jbob

Folks I put together a package on the "smoke-n-mirrors" on how the Fulton Skyhook system works.

You mean how it WORKED! Not works!

In all seriousness, thanks for your effort.

Cool! Kinda makes those early days in the Talon 1 doing Terrain Following look so ancient now.

It was Aug of 1985. The plane was on Down Wind and asked to make a 360 to allow for a Tanker to take off. This broke the crews regular routine with the student pilots. The tower had some Base Ops guys working in the tower for some reason I don't remember. They were discussing if the gear was down or not. Plane landed on center line, but had a problem taxing. I don't remember any talk about the circuit breaker being pulled. I took the check books and clothes up to the crew during an afternoon pilot pro from the 16th.

Joe's got it closest that I remember. I think the one that got them was they were also simulated engine out which means they had the one throttle at flight idle. That's why the warning horn didn't sound unless I'm forgetting how things worked! ;-)

These are all supposed to have been addressed last year in the commonality conference by the FMM.

Last year? Hell this was supposed to have been corrected back in the late 90's in the first commonality conferences! lol It seems they're always reinventing the wheel.

Pete I thought I trained you better than that. kidding

Dan I do remember some discussion about the high power thing but it's been so long I can't remember. I do know the Tanker guys had decided they would always do it the old proven way due to the additional plumbing and possible trash in the Benson tanks.

I'm not sure I remember the official cause of the 80 crash but I seem to remember a lightening strike.

The 82 crash was the one with the corroded engine bolts. That one lost partial outer wings on both sides due to counter torque from the lost of the engine when it separated. Too long to remember now but seems one of them two had a prop separate and dance across the wing which caused some of the failure.

The 82 crash also had a bunch of civilians on board from C Springs I believe. Civic leaders?

Kinda surprised to see the DAV doing so badly. Not that surprised however. About in line with the VA support.

I think Dan is correct in that there were three planes designated for testing/mission. I'm not sure as to the status of the third.

I was looking through some YouTube videos of airdrops and came across a video of Credible Sport. It is a much longer video than the one short one we have all seen of the last landing test which ended in flames. This one shows some more video of landings and takeoffs with the last one a longer version of the one we have all viewed. Not sure if anyone has seen this one or not. I know I haven't. So here is the link:

And just why don't they call it a Flight Engineer's chair? Same chair...correct?

In 1988 I was one 3 AF FE's selected for manning assistance to VXE-6. I did 2 Antartic tours with them. (Sept. '88 to Mar. '89 and again in Oct. '89 to Jan. '90) Everyone I worked with during both tours were very professional and I learned a great deal from them. To those who served with VXE-6 it was a pleasure.

Bruce...who were the other FEs from Little Rock that did that mission? I can't remember their names although I can see their faces. Jim Spillman might be one of them. This is Felix by the way in case you were wondering.

I can answer part of the question. All Navy fixed wing designations start with V. The Marine Corp is under the Department of the Navy thus all fixed wing Marine units begin with V.

The second letter, M, is used to designate as Marine specific thus VMxx.

The 3rd letter is probably anyone's guess. I think the 3rd letter, G, is probably for the senior command which is typically a MAG of where the G comes from.

The 4th, R, is obviously for Refueling mission.

So we have VMGR

Just to add a final note to the VXE-6 history it was the Robins guys who flew three of the Navy LCs out of DM to Waco for crossdecking from Navy to Air Force standards plus a few other minor stuff. We were the only guys qualified to fly the Navy birds once VXE-6 disbanded. Raytheon had the contract to do the work at their facility east of Waco at the TSTC airport.

I was the FE on the first crew to take one out of Davis Monthan and fly it to Waco. I played scanner when it was finally ready for first flight FCF. I let John Pangborn, who used to be at the 109th, fly the FEs position for the first flight. I've even got a video of the takeoff. Pangborn left Robins and is now back at the 109th.

Fitting that the Air Force flew the final flights of the Navy's VXE-6 aircraft or at least three of them that are still flying anyway. ;-) Go Guard!

Along those lines that reminds me of a story I heard from an ex Herk pilot. This guy cross flowed to 135s from a TACC job he had been in. Back in the days when a Herk driver in ACC was a career killer. Anyway he told me there were refueling missions he had been on where only the Boom would know what they were hooking up too. The pilot was left out of the loop. Can you imagine a Herk mission where the Load knew what was in the back but the pilot didn\'t?

Don did you see any of those missions in the -10?

Pilot Pro...700, 800, 900

Tac...Slow down, drop zone, Escape

Those will become automatic. :P

AMPTestFE wrote:

You need different min control speeds if you have different engines. The higher power settings you get with an engine, the higher the min control speed.

Also, the Rosemont pitot system gives you different speeds too, but not as dramatic as when you increase power.

If 89-9101 is their only \'89 model, then yes, it has been modified by AMP and will not return to Maxwell.

Whoa dude! While you\'re partially correct with the engine power this has nothing to do with the Pitot system. The different speeds related to engine power has nothing to do with the Pitot static system.

The different charted speeds related to Pitot static system differences is due to pitot mast locations and how the airflow is affected by the nose of the aircraft at different attitudes/airspeeds. These speeds are most notable at higher angles of attack as you would see at slower airspeeds such at takeoff/rotation, Vmca, etc. Several model herks have varied pitot mast locations with the Rosemount being the latest and most accurate system which others have posted, has 4 masts, two per side.

Surely there\'s some old heads around that can answer the question about the inverters. I think the -1 position was from the very old days when the Herk was still a DC airplane. That way they had AC power for instruments when only DC was available.

FWIW the reason the H3\'s fly in a 11 position rather than -- was simply one of ergonomics. A cockpit working group suggested the inverter switches be in the same relative position as the generator switches. You can thank Leo Starvetsky personally for that.

Interesting from page one of the article. The CC, Iosue, was the Center Commander at Lackland(General then) when I went through Basic in 76. Who\'d have known at that time I would have ended up a Herk crew.

I\'m waiting for more news too. I used to work with a pilot from Barksdale.

Wow...Thanks for posting this Hush. Guess we used to work with him a lot during our 9 AF tour. After he retired he ended up first at the SPO at Robins then as a contractor doing T.O\'s. I\'m sure many remembered him during all those -1 rewrites.

I used him many times as an FE augmentee during our ACC Stan/Eval visits. He and Rick O!

For those who didn\'t get to see it, this show is more about how the weather affected the mission vs the events of the mission itself. If you\'re looking for a historical perspective this ain\'t the show to watch. I will say there was still some interesting info about the mission presented.

The last I heard LR was going to 6 Sims not counting the \"J\". I think the McChord sim is moving and possibly the Pope sim but unsure. They have room for them in the new building. This is old info though. I haven\'t chatted with those guys in many months now. I am unsure about the other stuff you asked. It\'s possible now in this new smorgasborg of items a sim or two might now be heading for Nashville but that\'s just a guess.

What is gonna happen with the AD unit at Wyoming now? Are they gonna be trained in the Fire mission or is the Guard unit gonna be the only one at that wing to be qualified?

If I remember correctly the WCs were all rolled under the \"E\" model Dash 1 and it now incorporates the few differences in the basic \"E\" -1. The cockpits are pretty much operationally the same except for the Weather station.

I was wondering about the 2 MAFFS units that CA had. I know they were not certified on the \"J.\" What happened to them? They could have easily been installed to one of the Herks from the other three units. They are not plane specific.

Also when I retired the AFFS(rather than MAFFS) testing was about to come to a screaching halt. The test director for that program and I were good friends. I heard some horror stories about testing. It had gotten so political and a food fight. Too many hands were adding input without any regard to proper flight testing as well as the SPO not having a good idea about flight testing. My test director buddy gave up on it and let someone else put up with all the crap.

Mic check...check, check, check!