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JimH

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Posts posted by JimH

    CRB Rocket Attacks

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    By the way Jim I don't recognize any of the fine looking gentlemen in the picture!

    I assume you are one of them!!!!!

    I'm the handsome devil 2nd from the right . . that wasn't my regular crew so I don't remember any of the names (the guy on the right was just hanging out, not part of the crew)..

    CRB Rocket Attacks

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    Bill, Okay, that is the same place I call the ALCE building. I forgot what that stands for but it is like job control. That is also where we signed in when we first arrived on an input. I do remember going there and waiting for my plane to come in also. Yes it was upstairs also! My first view of a Vietnamese person was that of a female worker sitting on those stairs in their usual silk garb. She was quite unattractive and was picking at something on her belly! (a bad first impression)

    Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember that is where the bus stop was to go on to the 22nd. Replacement Battalion with stops on the way like the air terminal and Herky Hill! There was also a bunker right next to that building or partially underneath it.

    Bill, I think we are both talking about the same place!!!

    Ken

    By the way, ALCE was the abbreviation for Airlift Control Element

    I have these pictures from my only shuttle at CRB - I think this is the building you are discussing???

    Personal bio's

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    Whenever somebody in my family moves or wants to put stuff in something (like a storage locker), they always call me because "he was a Loadmaster and he can get everything in there just fine!" And, I usually can, too! <grin> As an example, when my wife and I moved from California to Texas, I got everything we owned (including a 1966 Mini Cooper) in a 24ft U-Haul truck... well, not everything - we had to tow the Vega!... Like Giz, I think my 10 years as a LM were a lot more exciting and enjoyable than the following 32 years as an Aircraft Mechanic...

    Mt. Crew Chief, Here's a picture from CRB.

    in C-130 Historical

    Posted

    We stopped at Hue one day on a medevac. I didn't have anything to do, so I went to the Army chow tent and scrounged a big pot of spaghetti and Meatballs, with garlic bread and all. Got back to the flight line and the airplane was gone...The ALCE jeep drove up and the Major told me to get in the jeep, the AC was waiting for me at the end of the runway, and "By the way, he is major pissed at you!"... Got to the plane, put the food in the galley and off we went to DaNang... when we landed, the AC told me to follow him out to the end of the wing... He chewed my a$$ severely and told me if I EVER did that again without telling him, he would personally see that I was busted to AB!!! Then he said, "okay, let's go have some spaghetti..." I think smelling the spaghetti for the duration of the flight mellowed him a bit. In any event, I never left the airplane again without telling him exactly where I was going and what I was going to do!! (I once managed 5 gallons of ice cream at Ban Me Thuot.) Ah, the good old days!!!

    LAPES Tank Speed Record?

    in C-130 Historical

    Posted

    Another Lapes disaster occurred in 1966 during a NATO exercise in Saragoza Spain. This is solely from memory, so correct me if I don't have it 100% correct. Most of us were 346th / 347th on cross-switch to Evereaux or maybe Mildenhall by then. There was to be a tandem drop involving a Jeep and communications trailer. First extraction was to be the jeep with the second chute deployed by the first extraction. So the story went the second load didn't have an extraction chute and the head L/M decided in the interest of getting the job done, to just chain the two together. Obvious result was no adjustment time for weight loss of first load and the second pallet went out higher than the first and nosed in flipping both loads over and over. Total loss of jeep and communications trailer and serious issue for crew; especially L/M for not following proper procedures. I was in Athens on a Turkey Trot when the incident went down so I heard it second hand. Anybody else remember this one?

    I remember something about it being the Chaplains jeep - they were one short and he offered his to make up the numbers... we did a triple (all Jeeps) that day and didn't have a problem (thanks to the Man upstairs!)..

    Jim Houston

    MASS TAC paradrop

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    xzoomie wrote:

    Took part in a drop in Turkey in 65. I think it was called "Deep Furrow". Must have been about 100 C-130's dropping troops and equiptment.

    I went to Deep Furrow in '66 - we were #3 (and my stomach was very glad of that!).. Nav let me look through the sextant - lots of rotating beacons behind us!!

    Jim Houston

    Survival school

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    John, I went through the school in Panama in 1970 while I was stationed at Howard AB... I had already been to SEA (1968) without any survival schools at all.. then I got orders to England in 1971 and I had to go through Fairchild first!! Go figure! (Fairchild in February isn't very warm either!)

    Jim Houston

    776TAS '68-'69

    Load Going For The Jump

    in C-130 Historical

    Posted

    Sam McGowan wrote:

    the loadmaster who was trying to retrieve static lines with a tiedown strap and let it get away from him and beat the heck out of the cargo door.

    I did this in Germany in 1967, also put some holes in one of the elevators - we had to stay while they replaced the elevator. The AC made me go out every day and help the maintenance guys while the rest of the crew had a good time in the city (I think it was Frankfurt, but I don't remember). I was in the 346th from Dyess on rotation to Mildenhall at the time...

    Jim Houston

    Herks left at TSN

    in C-130 Historical

    Posted

    F-5s out of VN sure brought back some memories. Back in '72 while I was stationed at Kelly as part of a RAM team. We were called out in the middle of the night and loaded onto a C-5. Stopped at Charleston, Spain, and then Iran. We were assigned to tear down and crate up the Shaw's F-5As and ship them to VN. The Shaw was getting F-5E's to replace them, courtesy of the USA. Spent 9 days there, restricted to base, working 12 hour shifts, to complete the job. We came home and someone else put back them back together in VN.

    Hey! I was there too! I was with the 5th Aerial Port Squadron out of RAF Mildenhall, England. We were called out on no warning type deployment. We took the palletized F5s and loaded them on the C5s.. as I remember, there were two wings on one married pallet and the fuselages were each on a married pallet. I think we put 4 F5s on each C5 . . We did get taken off base one day for a tourist type look around - but like you, we were restricted to the base the rest of the time... The good side of the tdy was we got an AF Commendation Medal for it -- the bad? Well, I had a nice Irish girl that I had just met staying with me, and when we got back, alas, she was gone.. sigh..

    CDS targets

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    Jack: I think it was mid Feb '68 when they stopped the landings at Khe Sanh, because I landed there on Feb 10... my first mission incountry - we took a round through the fuselage that hit the AF Photographer standing next to me (hit him in the calf - would have been my ankle if he hadn't been there!)... interesting introduction to the Tuy Hoa mission!!

    Jim Houston

    Air Force Suggestion Program

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    When I was a newbie one-stripe LM at Dyess in '66, one of the other newbie LMs and myself saw an improvement that could be made to a flare launcher. We asked one of the MSgt LMs how to submit it, and he told us it wouldn't work and not to bother. Later the change was made and we found out the MSgt had submitted the suggestion and gotten $50 for it! (At that time, $50 would have been a BIG thing to a couple of A3C..) We were pissed, but what could we do?? Last time I even thought about a suggestion until I was working as an ART at Kelly in '86 - submitted an AFTO 22 on the C5A and it was actually approved!! Of course, I didn't even get $50 for that one...

    Jim H

    Herk bites

    in C-130 General

    Posted

    I was up in the nose wheel well once while working in the phase docks and I slid down one of the tires to get out -- remember the "ice grip" tires with all the little pieces of wire sticking out?? Well, I do!!

    Jim

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