damnpoor

When I was at Camp Lemonier I heard stories of ACs that stopped by but never saw any myself.

That must be comforting as a pilot to use another crashed airplane as a landmark.

Good stuff, thanks for the info. I know very little about the ASIP program, only that it never comes up for us despite flying '66 airframes. I thought the center wing box might have had something to do with it. Now I know. Our MCPs are all somewhere close to 22,000 hours.

How is the ASIP program being run for the MC-130P? In the -6 the sections for MC-E and MC-P are "reserved". Where is the Air Force getting data for these planes? I was thinking they could just be using data from all the other herks to track trends across the entire fleet including MC-Ps. Anyone know how it works for sure?

Wow that's crazy to see the bird actually getting shredded. I've only seen the aftermath on the ground. Although the airplane tears up birds at 200mph I'm always amazed at how much damage the birds do to the plane as well.

Not to hijack or anything but does anyone have some info on the old ODS (overhead delivery system)? I know our herks used to have it but it was removed way before I ever showed up. I guess the shadows had it, maybe the talons or HCs had it too?

Yeah, you're right. My bad.

What this triangular pod thing above the gear and what's the thing above the center windscreen between the horns? I've seen my share of MC-130s but these two mods are new to me.

I was just looking at the dimensions and measurements in the 00GE and as best I can make out the outer fuselage is 14'-3" wide and 12'-4" tall, so it's not a perfect circle as we already knew. The nose is about 85" long.

Is the paint scheme going to change for the guard rescue herks now that they're ACC or will they keep the standard AFSOC scheme?

Did someone change a wheel assembly recently and screw up installing the spacer or bearing?

I always like taking the herk to airports and parking at FBOs. The look on everyone's face when a giant herk comes up to some little FBO is awesome. The people there are always really helpful as if it is some honor to help out a military crew whenever they can. We went to an FBO in Salt Lake City and they parked us with wings overlapping another airplane. After the AC saw this he told me that next time he wanted me to marshal them in because he didn't trust the civilian guys.

On a related note...I just found this photo while cruising the net. I imagine it's an old Navy herk lost someone on Antarctica maybe? http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=91282

I agree with the touchdown relay idea, and also remember antiskid is normally inoperative below 15kts.

SEFEGeorge wrote: The official report said fuel starvation, but shortly afterwards bulletins were sent out by the air force about rollback and syncrophasers. Many people accuse the Air Force of not conducting the investigation properly and coming to the quick and easy conclusion instead of admitting that known sycro problems were to blame. \"HQ AFSOC/DOV APR97 MSG 165 SUBJ: THlS MESSAGE CONTAINS INTERIM SAFETY SUPPLEMENTS FOR THE C-130 AIRCRAFT ENGINE POWER-LOSS LOW VOLTAGE ON THE ESSENTIAL AC BUS CAN CAUSE ALL FOUR ENGINES TO LOSE TORQUE. WHEN THE AC VOLTAGE IS BETWEEN 50 AND 70 VOLTS, THE SYNCHROPHASER AND TEMPERATURE DATUM AMPLIFIER CAN MALFUNCTION CAUSING TORQUE TO DROP 2,000 INCH-POUNDS OR MORE. AN ANOMALY INVOLVlNG THE ESSENTIAL AC BUS CAN INDUCE AN EFFECT AMONG MULTlPLE SYSTEMS RESULTING IN A SIMULTANEOUS OR SEQUENTIAL POWER LOSS, NORMALLY AFFECTING ALL ENGINES. INDICATlONS MAY VARY AND INCLUDE ANY COMBINATlON OF ABNORMAL TORQUE, RPM, TIT, AND FUEL FLOW. WARNlNG IF CORRECTIVE ACTIONS ARE NOT INITIATED PROMPTLY, FLAME OUT OF ALL ENGINES IS POSSIBLE\"

Some FEs are real tightwads and some don\'t seem to care about anything. You can tell which ones came from something like avionics vs which ones came from hydraulics. They each have their little thing they look for. There are a couple FEs who I know ahead of time I\'ll probably need to have the TOs out because he\'s going to ask me what the leak limits are for some part. One thing I always hear the FE talk about is keeping the 781As in the binder for a little while. We pull them like we\'re told to do, and they always say we shouldn\'t so they can see what\'s been going on for the past three or four days. That\'s where you have to trust each other and know your airplane so they don\'t think I\'m BSing them about the status.

SonnyJ wrote: That\'s what I was gonna say, vertical beam. There\'s no way a brake line can rub on a spar. The landing gear goes up to \"heaven\" and back down to \"earth\" along the beam. \"VERY CRACKED AT BOTTOM\" would be right below the shelf bracket where they always crack.

EClark wrote: I\'d like to think that MX never hands over a plane that shouldn\'t fly, but we also know there is a lot of stuff the herk can fly with and be just fine even though the Air Force says it\'s not supposed to. I have seen mx supervisor tell me or the FE \"Oh I\'ve seen this before, it\'ll last another month\" or whatever excuse. I always do the walkaround with my FE and make sure I know the full story about the forms when I head out. I know it can\'t make the FE feel very safe when they ask a question about aircraft status and the crew chief can\'t answer it.

Blackmac_Project wrote: If I didn\'t have any old Masters and Seniors to follow around I never would have learned half of what I did about the airframe. I\'m still pissed about how they didn\'t let all those experienced maintainers reenlist when they were trying to cut numbers a few years ago. Someone forgot that the guys who make the most money are the ones who also teach the new kids how to be worth a damn on the flightline.

FCCBohica wrote: Yep, that was us and our old rescue plane. I took this picture in AZ: [img size=375]http://herkybirds.com/images/fbfiles/images/belgianherk.jpg

bobdaley wrote: Like the article said - it\'s just minor damage. They\'ll have her up and flying again in no time :P

Is it common practice to remove the QECs? One of those pictures showed the herk with no engines. Also, and this is just my curiosity about procedure, would they have killed power right away when hitting the ground? I noticed on of the props looks like it was part way to feather but was stopped before getting there. BobMaine wrote: With those pictures of the event they must have known ahead of time something was going to happen. Maybe gear problems?

Chris Down Under wrote: I\'m not sure where you got 39% from...

Puredrenalin wrote: I run \'em in the middle as well (about 85psi), but I want something more clearly established than \"that\'s how we\'ve always done it.\" It must not be too important if there\'s no good guidance on it.

I just got back from AATTC where there was a Belgian 130 and a German C-160. The Germans seemed to know what they were doing, but since it wasn\'t a herk I\'m not familiar with the airframe. With the Belgians I could tell what they were doing. They run things more like our Navy, where they have airframe, powerplant, and avionics people. They don\'t have a zillion backshop specialists like the Air Force does. I watched two of their people change a pair of nose tires faster than I could even get the required TO\'s together. While the herks were out flying we talked about the planes and they seem to really know their stuff. They said there are now only 10 herks in the Belgian air force. Does anyone else have experience with foreign herk operators?