Retired Talon F/E

I think your crew chief is a wannabe or smoking something. I did a HALO from 32K over Spain in a Talon back in the 80's and let me tell you it was no pic nic. I calculated and we took off with 26k on fuel and I can tell it was the worst flight I was ever on. 2 no-drops with all the prebreathing and the old helmets it was miserable. At that altitude you had to get clearance from the Doc. and he with a med tech had to be on board. 61k, now that's a joke.

The video has been around for a few years on the Stray Goose site. Except for 547, 558, 563 and 564 I flew on all the others. I can look back and say it was the highlight of my military career. The acft. had so many upgrades it was a shame to boneyard them. Technology killed them, a long story.

When I was at Lockbourne in '69 there was two A models with 4 bladed props. I was told they were there for testing.

I don't know if this changed or not but years ago we used to have problems now and then with the C-12 compasses. The issue then was the access panel for the flux valve. Then the panel required brass screws screws instead of steel. Sometimes they would get a brass screw get stripped and mistakenly replaced with steel. But, then again that was a long time ago.

When I was at CCK I worked in the reventments performing phase inspections on the ABCCC's in 68/69. They came from Vietnam or Thighland, I forget which and they never had the capsule in them when we got them.

With this little info. there a host of possible things that could be the problem. First putting a tach on the speed sensing control only gives you engine rpm, not prop. It sounds like the engine is doing what it is supposed to do , run at 100%. As stated above is the flux in mech and normal gov. or both. have you changed the valve housing. If it is a true 5% flux you are going to hear it. I think if it is an indicating system you should see it just dropping the throttle over the gate, not just at power. Too many loose ends here.

If you want to know all there is to know about Talon 1's go to straygoose.org. There is a very well done video by Ron Rowe on the life and history of Blackbirds.

First, If you had read my comments you would have seen that the crew chiefs had ELECTED to stay with the acft. not left behind! Second, on ops. stops the crew was told if there was ANYTHING done on the acft.

When I was going through BFE at Little Rock the F/E instructor taught me that the only thing you hang your helmit bag on the back of the co-pilots seat with is the nose gear pin. That way you will never forget it. Fast forward a few years and on a short trip to Pope to do troop drops we took a couple of crew chiefs. The acft. had a temp. nose gear pin. We shut down to wait for the first couple of sticks to show up for the drops and of course they were late so we went to the snack bar to grab some chow. The chiefs elected to stay with the acft. One of them went to Popes bench and got the correct pin and installed it. Only they didnot tell me. We get back to the acft. and I See that my bag is still hanging from the back of the co-pilots seat. I had a good LM who after all engines were started checked for the nose pin prior closing the crew door. Well he stood in front of the acft. and asked me if I needed this (the nlg pin). I said I have the NLG pin right next to me and to throw that one in the trash can. After landing the chief and me had words, alot of them.

You don't have to repeat yourself Vic, we read you the first time;)

These items sometimes don't catch up with the times. These are VERY slow to catch up with the mods or upgrades with the acft. When I was in the school house many times we challenged them and NOBODY knew why or how they were there.

That primer was to get oil to the pressure switch. If the switch didn't read 2-3 psi it would not allow fuel for starting.

One thing I will add; Did you trace the fuel from the manifold to the armpit valve. This is probably before your time but in the 80's we had a big problem with fuel tank foam breakdown. We would get fuel pressure low lights because foam clogging fuel heater strainers at high power settings. Depot was supposed to have solved this years ago but they are only human they may have missed something. They can miss items to. Think not, how about #1 fuel tank on 64-0551.

Pilots probably love it. No more F/E yelling at him. ;)

This is a P.S. to my previous entry. I didn't make anything of where you are from, that's your excuse. I wasn't speaking from a high horse it was 23 years of active duty working and flying herks followed by 22 years of teaching Mission qual. course, Annual acft. systems refresher course, annual Simulator refresher and mixed in the last 22 years was 15 years of teaching initial engine run course. I don't know all there is to know about B,E, and early H's but I have my share of knowledge. The one thing that amazed me most was when teaching the engine run course how much missinformation, incorrect operation and urban legend on the operation of the herk. It all comes down to passed on bad info. that after a while becomes gospel and standard procedure with no explanation of how or why. Just that, "that is what we were told or shown how to do"

Now you have me confused; first you say that the boost pump is on to start the GTC then you say after you start it you turn the pump on to feed the GTC. By the way the crossfeed valves are 28V DC, they don't require the inverter to be powered. Inverters convert DC to AC through a small generator. Get in the books!

Please write Lockheed Martin and tell them you have rewritten the definition of the C-130. It is no longer a self contained acft. That or all the ones I flew on had a problem because ours didn't require require a boost pump to start a GTC! I guess it always had to carry a power cart with it whenever it left home station. It'll never make it to the -1, that will limit it's capability. As far as an APU, that would solve the problem but very costly. In the 80's our chief of DOV pressed for all the T-1's get APU's. You know what killed it $$$$$ a million a pop. That was 80's money. Or buy J's.

This would be a maint. response when they can't figure out what the problem is. I guess your planes never make a self contained start. Because if there is no external AC power to run the pump then you can't start your GTC, according to to your statement. Of course the x-feed valve has to be open to get fuel from the tank.

How's this for thought; Gary Kings death is the 5th C-130 F/E that I know of who died prematurely (50's) of some form of cancer not related to smoking.

I seem to remember that when I attended the Rolls Royce school years ago that they said Rolls produced and sold a kit to convert -7's to -15's. They tried selling them to the USAF but they turned them down. I guess it made too much sense to standardize to only -15's.

I assume that they are not finished with it yet. It still has the arrival paint scheme on it. The one at Hurby is painted what it never had shiny black and green and most of the ecm antennas were replaced with out dated external equipment. But it always did have a mixture of old and up to date equipment.

I have to correct you on something you said. It was a ceremony by the Air Force Reserve. There wasn't one word from the Active Air Force of a job well done or the presence of AFSOC leadership. It was well done though. The 711th treated and used the acft. well over the years. Having been associated with them in the school house for the entire time they had the Talons I can say there're a damn fine group of people. Good luck with the Truck.