Mortarbait

Bill was a great Captain flew with him with Custom Air 727 and Tradewinds 747, HE will be missed

IT's true, It's ture.

Had a bad starter on #3 started #2 took the starter of the running engine and put on #3 started it and took off. Did this from a B4 stand. Eddie M did it with a ladder one time. Buddy starts off of 727's. Chaining struts up and taking off on 3 mains on the Herk. Flew one from Loki to Nairobi to Mombassa to Luanda on 3 engines.

If I remember right every one of the Vxe6 birds had to be field repaired at least once. I lot of people put their lives on the line so some ungrateful scientist could get an icecore sample.

Any idea who the crew were?

We used the over the wing sling on the ice. That was the only way to change engines and props in that environment. It got very sporting at -10F. Before each season we checked all mounting points on all aircraft to make sure they were good.

HerkPFE.

Don\'t know the last two people you asked about, were they ever in VXE-6?

HerkPFE. Biil Hicks was my loadmaster in the 86-87 season on the ice. Satan just arrived in the squadron as I was leaving, and I think he was an AT before he became an LDO. Don\'t know Roy williams.

I was on the ICE from 85-88 and 94-97, \"The ice is nice, But CHCH is peachey.\"

Another duty of the FO\'s on B727 was as a bird strike deflector for the FE.

DC-10FE- send me your email address, I have a story about the Humbo shootdowns.

AS far as a concrte runway near the Pole.. The ice at the pole is 10,000ft, that is a long way to dig to hit dirt. AS far as any other concrete runways, if I remember right there is a treaty that says no permanent runways allowed.

In the Navy we flew set crews while on the deployment(THE ICE) so after a month we knew each other habits. If I went to the back for something I would tell the pilots how the panel\'s were set ie, \"were on aux tanks\". That method worked well for me, if they played with the heat,while I was gone, I would set it back to where it felt good for me... AS far as navs in my seat while I was gone, I would move the prop beat under their seat, enjoyed watching their junk shake around the nav table.

In the commerical world, a PFE\'s pay scale is equal to or more then the FO\'s. The big difference between a PFE and a SO (second officer)is a PFE has an A&P licence and is a maintence and systems expert. The SO is a pilot trying to move up to right seat and has enough system knowledge to pass a check ride.

When I worked for TRANSAFRIK I tried!!! to teach the CAPT\'s and FO\'s how to start the GTC/APU just in case we had to get out of a remote area fast. I would set the panels up so when the GTC/APU came on line all they had to do was push the #3 starter button, by that time,I would hopefully be back in the seat..