L382fe

Bob, no real difference to what I said. However, having had a few hours to think, your

thermal camera idea may have a lot of merit .......

Thermal cameras could be helpful in some cases. When the MC Shadows first got the FLIR we used to watch the wing leading edge heat up during the LE anti-ice checks. You could count the leading edge ribs even. Had one aircraft that the right outer wing continued to show warmer than the rest of the wing after the leading edge AI was turned off but didn't get an overheat. When we wrote it up, Mx told us the FLIR was not approved for troubleshooting and didn't follow up. About one week later it came back with a wing overheat, cracked expansion compensator right where the FLIR showed a hotspot.

Mike

Years ago, up in Kodiak, we tested a battery in the hangar. It was about 54 degrees F. The battery was a NiCad, due for removal/overhaul. Turned on everything it would power in flight. It ran for several hours before the voltage dropped to below 23 volts. Now if you were at altitude for a while, that battery will be much colder. I wonder if this was ever tested at some of the cold weather test facilities in the past with NiCad or lead Acid batteries?

I wonder how cold the battery would be at altitude. Since the aircraft is continually overcharging the battery, 25-30 volts into a 24 volt battery, it creates heat and helps prevent the battery from freezing, or so I have been told.

Mike

Congrats on the retirement Archie. I'm glad we got to work together, you sure helped me learn the herk and how to be a FE. Both on and more likely, off the airplane. Good luck finding a herk FE job, not too many left.

Mike

"Klattmandu"

I would definately use the Word "Leardership" sarcastically when referring to the administration. Its more of a Clusterf@&k run by a bunch of monkey's Blankity Blanking a football..... But that is just my view of the situation.

Engine Mike

Ditto!

Mike

Wow, do they still use the pod illum light?

By the time I had to quit flying I forgot what a overt night (H)AR was.

Dan,

When you quit flying, didn't they still rub two sticks together to turn the lights on??? Remeber first time after the change from just overt pod illumination lights to combination overt/IR lights. Told the helo about our "new" IR pod lighting so they asked us to turn it on for them so they could see what it was like while they were in taking fuel. Put the switch to IR and all H....L broke loose. They had wired the switch backwards and the overt came on. Got to run loss of drouge after the helo chopped it off and then the guillotine failed to cut. Not a good night.

Mike

Roger,

My sympathy on your loss. He was one of the best I had the privledge to learn from while going through ABQ.

Mike Klatt

When I watch this video

it's a C-5 Galaxy

I look at the landing gear on retraction. It takes a long time for one of the right MLG to retract. What's the big deal.!! is it a lack of hydraulic flow power or something else. There must be a good reason for it!............John Boy

On the C-5 they use position switches and logic circuit cards to control the sequence of events for gear retraction. The right gear had rotated the bogies 90 degrees inboard and then stopped. Probably a bad position switch or card, which was not that unusual of an event. They carry spare cards for inflight replacement. Or used to, as my experience is 20 years out of date.

Mike

Best use of the port was during unpressurized low level, when the radio operator was located forward of 245 at the top of the flight deck steps. Got himself about 18 inches of vacumn pipe and a flex tube for a summer trip to Thailand. Cut the end of the pipe at a 60 degree angle and stuck it out the sextant port. With the angle cut facing forward, he had instant private cool air vent. Rotate it 180 and he could vaccumn. Worked great for the first day low level, but the first nighttime, he got peppered with bugs! Didn't take long to rig a screen over the end of the tubing. Never saw him without it on a warm weather low level mission after that.

Mike

The Dyess H1's didn't have the dump SOV's, but didn't the rescue H, P's & N's have them? I haven't been on a rescue bird since 1972, so I'm really overworking my remaining brain cells.

Don R.

Yes, all the tanker birds had dump shutoff valves. They used the dump manifold for passing gas through the pods.

Mike

Used to see this a lot when using the birdbath. Would get turbine and nacelle overheats about the time we finished and were rolling to park. Mx had to dry and seal the cannon plugs in the drybay going into the QEC.

Mike

Don't know how about the lighting at night or on NVGs but with the digital engine displays that I have used, there seems to be considerable filter dampening on the analog/digital converter. Small flickers on the fuel flow, TIT and RPM that I was used to seeing on the round gauges are pretty much gone on the digital display. RPM also seems to lag about 3-5 percent from what I am used to seeing during start. Great system when up in cruise and you have time to scan. Never had an indication failure on it yet.

Mike

RD ability escapes me at the moment...(No pun intended).

Manual emergency depress.

Bob:

You are absolutely correct, however, the ditching fig that I had mentioned refers to them not as #'s but in the traditional format that we are all accustomed to.

As does the Ditching checklist.

If this image is from the ditching section, could the numbers refer to the order of preference for exiting the aircraft?

Mike

Used to be a portion of FE systems refresher that covered HERP or hostile environment repair procedures. This included capping brakes, jumpering ignition relays, and several other things.

Mike

The smoking antic that I remember was from the Rock. Student pilot in the right seat on a local pro. Shortly after takeoff the Nav lights up a cigarette and takes a deep drag and blows the smoke into the aft end of the small tube that runs along the windows that you hook the sunscreen on. All the student sees is smoke billowing out from the bottom of the overhead panel in front of him. Started screaming electrical fire and nearly had a heart attack before realizing what was going on. Don't think the nav made his christmas card list.

Mike

Don't recall it written from so many years ago, but I always had the pilot bump the throttles up just enough to get it off of NTS. Didn't want the NTS system, if it might be faulty, to cause an engine failure. I seem to recall that this was addressed in the -1.

Its been a while but if I remeber there is a note saying that NTS operation is a normal condition and does not require immediate correction, right next to that statement there was a caution also that said that if the NTS system malfunctions, the engine could flame out. Had an engine flame out once on approach due to NTS sticking and the mech claimed it was one of the old "pre teflon covered" NTS systems.

Mike

Dan

Have you seen or heard any more about 63-7872 at VPS?

Thanks

Bob

Last week it was sitting on the weapons test ramp. Closed up and chained down, all 4 feathered with the externals removed and sitting in cradles alongside. No work being done that I could see.

Mike

Looks like it spent a little too much time in the sun

Mike

Try this site for short summaries of the AIB

http://usaf.aib.law.af.mil/index.html

Mike

Yeah, and I blame the current command struture as well as lack of experience in the cockpit. Now days it seems to be a "one mistake" air farce. One misstep whether it was a mistake or initiative taken (mission hacking), contrary to what Stan/Eval says is allowable and you are marked as a problem child. This applies to the commanders as well. One mistake on thier watch and they will never see eagles and they will not take that chance so no initiative or free thinking. How do you think G.O. 1 came to being? Someone didn't want to trust his people to show responsibility.

Mike

Nice. Dan, you are always so subtle.

Mike

Don't have info on how it worked but remeber pulling the rails out of the HC's in '89 or '90 as they went through ISO. Pulling the rail sections off the cargo door was less than fun.

Mike.

First TDY was the Rock to Nellis. AC got the crew free tickets to see Gloria Esiphan(sp) and the Miami Sound Machine. Then to Eglin, where we blew a leading edge bleed air duct. Spent all night fixing the bird. Got done as the sun was coming up and the crew was showing up at the aircraft asking if it was ready to fly and talking about Sammy\'s. Won\'t repeat what I told the FE. Crew bunk felt good on the way back to the rock.

Mike

The offload valve should still be in the center drybay aft of the refuel/dump manifold Y out to the wings. On shadows, the Y was more like a diamond for uarrsi. Power for the valve was changed from main DC to essential DC with the uarrsi mod and wired into the line drain switch on FE\'s panel. Tell Dan he\'s slipping. He taught me most of this.

Mike

Was working graveshift while TDY to Mildenhall and at about sunrise, a KC-135R was taxiing out when a rabbit decided it wanted to get to the other side of the taxiway. It made it past 1&2 and under the aircraft but when it got in front of #3, it just disappeared. Called MOC and after engine blade wipedown, the 135 still made an ontime. I\'ve heard of using chickens to test engine blades but never rabbits.

Mike