Dan Wilson

Yes, they all came from the factory with Generator Disconnects, controllable x-valves, and - 15 engines. Well the vertical beams for the landing gear are beefier than a slick E-models and I am sure there are other structural beef ups in other places. The big difference between the usage of the HC vs E is the E was only designed to go to 175k GW for emergency/contingency but the HC\'s were designed to operate at 175K for 20% of the normal mission life PLUS emergency/war/contingency ops - so more beef. Dan

Actually Lockheed says that downstream burning will cause most of the damage to the second stage of the turbine, and wonderful enough, the second stage is the only one you cant boreoscope. The reason you wont see the turbine inlet stators burned is because the fuel is burning beyond them instead of lighting off in the cans and having the correct airflow around them to form the flame. I used to have a source document but when I was medically grounded I pretty much dumped all my Lockheed manuals, books, handouts and everything, to maintain my sanity. It may have been in a sup for the MC-130P -1 since we were having all kinds of inflight torching and they told us its normal!!!!! Wonder if they have started throwing turbines yet. Maybe someone else here has something. Good luck Dan

I would tend to agree with the burner can problem. Perhaps a burn through or something to screw up the flame pattern inside the can and allowing the fuel to burn slower and into the turbine section. Dan

Herks have been used for spray missions, it was (or is) a reserve unit that was out of Rickenbacker, then moved to Wright Patt when Rickenbacker got closed. My buddy there told me the spray mission was shutting down and they were becoming trash haulers. I know they used to do alot of mosquito missions all over the eastern sea board, but have no idea if they ever sprayed anything else. My info is dated though, we are talking back in 90 or 91 and knew a pilot and FE at the unit. Dan Oh, forgot to say they the used to be a 123 unit but converted over to a couple of herks, don\'t remember the pilots name but I think the FE\'s name was Glenn Carey

Nope no 60 cycles outlets, I used to use a European two pin outlet adapter and put it in the hotcup outlet and plug my coffee pot into it. Dial in your time and your coffee is dripping away:cheer: Dan

Nothing quite like charred mammal flesh old school, ditched the gas grill five years ago and never looked back!! Dan

Man I just watched the video and I really feel like bawling:( :( An 86!! Only 22 years old, man I bet it still had that new car smell! Never ever got to fly in anything that new but I guess security being what it was they figured the safest thing to do was trash it. Dan

Thanks much Fritz!! Will pass that along. Dan

Pretty curious as to the reason for the unimproved set down, must have been pretty unusual/serious to do that. Dan

Buddy of mine lives near an airport/firebomber base and said there was a Herk sitting there for years and now it disappeared. The plane was sitting at the Ryan Airport Hemet, Calif Thanks for any help you can give Dan

Ahhhh Cannon, believe it or not we are also looking at land down around Hobbs seeing how many hundreds of acres we can get for our bucks (also looking around Utah, Montana and Wyoming). Feel for you though, I know how it is to be physically drug to NM with fingernails gouging the floor on the way out:S Dan

Question, Are these assets to be \"in addition to\" or \"in place of\"? If they are in addition to, it will really be a good thing as the tankers are chronically in short supply. But wait and see what Norty does, but previous leadership would have mothballed the entire fleet just because they had new toys and would even have been shorter on tankers. I still don\'t understand the logic behind parking the entire fleet of MC-E\'s at March when they could still do the mission. I still have trouble believing the transfer of four MC-P\'s to the guard in Kalifornia either. Dan

Other (rare) things that would cause asymmetry like this would be: Is 737 ring tight? has happened in the past where the entire empennage would twist inflight. I long had a habit of making the tail bounce when I was out at the tip of the horizontal stabilizer and found a couple loose over the years. Or How is the center wing attachment? We had problems like this but not quite as severe on one of our ABCCC many decades ago and they couldn\'t find out why. Well it was heading to Ontario for -15 engines, new outer wings and UARRSI so it pretty much got pushed to \"later\", the day after we dropped it off the engineers called us up to let us know that ALL of the smaller rivets attaching center wing to fuselage were sheared allowing the centerwing to shift inflight (Boy that was a post incident pucker factor). They said when they went to jack the plane the wing jacks kept going up and up and the fuselage was not lifting was the reason they found it. Dan

Wow, that sucks to total the airplane just for engine testing. Dan

Found this the other day and though maybe some of you old gunboat fossils would like it. Dan Puff the Magic Dragon, a bird of Cam Rahn Bon Came to fly the evening skies In a land called Vietnam Puff the Magic Dragon, came across the sea To write his name in guns of flame In the heart of hostile SEA When the grunts are in trouble And Charlie\'s all around The thoughts may pry into the sky Beneath the fires on the ground The VC\'s mortal terror, starts when many cries And the Dragon\'s breath of sudden death Comes screaming from the sky Yes, Puff will still be flying From I Corps down to Four Till Charlie\'s gone and the evening comes It\'s like the year before But I\'ll remember always, the ground troops grateful cry When fire is beamed and Charlie screamed At the Dragon in the sky Now Dragons live forever and Puff is just the same The Gooney Bird will still be heard when Grandpa is my name It will have to roam the skies with friends..not with me Fpor I\'m going home, no more to roam In a land across the sea Puff the Magic Dragon, a bird of Cam Rahn Bon Came to fly the evening skies In a land called Vietnam Puff the Magic Dragon, came across the sea To write his name in guns of flame In the heart of hostile SEA

Bob Woods wrote: Well technically speaking it is a foreign country seeing as its Kalifornia. Dan

Well StoveTop my guess is your correct in this, my time in the 37th was 89 - 93. Guess things changed, Thanks for the correction. Dan

I always did like flying with Norty, hes a good pilot as well. Hopefully his stint as commander of PACAF with all the fighter dorks didn\'t corrupt him. Way to go Norty Dan

StovetopNav wrote: Actually the \"Herky\" callsign was local only (at least when I was there) and any trip would actually use a VCSL callsign. Dan

Eagle Flight was operating out of Rhien Main when I was stationed there 89-93. They were a \"civilian\" company that flew \"parts missions\". What they really did? dunno! Dan

That would have been my guess, every year its a big thing to refly the Normandy invasion (in Normandy that is) and maybe they went the extra mile and put the invasion stripes on it. Dan

C130Jflyer wrote: Who dis? Nope I aint dead yet and you are who you are, I just don\'t get my blood pressure through the roof about it anymore (or at least try that is).

Dont know the story behind the photo, its a wall photo at the 550th that I scanned before I left. The paint job puts the photo in the 60\'s or early to mid 70\'s I believe, yes it does look like the air deflectors are open, it was and is permissible to open the paratroop doors for refueling with the E model doors, they have the little round windows as opposed to the P model door that have a large square window. Its not a problem as you are normally refuel at 115KIAS (god, I think thats it?!?!?!?). Dan

donwon wrote:

One of the two know successful ditching of the herks. From what I have heard for many decades is this (never seen any official traffic on the incident). Only two people died, one was the navigator and they say that was from lead poisoning (the official answer is the bunk broke loose and broke his neck) and the other was a reporter or media clown or something civilian and froze up and would not leave the plane and in the end snuffed his own monkey by drowning. Also the word I got was they tried to tow the plane in but as soon as they pulled 245 forward came off and the rest sunk. Dan