SEFEGeorge

Back in the '75-76 time frame when I was in the 32nd at LRF we had engine run crew duty, as well as pre-flight FE duty. Pulled it a couple times. Not fun.

53's were ok doing them from the LH drogue, but, pucker factor went up a little using the RH drogue. Did a few over the Pacific while I was at Hickam in the TG.

Don't know tail numbers or where they came from but nice pics.

Would this be considered a "2-engine takeoff"? 8-)

I work at the UPS flight training facility at Anc, almost next to Kulis. Of course we don't have windows on the airport side of the building but every now and then you can hear those turboprops humming along as they taxi, GI, LSGI, GI, and a little waif of the smell. It's probably the Lynden Hercs I hear but the T56s are still turning.

I don't know about that. You ever pull chocks on a Connie? You get covered with oil just pulling the chocks after engine start. Or how about pulling the PRT during engine work or ISOs. That'll make you cuss some.

Very nice.

Reminds me when I was CC on a VC-118A, 53-3229. Except the bottom of the fuselage wasn't painted, the leading edges and cowling weren't either. We had to polish the unpainted areas with Met-all everytime it flew a VIP mission. What a pain. And at Wright-Patt there were a lot of VIP trips in the early 70s. Even keeping it clean after pilot pros and standard pax runs. Finally talked them into painting the lower fuselage the standard light gray. Helped with the polishing but still had to wash it alot and keep it clean.

Never got a chance to run our C-121C when I was at Wright-Patt, but I sure did a lot of runs from the drivers seat on the VC-118A's. The 2800s on the 118's were pretty loud, especially with the short stacks, but not like the 3350s on the Connies.

Ah yes PAX, even as a FE I had a few run ins with them. Some good, some bad. Some funny as h***.

I ran into some A.H. QA people at Cam Rahn. Trying to get a C-7 out of the phase docks, which is only scheduled for 1.5 days, the QA guys would check each and every flap bearing for any wear/movement. The dock Chief wanted no bearings replaced unless absolutely necessary since it created a FCF requirement. Too bad he never relayed that to QA since I was written up a few times for "out of limits" bearing wear. Four phase docks, about 80 birds, Phase inspection every 150 hours. Do the math....

Came across this. Sure many will have some feelings on this.

Came across this sticker from my 32nd TAS days.

Frigging Carter, pussy-footed around with the Iranians. My way - carpet bomb the desert outside the town with a squadron of BUFFs. Relay message to Iran, release hostages or next day the same raid will be right down the center of the city....say hi to Allah when you see him.

The in-flight kitchen coffee was usually ok. Sometimes you'd get the bottom of the "perculator" after it had been sitting a while and it was not that good. I always carried a jar of Folgers instant so we could at least some fairly decent coffee. I'm a Folgers guy and I hate all that foo-foo coffee.

I've seen this a number of times and always enjoy it. Seems like a lot of the time that the narrator is talking about the ACs and showing Talon I's and II's in the background, taxiing, etc. But to the uninformed public......

Never said that they were cute, but damn if they didn't act like they were 3-5 years old at times.

Hmmm, reminds me of a few co-pilots I flew with. Not the actual age, but the age that they act like!!!!!

I've flown missions like this, both operational, mission support, and pilot pro. The only in was given any real consideration was how long the mission was. Wouldn't want to fly a 10 hr overwater nav out of LRF this way, or a trip from EDF to Hickam, out an actual recovery mission out of Hickam. There could be any number of things to fly this way - tank leak, inop boost pump, fuel quantity problems (even though the 1 full-1 empty doesn't need any consideration with fuel qty problems, just use the "dip stick").

I'm thinking that the minimum time requirement on the 796 was 4 hours. The minimum and maximum of the cruise segments were .5 hrs and 1.5 hrs. So with the T/O, climbout, and descent segments, the 2-3 hours doesn't seem like a long enough time.

Is that so close to CG or so close to centerline that they won't affect the wing load balance?

A little premature articulation huh?

I believe that those are the mounting points for a now defunct maintenance ladder. Maybe not, but that's what came to mind for me.

I always taught the FEs going through the school house how to use the slip stick. I thought it was a good bit of info to know. If a load looked "strange" the FE could double-check it. There were times when the load was busy loading that I did the Form F and handed it to the LM once it was done and he double-checked it and gave it to the AC to sign. This was especially so when hauling the army in Alaska. The FE's did the canned Form F's in the 6594th. I think we re-did them every quarter. All the missions were pretty much the same.

Randy, I'm not sure exactly when it was lost, but it had to have happened happened before I left WPAFB in Nov 1970. I don't remember the guy's name, just that he had the barracks room close to mine, he drove a Corsair, and he always worked on it and had parts in his room. Don't think my memory is all that bad but you never know.