KJamison

I remember 523 and 555 at Rhein Main in the very early 90's. It was well liked there too. A true flyer.

It is so expensive to move one of these planes. In the area of 30,000 to 50,000 dollars. Moving trucks, permits, electrical lines, routing with bridge clearance, EPA, OSHA, tear down and rebuild, proper display area, etc. I fear the worse for this plane. I would rather see it pushed into the weeds for future restoration than cut up and be gone for ever.

Yep, Slickshoes said it all.... The Flying crew chief spot is the gem. You are gone alot but you do some really cool stuff. The desert is...the desert. Kel

I have always thought of it like this. A Assault crew would be someone trained to rotate at actual Refusal with no corrections made for Vmca while a Tactical crew can do an assault take off but has to correct for Vmca.

We retired Jimbo Crawford today. He is trying to become a cop for Abilene. I moved up to Group as the FE Functional/Stan-Evil guy. I am hanging out to High year which should be 1 Dec 12. I think Chief Woods is going to beat me to fly the last H model out of here. LOL! Howz Polcat doing? Kelz

As part of the planning committee I know that we got ahold of the 39th, the 317th and the 463rd Associations and then advertised on Facebook, contacted Protocol and sent invitations out to general officers to get it into their network, Military Affairs Committee and any group we could. We took adds out in the paper, used the base paper and any sign we could get our info out on. We even did a flyby of the city with the H and J model and put news camera men on it to broadcast to Abilene and surround area. We also contact PR at Barksdale, Goodfellow, Little Rock to get the word out and contacted as many people, I think over 800 via any way we could, phone, email, etc. We organized local artist for the main art piece and a silent auction for the other art pieces. We also arranged the first drink to be free at the dinner. The local Lt. Col was Rob Hedden who has been the Director of Operations for the 39th and 40th and I believe the commander of the 317th Operations Support Squadron (I could be wrong on that one). He has logged almost 6000 in C-130’s starting his C-130 Career with me in 1993 at Dyess in the 40th so there was some history there. Most of the high timers have retired or switched jobs because of the constant deployment we have been under since 9/11. I believe Lt. Col. Hedden was the high time flyer in the group. I am a very old timer with about 4500 hours. That is how young our crews are now. We had no way of data mining every retiree’s flying hours that might or might not show up so we went with a known. The young fellow with the least amount of hours was just a book end. I personally arranged the fellow with the museum collection to be at the dinner which got a good reception. Our budget was almost zero dollars and our cost was more than you would expect putting on a modern day reunion. The list goes on and on as to the cost incurred and the only way we could get what we did was through local community involvement. It was also not just the 50 years of the C-130 but the celebration of the fantastic city of Abilene working with the C-130 folks even keeping them there during the BRAC a few years ago. The community was generous considering current economic times. We have no complaints there. A lot of us used our own money to finance things like the coins for the event knowing we would get paid back (and we have been) but we were that committed to trying to make it the best we could. I could name a civilian, a SMSgt and a dozen Captains and Lieutenants that worked their butts off especially in the contacts area not to mention all the other moving parts. We also had to coordinate a 317th Open House with all the events. There were briefings of current airdrop capabilities, tribute to fallen C-130 Airmen, and history of C-130s at Dyess by Mr. Brian Smith (Group Historian). You must have missed the very nice presentation of Ms. Kay Nehring that showed her father’s service in the 39th TCS during the Battle of Corregidor. She married up her father’s very touching letters home to the actual color footage he had shot while flying as a pilot in C-47’s. She had actual captured maps and artifacts from his time in the Pacific. It was a very nice presentation on the life of an Airlifter and how much things have not changed. There was also an open house going on at the Sim so you could see the new technology we use for training. We put out the itinerary on the Gala dinner brochures and handed them out as much as possible so people could see what they wanted to see. We even set up active duty airmen on the two different C-130 airframes so folks could talk to their counterpart of when they were active duty. We also set up an airdrop demo of CDS for anyone who wanted to brave the winds. To top it all off we were also working with the Experimental Aircraft Association to put on an airshow at Abilene Regional Airport. That coordination alone took many hours of arranging visiting military aircraft per regulations, Navy aircraft and F-16 aerial demo team, along with the logistics of visiting aircraft recovery, servicing, clearances, MX support and security. We also had the local car clubs showing cars and some local businesses showing their wares, Civil Air Patrol and all the logistics that goes with food, bathrooms, safety, sound systems, etc. It was a lot to do in a very short time with a very, very small budget. All this while the 39th was at Red Flag and the 40th was deployed to the desert. Hours and hours were spent on making it as good as we could. We started 4 months out getting everything going and even though we got great support from our host base, remember we are still a tenant unit there. We did all of this while doing our normal duties, flying, and training. Your experience might be different but I can tell you it was not for lack of effort on the Active duty guys and our fantastic civilian volunteers who tried to make it happen. If you have legitimate complaints, I would be happy to put you in touch with the event coordinator and we will put in in our “hot wash†and continuity book for next time. This letter was just a little insight into what went on. I could write another 5 pages going into the detail of all the things that went on to try to make this a special night. I might be a little sensitive of criticism because I saw firsthand the amount of work that went into this. I would like to see what experiences others who went had. You are still welcome to your opinion.

That was one of my favorite planes at Dyess. Shame. I know the LRAFB guys will get them back in top shape asap.

Am I reading this wrong or is the original question "Can you fly with the APU removed". Not inop. Actually taken out of the aircraft and the aircraft flown. Are you guys quoting the same regs for APU inop without looking at bleed air problems, open electrical, pressurization, weight and balance (kinda addressed) etc. I could be reading it wrong or reading the responses wrong. You know how the internet can be. I have never heard of a plane flying with an open cavity where the APU should be. That area stays slightly pressurized from the small scoop at the bottom but is purged by the venturi of the exhaust stack. If that area was open....? Who knows. I don't. It would be interesting if some one has done this before. I will ask a depot friend tomorrow.

Happen to Bob Makon and Greg Killiens in 1999 at Dyess. Although rare, it is not unheard of.

Bertengineer, I flew EC's during test flights. We would use 1010 all the time. The trick was to set 1010 at the end of the runway and not touch the throttles again until coming down to land. We racked up lots of hours and not a single problem. RZ is totally right on not the temp you use but how you fly. 1010 at 300 with huge temperature changes on the throttle. Sulfur and micro-fod of the blades at high temperatures, loading and unloading the engine, Assault landings, touch and go's, three eng go arounds, is a completely different kind of use than take off at 1010 and don't touch the throttles again until time to land. It seems difficult for folks to see the difference. They always seem to refer you to the Service News which is good data to booster a case for conserving turbines. I sure would like to see some data on the EC world vs the Tac-training world and the Iraq world of flying. I think you might see some interesting info. Good luck and I am following you with the Masters at ERAU. Gotta love "ERNIE".

MSRF, if you are at Dyess, I was the FE that did the FCF on that plane (72). Three FCF's followed by 3 IFE's. I know you guys R2 the engine over the weekend and FCF went perfect. All my engine runs were perfect prior to take off and as we were climbing out and I am doing the NTS checks and leading edge checks, you could see#1 oil quantity going down. Leveling off did not help and very quickly the plane gave us no choice. On the first flight I got a low prop oil light on #3 also. That kinda sucked but if you unscrew the light bulb, it doesn't bother you so much! Did you guys finally find something?