Railrunner130

Very nice!

We were talking a bit about the C-130 charcachure that was done for our unit probably 30 years ago. I don't know who did it, but I'm pretty sure it was by a civilian/retired military guy that lived near Pope AFB. Does anyone know who I'm talking about and/or have further information?

I can sorta relate. A few months back, we carried a female Army aviation ?squadron? commander while in the desert. She promised to take us to some outposts if we could get the necessary paperwork signed by our squadron commander. My AC gently asked the question was told "hell no" and was promised a good frying should we attempt such a thing.

A fellow Loadmaster (who was a C-5 guy for a while) had been on a flight where another Load had started the APU on a Blackhawk mid-flight. Imagine explaining that one!

There's more truth to that statement than anyone is willing to admit.

Um.... How does one retire with five years of service?

I'm not that old, but had the privilage of crewing her while attending Instructor school with the Little Rock Guard. It's hard for me to believe I've crewed an airplane in the Air Force Museum. From what I recall, I was on her several times and we came back without a write-up every time.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=20020807-0

I worked for a maintance facility a long time ago. When they told me about this, I thought they were sending me on a wild goose chase, like ordering a gallon of prop wash. Come to find out, bacteria really does live in fuel. There is a product called Biobore or something like that which is supposed to kill off that bacteria. So, that part is true. I'd tend to believe a Herk would be brought down by lightning long before bacteria would get it.

If the engines could be upgraded for a nominal fee while the airplane is at PDM or the engines are at WRAFB for maintenance I think that would be a great help. Especially if there is a very favorable reduction in fuel consumption. Problem is, how do you get the performance data etc. required to update the manuals and such?

There's a deal where if you spend so much time in the AOR, you get to collect six months early. I was "lucky" in that I qualified for it this last go round, despite numerous rotations of sufficient length before the new rule went into effect. I don't recall anything about retiring early, though that may be part of the same deal.

I'm trying not to get too worked up about it yet. Looks like it'd be good for the kids that are one and done. For people like myself that have our twenty, things MAY not change. But, I have a feeling that we may get screwed in the end.

It's a weight/heat/wind thing. Back during OIF, we had crews at one particular slightly forward location that had bog downs and other issues because the airplanes can't back in those conditions. They were nosed into parking and just couldn't deal with it. One crew had their loadmaster nearly completely close the ramp and door (the ramp was open enough to see behind the airplane) and they were able to back out that way. Odd and not great, but it worked.

I took a Grumman Yankee into Bader about 15 years ago. That place was too tight for it! Either way, Bader is gone. The city uses it to train firefighters and the like to drive. That's a case where the city was allowed to grow, despite the fact that the airport was there first.

I can see implementing the NP2000 because it's already sortof in the pipeline. At least it's being evaluated, that's most of the battle. What's EPCS? I like your thinking on the M-model. Unfortunately we all know that won't happen. My point is that the Herk community shouldn't be like the C-141C, an upgrade in the last couple years of it's service life. It should be something that can be implemented sooner than later, not cost a fortune, but it would really make a difference.

Perhaps it's my perception, but to do anything beyond upgrading the engines themselves would be a waste of funds and time.

I saw a new photo of a Baltimore C-130J heading up the beach the other day, so they're not out of the business quite yet.

Great find!! I'm not sure, but I think 96-8154 is mislabeled. It should be a Keesler airplane.

I saw one of their slicks a few years back. I don't recall the tail number, but it did have the 193 in the tail number. It was a shorty-J, painted in the SOC paint scheme. Looked pretty sharp too.

I'm a Loadmaster, so I'm probably not the person to answer this. Take it with a grain of salt. We had a similar issue not too long ago. They ended up replacing the filter sock on the A/C Turbine and that resolved the issue. Hope that helps!

Not to totally change the subject, but Harrisburg I think has two slick Js. I went through the database and couldn't find them. Any ideas what tails they are?

I imagine the system on the 141 would've been too bulky to work on the Herk. And if it was still extended during an ERO (either by accident or broken) when it was time to skeedattle.... That would not be good. Thoughts?

We don't put empty pallets on the floor for seating purposes. I have had to combat load troops, but we just used a slick floor. I can't remember how the troops were secured. I think they might've had some restraint belt. That was only once, back on '03. The "kinder, gentler USAF" wants us to utilize seats and takes it very seriously when we don't.

While I can't comment on Vietnam, OIF/OEF used to run a lot like that. You pretty well knew if you had a slick floor, you were either flying empty or getting a full load of pax. Maybe a vehicle with a pallet on the ramp. All you could do was wait and see. I had a Joint Forge rotation that I was the only Loadmaster on the crew and we had a bunch of Aeromeds on board. The MCD mentioned that they needed seat set-up practice. They got it! This last OEF rotation, knock on wood, we did very few large configuration changes. Lots of CP-3 to CP-4 and vice versa. But that's no big deal. For the big stuff, we usually are fortunate enough to have front-enders that are willing to come back and help out. The Army ATOC (I think they're called ADAG or something like that.) usually knows what configuration they have to utilize before we leave our MOB. Sometimes they ignore it.

That's LCLA airdrops in a nutshell. Not exactly, but you have the idea. It's pretty much over-engineering the concept of bundle drops, which date back to WWII.