Dan Wilson

Ahhh working that old flap crank really sucked when there was a benson tank in, roughly 1300 half turns:eek: Dan

Bob, if you haven't heard it already, Eglin has an e model (I think, I forgot to check the air cond intakes) tail 7872 sitting over on the gun testing pad (behind the C-27) and it aint going nowhere since the winders are painted over. Not a clue what its there for. Dan

Actually I thought the 122 radar (X and KA band) were really sweet for the operators. It had some really good res and even I could learn to read the scope. Now what really sucked butt on the system though is the minuscule service life of the RT's and waveguides. Ended up changing all that crap out myself in Aviano once, the crew chief I was with was a friggin moron (read that as the guy who put 502 in a drainage ditch) so I wouldn't even let him touch the equipment. The freon light level warning light came on after we landed so he "switched the bottles" and instead of just shutting off the empty one and opening the good bottle he literally "switched the bottles" and in the process completely buggered the aluminum fittings on the bottles - god I should have just killed the guy and saved the AF oh so much money!! (or maybe I should have given him to the Naples transvestites for a good time instead LOL) Dan

No minimum speed on our legacy herks, not sure about the wunnerful J model though. The gunship didn't have any ruptures to the dump manifold, it did however have several punctures through the manifolds coming out of the external tank, charring visible in the tank faring and wing surface just to the aft of the fairing, melted metal in the wing area above #2 engine (you know, the engine they said wasn't on fire) and NO evidence of charring or even sooting in the flap well area. That wreck is the thing that out and out told me AF safety investigations are crap. I would be hard pressed to find anything in that safety report that was factual - friggin idiot investigators. Dan

Allright, here are some pics of a RAAF cutaway courtesy of Wombat, thanks Bob

Bet you didn't hear about the joint op with the US Navy and the French where we left the French out to dry and almost got them all killed? French had a small gunboat going in on a large pirate ship and one of our cruisers was assisting, once the French engaged our fearful leader called an IMMEDIATE halt to our participation, can only imagine what the seals were thinking when they had to pull off the engagement and leave our buds out to die:mad: It really really pisses me off hearing all this crap about "oh wunnerful sotero is a warrior president" - pure crap, he didn't even know they snuffed those skinny's until AFTER it happened. Dan, disgruntled and waiting for the civil war:D (you guys want to know what is really happening you have to read the foreign news sites)

Do you mean VA disability? If so it don't matter if he hurt his back when he slipped in the shower at home, as long as he was on active duty when it happened its service connected - PERIOD! I would heavily recommend letting his congressman and senator (unless its that assklown martinez here in Florida that is) get involved in this. Dan

Thanks Kurt Dan

Actually isnt that from the Italian PDM guys screwing up the hanger input there at bridisi? Other cursed things that happened to 502 during desert shield/storm Crew backing it out of parking from Al Ain, all throttles to reverse and #3 stays in ground idle, return other throttles to ground idle and #4 stays in reverse (I think that's how it went) and if I remember it right it was a throttle cable thing!! It sat as "supply store on the hoof" for several months until just before the shooting war started. Forward deploy to Fhad and one morning I'm up on top of 8240 with Frank Wells when I hear him say "Oh Fu*k" and I look up in time to see 502 sailing backwards over these HUGE paved drainage ditches (like 25 or 30 foot across and like 15 deep) and it comes to rest with the sloping longerons across the far bank, the belly on the near bank and the GTC winding down because the MLG are dangling in the air:eek: Now that is a picture I would really love to have. I guessed who was responsible before I even seen him crawling out of the door, a real klownshoe named mike(?) bolton. Seems the crew stopped about five or ten feet too far out to suit him so after they left he sets the brakes, kicks chocks and moves them back the amount he wants, goes upstairs, starts the GTC and releases the brakes. Now to set this up, there is a HUGE slope to this ramp running back to the drainage ditches AND the plane has a full load of gas. Well guess a plane weighing 130~140K can pick up some momentum rolling downhill for ten feet and guess what the chocks DIDNT do - yup you guessed it sports fans, plane didnt even hiccup, just kept a going He couldnt figure out why the brakes didnt work either since he had the GTC running, guess he should have turned on the aux pump huh. Same Idiot they caught running engines on another plane the week before BY HIMSELF just cause he wanted too.... Guess what, his penalty was becoming an instructor at Sheppard, geez he should have been shot instead Dan

Yes, happy Easter all. Dan

Hey guys, sorry but I really don't have too many pictures of the bits and parts I did, the pictures I took mostly turned out blurry (I did all this about 15 years ago, pre affordable digital photography days). All the photos (poor, pathetic, and otherwise) are located here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v721/FTFFTW/Herk/Parts/ You can save them from there if you find any you want. The last I heard, my engine was at the sim building at Pope and they would probably take some pictures if you called the FE section there. Other cut aways I did they have are a dome assembly, fuel heater strainer, (maybe others, dont remember) and lots of other general bits and parts. At the 550th at Kirtland I left a cutaway 60/90 KVA generator, a turbine section, prop shaft and barrel, compressor casing and some other little bits. Sorry that I dont have much else to offer, really wish I had more and better pictures myself but guess thats just hindsight. I had a real blast doing them though, I will say that:D Dan

Ahh but your talking a mx job guide and I am talking flight manual:rolleyes: wouldn't things be so much easier if both sets of books all had the same set of numbers? Dan

By all means dump and dump from both masts, all you do by only using one dump mast is hurt yourself. Dumping in never a quick process and if you needlessly cut your rate in half then it just takes that much longer to get the weight off. Dan

Basically you just use the fuel quantity indicator and when it gets to zero or close enough and stops moving you shut it off. If the indicator is bad you just make sure you start dumping that tank first so you can verify the fuel coming out the dump mast prior to dumping any other tanks. You really wont see diddly on the pressure indicator when your dumping, pipes too big and no real chance to build up pressure. Dan

I don't know if its still this way or not but Evergreen used to work on a sorta covert/ low profile basis, if they still do that could be why you don't find anything on it. Dan

When they took it off the runway there at Napoli, I seem to remember being told it was day one of their ORI, not a sterling start eh, been a long time since I talked with Billy Legg about it, and yes the last time I was at pope in 2000 he was still working the sim. Got many an hour on that plane, don't seem to remember it being any worse off than any of the other birds (other than 502, that thang was cursed). Dan

Yeah Kurt, the combat crew badge was another McPeak casualty. I actually have one laying around here somewhere...... Dan

The Test facilities at Kirtland AFB are for EMP testing. Dan

This is one of those subjects that pop up over and over again, wish they would re-write the manuals and just take the ambiguity out or sufficiently explain what they mean by +- 10 when the listed pressure range is only 10. But in actuality they are saying is it’s allowed a TOTAL of 10psi, IN LIMITS of 50 to 60 PSI. Break it down here, when they plus OR minus that's pretty much what’s meant, NOT plus AND minus! So if you have a PS oil press of 60 and it takes to twitching it can twitch down to 50 and recover, and conversely a stable of 50 up to 60. What they should just say is normal PS oil press is 50 to 60 and intermittent or constant fluxuations inside of this range is allowable (or something like that). However, there are more people out there besides myself and most of them will back the Plus AND Minus instead of Plus OR Minus reading. Bottom line on this is what is your situation and what are you doing? If I show up to fly and my PS oil press is fluxing 45 to 55 on run up and its just a training line - sorry its a coming back maybe turned off or maybe running, just depends. If I show up and the mission is something very very important like deporting obuma to Kenya - I would take it. I could tolerate abnormal PS oil press before being concerned; i.e. if in flight and the pressure is just a hair down or just jiggling on the line it usually something I would live with and just write up at the end of the mission. If it’s really out there, like as low as 45 or as high as 65 would probably bag that sucker. Now RGB oil press is crucial, if I have a drop in pressure (and even more so with an unexplained rise in OP) or flux outside the normal range, its getting bagged like yesterday. If your unfortunate enough to lose RGB oil pressure you could be in for a surprising day, I lost oil on take off once (during gear up) and we had that sucker bagged within 5 or 10 seconds and that hummer locked up solid sometime between feather initiation and holy shit!! Heres a question that another instructor told me years and years ago, Q how many indicators are there for each engine? A. Eight Q. How many are for oil A. Four That’s when he told me “that means that oils is pretty damned important, don’t it now!! So that’s my take on it, its plus OR minus not plus AND minus and must remain inside of posted limits. Dan

Skip Put me on the distro list as well [email protected] Thanks Dan

But I will say 1855 was a great flying plane:) (better that 7898 for sure). Dan