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c130fe

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Everything posted by c130fe

  1. Correction to FE flying on B-66. on my post. In my eighties, easily confused. 😁 We did have to sit at nav table when no one else was aboard but it was a one pilot airplane and I used to stand behind the pilot and he gave me navigations lessons as we flew around the desert. Sorry about that. ;
  2. I was FE on B-66, kind of. Little late to reply but just saw this post. I was assigned to a C-130 detachment in ElCentro NAS as an E6 flight engineer in 1968 . Detached from Edwards. While our primary job was C130 FE we were also utilized in the B66 and the back seat of the A7 something . Single engine prop fighter of some kind. Basically whenever they needed a non qualified to sit in a seat for a single purpose they tapped an FE or a temporarily assigned pilot, in lieu of flying someone down from Edwards. The B66, when on simple non recon training missions, was sometimes flown single pilot, so some fool (the FE) had to be available to crank the emergency gear handle. located in the bomb bay. We sat in the Nav seat with no other duties. I liked it because I was working toward my pilots license and sometimes I got to sit the right seat, did some touch and goes and other fun stuff. Forgot why we were in the A6 type aircraft. I think to turn on some cameras. Anywise system command was a "different" kind of Air Force. The B-66 mission was to photograph special pallets being airdropped from the Herc. Later we found out these Goodyear chutes and pallets were designed to drop bombs. Once we flew up to the bomb range at Hill AFB and dropped one of the first bombs. I think we were at 5,000 ft AGL and got the hell out of Dodge at full power the minute that bomb was out of the cargo compartment but we still felt a sizeable blast effect. Exciting for a FE who had only flown passengers, cargo and tactical missions. During my time at El Centro the FEs were the ranking enlisted people. 2 of us. The maintenance workforce was civilians and a whole bunch of young airman who were getting on the job training from the civilians. The young administrative Lt. assigned there said he had to have sergeants to pull CQ duty because the airman were all getting drunk and rowdy in Mexico. We tried to explain crew rest rules to him but he wasn't having it. One night on CQ duty it was really boisterous and I didn't get any sleep. I was scheduled to fly and claimed crew rest violation to the Operations officer. Now the pilots were pissed because there was no other FE available. After that we didn't have to pull CQ duty and I got to sleep at home with my family.
  3. Mr Heflin; So wrong on so many levels. I suspect you've never been involved in aircraft maintenance and witnessed the inspection complexity and the hundreds of people who are involved over a long period of time. I was a C-130 USAF crew chief for several years and a flight engineer for over 20 years; including the civil commercial model; L100. The flight engineer inspects the props prior to flight standing on the ground looking up at the blades for obvious defects. Corrosion is not an obvious defect. Its not like the obvious, visual corrosion on your boat . It's hidden and requires Non Destruction Testing to find it. The major player here is the depot. They have the equipment and the trained NDT inspectors to find corrosion. They are paid to perform proper depot level inspections. These depot inspections are considerably more complex than what can be performed at the squadron field level. When I first learned of the crash I assumed a wing had failed, that's a well known issue. A blade breaking off is rare indeed. I remember once that it happened on an A model about 100 years ago but did not cause a crash. I pray for the lost lives.
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