jbob

Mike I used to fly with one of the gunship pilots from those missions. Pete King I think was his name. I remember him telling me the story of that incident. Who they could and couldn't shoot at!

Funky ADI and HSI! That's the FCS-105 flight director. ;-) And dude the 241 radar didn't come out until WAY after the H2s were delivered. What you're seeing are modded H2s with the 241. You must be young. :-) Main differences are: H2s had the Bleed Air Divider Valve, FCS-105 Flight Director. There may have been some minor differences but those two were perhaps the main ones. I'm not sure about the flush toilets. They slowly made gradual changes to the H2 line all the way until the H3s were delivered. When did the old dual INS first start showing up? Now I forget when the 3000 psi brake pressures came about. Edit: I will say I'm talking about H2's as delivered from Lockheed. Trying to compare differences now would be fruitless due to all the post delivery mods.

Oh wow, they finally finished testing the new system huh? We had started testing back before I retired. It was dog eat dog for a long time with all the testing criteria that was required. The lead test engineer was a civil service friend collocated with us at the 339th. I think he got tired of dealing with all the crap involved and turned it over to someone else before he retired. I was gonna try and get qualified flying the Charlotte but never happened.

I get this newsletter from some guy in the Phillipines who keeps up with retiree/VA issues. Apparently there was some Seniors survey that was tracking SSA decreases for this year. That might be a bonus as it seem there may be some emergency legislation to get a retiree pay increase for this year.

Good luck, again, to ya Sam! Now someone ask him why he can't go back home to Scotland! ;-)

Boy after reading this thread I wish I could remember what to suggest. Many times we had Anti-skid issues at Robins with planes coming out of PDM. We had this one plane we taxied I don't know how many times to try and figure out what was causing it. We'd be hanging off the ramp looking underneath the airplane to see which wheel was skidding. I can remember similar issues as this thread suggests. Brakes pulsing but blow 15 knots. Too many years gone by now. Maybe Scott Stansfield will see this and post his reply. He'll probably remember it.

Depends on what herass looks like!

Uh, not a good example. We drove .8 "miles"(not mile) to get there. ;-) With that example we've broken the trip down to less than a mile in different increments however. In the example being discussed it was mile(s) above, as in whole numbers, not tenth's of a mile above. Pete you worked AMP too long! lol Are you back living in the area?

Actually it'd have to be 2 or more to be plural. Feet yes, miles no! You can't have a "plural" of one. ;-)

The info posted here is incomplete and does not reflect all the findings. It is true about the AC. If I'm not mistaken both pilots were AC qualified. I knew the FE(Lee Munson). He had been at Chicago but transferred when they closed Chicago. He died in the post crash fire as he was unable to evacuate the crash due to a broken neck sustained when the aircraft dropped off the end of the runway. The aircraft had made two unsuccessful attempts at landing. On the third try they landed long. But the real problem is they did not apply brakes until way too late. By Herk standards this is not a short field and does not require assault procedures. I think it's like 6000(6003?) feet. It does require a modified approach due to a hill on the approach end however. For whatever reason after touchdown the crew did not apply brakes immediately. This delay basically caused the aircraft to run out of the runway required to stop successfully. The CVR showed the cockpit was pretty silent as well. Let that be a lesson...don't let the officers kill you! More about the AC. For whatever reasons he was having trouble getting his phase 2 complete at LR. They ended up sending him home and MIL was gonna finish his TAC stuff. He had been a F4 backseater. He had trouble at C Springs. Should have been washed out there. But he had a high ranking relative somewhere. Plenty of opportunities to get rid of this guy but as usual he was just pawned off as someone else's problem. I don't think I ever read why they delayed getting on the brakes immediately after landing. I assumed they must have been thinking of going around thinking they landed too long to stop. But in that time they ate up too much runway so had to try and stop. I wanna say there was like a 10 second delay between touchdown and brake initiation. I was TDY to Honduras in Sept 1983 and flew out of there for a month. The first time we landed there I had two ACs sitting up front. We missed approach the first attempt but made it on the 2nd attempt. Neither pilot had been there before and both were within like a day or two from becoming non current for landing. We landed long and very HOT. We touched down halfway down the runway and the Doppler showed 163 knots ground speed. The pilot got on the binders and we stopped with no problems. We were all that light either. We had taken off from Howard that early morning at 163,000 lbs. Don't ask me! ;-) Pat Davis was one of the ACs. Later went to fly U2s. The other one was Jerry Dismang(or whizbang as he was called) I'm sure the Keesler guys(815th) knew of him too. An interesting side note while there we sat on the civilian side after landing one day waiting for a DC-9(C whatever!) to land. It was actually a US military plane carrying the then SecDef Cap Weinberger. We watched as they too landed long, about mid field. My heart began racing as I thought they might not be able to stop. But they did and taxied over to the military side as well.

I was gonna ask about the ramp and doors being open for this refueling. Pretty sure they're above 150 but seems that one's been answered. If you read what this guy said on the right as the video is playing he says they were miles above Iraq. Couldn't have been too many miles since they were depressurized. ;-) Actually probably less than 2. lol

Don while you're thoughts are honorable they are misguided. We are usually always treating the symptoms rather than the cause. Much of the world starvation you talk about and have supported is caused by corrupt governments and men. Plain and simple. We/they'd do better to topple these dictators and install a more friendly leadership. That would go further in helping prevent all these tragedies all over the globe. In this specific case the destruction was caused my mother nature however it is the corrupt government of Haiti that is making this disaster much worse than it should be.

I never knew that about Brian Gomula. Met him while working at 9AF and doing the Stan/Eval thing with the 109th at Schenectady. Lucky dog he is.

Thanks to the liberal voters in this country now I'm seeing a tax increase in my retired pay. What makes this worse is we retirees didn't get a pay raise for 2010 so in effect what we're now seeing is a pay DECREASE! Anyone else(retirees) notice this? My FITW went up a little over $9.00 a month. All else remains the same. I know 9 bucks is not a lot but it's the principle. I didn't spend 27 years of my life defending my country to put up with this shiite. ;-)

Ralph I'm in LR now. We exchanged some emails back in 04 after I retired. We were in the 61st together back around 82 till you retired in 86. I was a newbie back then.

Funny you say that. I remember the same discussions back in my early days of flying in the 61st. Some would say if we get into a shooting war we wanted to fly with Ralph. Surely after 4 crashes he wouldn't get into any more. Then there were those who said but dangit after 4 crashes maybe he's snake bit. Guess it depends on which side of the fence you were on. lol This was all in good spirited fun of course.

Looks like us retirees will not be getting a COLA next year. Apparently this is due to a negative cost of living for this year. However if that is the case then why are the active duty guys getting a COLA for next year? Hint...I certainly do not wish to take anything away from the AD guys but it should at least make sense.

C-130"D"!!!!! They haven't flown "D's" in many, many years. Make that MANY years! lol They also can't drop the bottles either from inside the plane. Procedurally they do not light the bottles unless they can get the nose ski off the ground/ice. I flew with them too but only as an observer/examiner. Although I was qualified on the LCs I was not mission qualified.

They didn't have duals when they first appeared. The FY92 H3s came with single INU. I think the FY93 H3s came with dual INU. I think the earlier models have since been retrofitted. As to the ADI select switch I think it has something to do with attitude reference inputs. Been a while out of the plane now and without something to read I'm straining my memory. For the overspeed inspections, a good point was made about the sloping longeron support for the high speed ramp aircraft. Unless it has to do with empennage twisting during an overspeed which is less on the aircraft with the enhanced sloping longerons.

Ralph Bemis, the Load, is retired in the Little Rock area. Used to fly with him. I think he's been in like 3 or 4 crashes/mishaps.

I stand corrected. FY 78 not 79. Oh and the Wing Isolation Valves was one of the other items I couldn't remember. Now can someone clarify as to whether the Mansfield planes were delivered as H2.5s or converted later? I remember flying with that unit but remember them being plain H2s although late model ones. No GCUs back then. I used Jack Boyd once or twice for assistance with 9 AF/Stan Eval visits back then. But as I mentioned earlier there might be some differences in how some saw the H2s as they got more and more modified off the Lockheed line.

RZ are you sure the first H2 was a 78 model? I was thinking it was an fy 79 model. OKC had the first one I was thinking. I'm curious what is everyones standard for distinguishing an H1 from an H2? FCS105 AP, ??? As far as Mansfield having H2.5s now, that might be the case but unless I'm incorrect the planes, as delivered, were H2s although late model ones. Their planes did not have GCUs. But perhaps it's just a difference in how people saw and applied the differences.

FYI...The H2.5s were the last Herks produced before the H3s came on board. At the time of delivery none of them had glass displays or LPCR. I've been retired a few years now but let me see if I can remember some things. Louisville replaced their B's with H2.5s. They may have been the first unit equipped but not sure anymore. Youngstown only had late model H2s but they were not H2.5s. Their Herks were later upgraded with glass displays, LPCR, etc. The H2.5s I think were later moved to one unit which may or may not have been Youngstown. From what I can remember the main item(s) that distinguished an H2 from and H2.5(at initial delivery) was the H2.5 were the first Herks with GCUs vs GCPs. I wanna say Main AC bus tie as well but not sure anymore. I know there were one or two other items but they escape me now. When I retired there were a few H2.5s that had been distributed throughout the fleet. Dobbins had one(or two) for sure and Maxwell had one I believe. I retired from flying at Robins where we flew them all. It gets blurred as to which models were which after flying them all so many times. lol With all the post production mods the line get's blurred even more. I wanna say the H2.5s numbers started around either 89 or 91 production years. Where there any 90's? FY92 and on are H3.

From my remembrance only a few special equipped -135 types (E8C JSTARS, AFMC's Rainbow Trout, etc) had an FE. Heck even the special mission 737's had an FE!

I hadn't seen it mentioned yet but if my mind serves me correctly you had to be down to -5 degrees (F) to get 19600 from a -7 motor. I'm not even sure if I can find my old -7 1-1. ISA standard day wouldn't even get you close. Dan I still got my -7 whiz wheel too...somewhere! Never got hold of a -15 one.