hearing aids. The VA rep. said they were the best aids on the market and to buy them in town would cost about $5k. Unlike CharlieLifeSupport did not persure the disability part but have several friends who did and qualified easily. At the onset was expecting pushback but the process was painless and the VA rep. was on my side.

T-56s do indeed sound great but so does the TF-30P100 running in zone 5.

As I recall when the Minot temperture reaches -40F all flt. line maint. ceases.

Good to hear you are doing well. Must say am not surprised. Followed your saga earlier in the year and was impressed with your resilience and acceptance of some great advice by several wise old heads on the site. Keep your head down and ears open and you'll do ok. It's normal to worry your not going to make it. Know that many troops have completed the training who were a lot less smarter and way less motivated than you. You have a long tough road ahead but anything worth while, such as becoming a loadmaster, is well worth it. Keep us apprised of your progress. And good luck. Myers

Skip, If your talking about the 37th, am sure I was one of those knuckhead crew chiefs to whom you gave said training. Was well aware how happy you drivers were to provide such activity. At the time I thought it was good training, as many engine run troops had never experienced jumping chocks, how to avoid it, had no idea how fast it happened and how far the acft. would travel. Been there, done that. Hard on the blood pressure. First time running an A model, in the parking spot in front of the hanger, advanced thottles to crossover. Acft. jumped chocks heading for hanger doors. Darn good thing reverse worked. Must have been at least six hands on the throttles. By the time we got it stopped it was back on the spot. Come to find out when the dummy in the FM seat shut down the GTC he also shut down the ATM which in turn disabled the emergency brakes. One other time was running on a very slippery winter ramp and the acft. started to slide and simply pushed the chocks out. Deliberate throttle movement, keeping one eye outside, ramp fuel load, and adquate ramp in front of acft. keep me out of hot water, at least as far a eng. runup was concerned. Not talking about the rest. At Langley someone dreamed up a homemade steel runup chock. Was never a fan. Someone managed to get an acft. on top of this chock, ruining the tire and wheel and causing much uneeded excitment. On the other hand any faith the wooden chock was going to stop the excersion was badly misplaced. Was a big fan of continuing training and awareness. Unlike ops. there was no recurring checkride. When I got to Langley, spent about 20 mins. in the simulator, and magic,was engine run qualified.

OK, ten I get it. So when do we go to 100% flaps?:)

Very funny. In 30 years in mx., 14 as a crew chief, this is the first time have seen this. Didn't realize how deprived I was. The really funny part is much of it is true. Thanks OEO for the posting. Made my day.

No surprise many procedures have changed since my day, 60s-70s. In those days, the engine run cklist. called for flaps up. If you were observed running engines with flaps in any position other than full up, you were, in most instances, hauled on the carpet. The concern was excessive heat on the 20 man life rafts. In any case seems to me the flaps are more fragile that the tail. Recall we had some mission profiles were we flew with 10% flaps. As a result, flaps were beat up enough to require depot level mx. usually at the next phase insp. Our sheet metal shop was outstanding, accomplishing this mx. without removing affected flaps from the wing.

I would say she is contributing to an improvement in the PAF spares posture.

Was in a spook A model outfit in mid 60s. Our mission altitude was 32,000 ft., 150kias, 10% flaps. Early on, cabin altitude was 10,000ft. When landing after an 8.7 hr. mission believe me, you were beat. After much complaining we succeded in getting an expired TCTO cw that strengthned fuseladge skin. After that cabin altitude was 3,500 ft. Time to climb was on the order of 45 mins. At cruise, engine fuel flow would be about 500 pph, total ff of about 2,000 pph . Mission takeoff weight was always at or very near max gross takeoff weight. During phase inspection it was not unusuall to do depot level mx on the flaps. Our sheet metal honcho, a SSgt, was supurb.

OK Tiny, work your magic and help this young trooper out.

Dan, Hope everthing goes without a hitch. When you first posted photos of your new house, I thought omg. But looking at the latest picture this house has good bones and am sure when you get done with it, it will be a fine home. Am sure by the time you are finished you will be a much better carpenter, mason, plumber, dry waller, painter, ect ect. If I was to move the first thing I would do is go out the back door and puke my guts out. Then would probably go awol. Have lived here for 23 years but during my time in the AF the longest lived anywhere was four years. Good luck. Hoping you keep us advised as to how the renovation progresses. Myers

At Lakenheath the we had a 15 minute nuc. alert commitment. Alert acft. mx. was part of my job. About once a month would call the MSgt. NCOIC to advise several of us intended to visit about lunch time. He was a smart guy and always asked the alert mess hall supvr. to do something special for us. So six or seven of us enlisted pukes would go through the chow line with the alert crews (pilots'/wsos') while they got pork or hamburger we got steak. Not surprising this caused some grumbling in the ranks. Don't think they ever figured out was the hell was going on. Oh yea, almost forgot, best mess hall. Several come to mind. At Incerlik in the early 60s there was a small mess hall across the street from the swimming pool. At the time it was open the SSgts and above. The fruits and vegtables were out of this world. In the early 70s TAC begain converting GI type mess halls to a more civilian decor. Booths, curtains, tablecloths, ect. Perhaps most important, the AF begain sending selected cooks to highly regarded civilian culinary arts schools. The first one of these uprated mess halls was at Shaw. Was assigned TAC Hqs at the time. We would check out a 131and fly to Shaw for lunch. The food was well worth the trip. Lastly the facility at RM was also great. Every Sun. morning was steak and eggs. The mess hall was about half a block from our barracks. Any longer, would not have made it as was not over the Saturday night partying in downtown Frankfort.

This is what tactical airlifters do best, that is on the rare occasion when it is used on a tactical mission. It appears the ex141 drivers have learned well how to back. During the AMST DT@E, max effort landings like this one were an almost daily occurance. Touchdown down at 85 knots, stop in less that 1800 ft. What was weird was that as the acft. begain final approach for a stol landing and the flaps were deployed, the crew had to throttle up to overcome drag induced by the large flaps hanging out. The flap position created so much downward exhaust flow it created a dust cloud as the acft. came over the fence. So instead of throttles comming back with a corresponding decrease in engine noise as the acft. neared touchdown it was just the opposite on the YC-14/15. Notice the acft. is flown to touchdown without flare. During the test program we took both acft. on the road to allow line C-130 pilots to fly them. It was humerous to watch these pilots try to flare the acft only to have it float several thousand feet down the runway before at last touching down.

Tiny, So very sorry to hear of your loss. My prayers are with you. Regards, Myers

The home office keeps telling me that they are going to keep me on with stop loss. I tell them I have over 1100 hours of sick leave, and I will develop a case of Anal Glaucoma, wherein I can't see my ass going in to work.

I have a soft spot in my heart for AFETS. One more that one occasion AFETS bailed my SSgt cr/ch butt out of trouble. So, it's no surprise that I think AFETS are worth thier weight in gold and every outfit should have at least one assigned. In the 316th we were lucky enough to have an outstanding APG AFETS. Am sorry don't remember his name but can say we kept him very busy. He was always out and about, on the flt. line, in the phase dock, back shops, almost never in his office. He would tackle any problem from anyone. And he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty. As I recall, in the late 60s, early 70s, all TAC 130 wings were authorized an AFETS position. Some years later was in a TAC HQs meeting when a talking head suggested all AFETS positions be eliminated to save money. Made it clear in no uncertain terms the C-130 office would not sign off on any such dumb ass idea. Was pleasantly surprised when, after joining this web site, became aware ACC still had AFETS. Usually, in it's inifite wisdom, the air force does away with programs that are beneficial at the lowest level, eg., unit I level maintenance. It's easy to judge how much AFETS contribute to readness by the quality of the data in thier threads/posts. Am sure the Moody outfit will miss Tiny's expertise when he retires. Do they have Stop Loss for AFETS?

The old girl, S9-BAT, looks like she has been rode hard and put away wet many many times. Like most people on this site, hate to see herks die.

Skip, Had some knowledge of this mishap as I was part of the maintenance side of the accident investigation board. It was at night and a SC ANG F-102 was flying an intercept on the Talon. He was being vectored by a ground control intercept operator. At the same time the duece pilot was taking direction from the GCI, he was flying the aircraft with his face in the scope. He struck the Talon in the trailing edge of the wing between number three and four engines about halfway up the 102s windscreen. This broke the Talons outboard wing off and aircraft went in pretty much in one piece. The wing, if I recall, was found between 1/2 and one mile from the crash site. The cause was determined to be misunderstanding in the communication between the GCI operator and the 102 pilot. It was common practice when flying intercepts that radio transmission between pilots and controllers involved the use of a great deal of jargon. In this case the controller said one thing and the pilot thought he said something else. Recall there were a large number to troops on the Talon, the number 28 comes to mind. From this experience I learned was not cut out to be an aircraft accident investigator. At the site was climbing into the crater and turned over a large piece of sheet metal. Beneath it was a leg from the knee down with the boot still attached. It was some time getting over the shock of this experience. When I got back to Langley told my boss was not cut out to do this job. They were not too happy with me as the command had recently spent money to send me to UCLA for this stuff. Didn't matter what I wanted as had to go on one more accident before being reassigned to the AFOTEC.

Am sure Tiny can point you in right direction.

My view is the active duty air force intends to gut Guard/Reserve flying units. After reading this thread am more convinced. Example...the VA ANG's 192 FW. Used to be a highly compenent unit based at Richmond Int. Airport with thier own aircraft, ramp, facilities ect. When was the last time anyone saw a fighter with the 192nd fin flash? Currently the unit's personnel are pretty much integerated with the 1st FW at Langley. May be a 192nd pilot in the seat and a 192nd crew chief launching him but the fin flash is FF.