Railrunner130

Thanks for sharing. That's a pretty impressive system.

Interesting. Reminds me of an occasion at Little Rock. I was going through Instructor Loadmaster School and was practicing rigging a sequential at the FUTs. Instead of tyeing the extraction chute to a "forward load", we practiced on a CDS bundle. An instructor came through with a primary student. The student asked what we were doing. I replied that we were practicing rigging a sequential heavy/CDS. They nodded and walked away. The student later asked "You can do that?" to the instructor, who nearly fell over laughing. I thought about it later. Didn't make much sense. What would work though would be to rig the extraction chute to a pair (or two) of guillotine knives on the release gates. That would eliminate the use of the static line retriever winch, thereby increasing reliability. Interesting how this new method looks like that.

Yeah. Good idea! Hurbie could use a full-fledged museum, SOC related. I know there's Eglin and Pensacola right there, but that only makes sense. And after Katrina made a mess down there, those airplanes really need to be better protected.

I won't watch Hurricane Hunters as long as it's on Weather Channel. WC is great for weather, but beyond that I can't stand it. I've been trying to get Ice Pilots to have themselves move to a different channel.

Keep in mind that there are compartment limits as well. I had a married pallet that weighed 16,000 lbs. that the load planners wanted me to put in pallet position 5. No dice bro. It would've fit in the wheel well area, but not that far back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_3 is when the mission was initiated.

Today's mission numbers are significantly more complex than this. I believe the 246- would indicate that the mission was initiated on the 246th day of the year. I don't know if it is utilizing local time or zulu time to determine the date. I have no clue what the rest indicates.

Yeah. I'm not sure what to make of it all. I think AF Magazine had a comment in there that the governors still weren't happy. While it seemed like Texas had a good campaign going to save them from giving their planes to Montana, it sounds like a dead issue now. I don't know if they won or not. I wonder if they're trying to save the A-10s now too. I don't think anyone wants to save the C-5A and the Guard would certainly benefit from the C-17 for disaster relief efforts. We were told recently that our 84's were now scheduled to go to DM and that we'd get newer airplanes. I haven't seen anything in writing about it. I wonder if saving these 24 prevents that from happening. Even if you figure in the Aircat data, these airplanes still have a good, long, useful life left ahead of them.

Haha. That's funny I don't care who you are.

They really do need to rename it. Reminds me too much of Harvest Falcon. (field latrine kit)

I can't imagine there'd be two Otto Feathers running around in the Herk world.

I served under Col Feather at a deployed location in 2005 (I think). Class act. http://www.stripes.com/news/old-air-force-dog-taking-new-friend-with-him-into-retirement-1.172456

It sounds really, really ugly.

I remember talking to 141 guys that liked to skateboard in the back on Prof lines, particularly during the touch and go portions.

Nice. Too bad it's not true...

That's the one! Good find.

I read something- can't find it now, that all the ANG AGs and 49 Governors signed a petition against the proposed budget. Looks like a wild ride is ahead!

It looks like the fire started above the chain box? Am I seeing this correctly? Either way, what caused it? I'd suspect the aux pump, but both the pump and reservoir appear to be ok. Maybe a line blew? Perhaps it's just how the photo was taken.

Yeah. I ran across that myself somewhere... I'm interested to find out what the damage looks like and the cause. Glad nobody was hurt. "Blaze in the back"....? Aux pump? It is/was a tanker, so perhaps a fuel pump for the refuelling system.

I was there last spring and didn't see any Herk other than the one we rode in on. However, I do believe that the Polish C-130 that had a run in with some trees landed there. The Polish numbered it 1506.

You'd think they would've gone into Gabreski, where the Rescue unit is. Cool anyway. Good for them.

You need to get in contact with the Lockheed Martin people at the C-130 Center for Excellence at Little Rock AFB. I just ordered courseware but I forget who I was dealing with. If you get the ATS Courseware CDs, contact the person listed on the contact sheet.

When I first read Dave's statement about CRW going Spec Ops, the first thing I thought of was maybe they're trying to get their 88's back!?

I believe Charlie West isn't being touched. Going Spec Ops is an interesting move. Seems like everyone would want to go in that direction because their budget has been untouched and possibly growing. Problem is, that means the unit is always deployed.

I guess Senator Byrd's legacy remains.... He was trying to get them C-17s back around 2000.