There I Was....or Oh #### redux

Awesome thread!!!!!

My favorite story is the old initiation to helicopter transport:

Sometimes we get ride alongs or we take a doc etc. So the typical welcome on the outbound leg is to tap the rudders back and forth like 1/4 of a degree. New people are way to excited and keyed up to notice and they seldom get more than 20 minutes before they start puking and cannot stop. Cruel maybe but oh so amusing

a reply to: FredT

Here's the one that started it all.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58
Almost 10 years down a very deep dumpster. Totally forgot about this thread, nice to see it return.

a reply to: thebozeian

I honestly thought my browser had gone insane when I saw it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'd missed that thread and couldn't figure out why until I looked at the dates. I was too busy studying my ass off for my finals for Mechanical Engineering.

I've got one that might belong here.

1986 I was in a helicopter squadron on a carrier in the Med. I had a 12 hour Assistant Squadron Duty Officer watch and then worked a 12 hour shift in Maintenance. I had just crashed out when I was called to go on a flight to Sigonella, Sicily. It was 4 hours each way plus 3 on the ground. I slept some on the way in. When we landed I did a turnaround inspection, refueled the aircraft, did a safety briefing for our passenger, some guy from the State Department and helped launch the aircraft. Part of the safety training is that you don't leave a non-crewman alone in the back of the aircraft, so I strapped in to the troop seat beside him. I was trying to catch some more sleep on the way back, but this guy was a bit nervous about flying and wanted to talk. I was getting kind of cranky about that time and told him that I had been up for quite a while and wanted to sleep. He left me alone for a bit and I had just got to sleep when he shakes my shoulder. I ask "What?" and he says "There's something leaking over there!" I look and there's an oil leak that is dripping about a drop per minute. I ask him to do me a favor, watch the leak and let me know if it stops. He asks "Why?" I tell him if it stops, it's out of oil and I have to tell the pilot that we are going to crash. He sits there the whole flight, watching the leak. I go back to sleep. When we land I grab a bag of rags, wipe up about 6 ounces of oil off of the deck and leave the aircraft. Our gearbox holds 12 gallons and can fly fine on 4 gallons. I had topped off the oil during the turnaround inspection.

a reply to: JIMC5499

My father was on his last TDY before retirement. They had gone to China, and then were heading to Australia. As they got closer to Australia, the radio operator kept coming back muttering, "We aren't gonna make it. We're running out of fuel." The winds weren't as good as forecast, so they were lower than their fuel curve predicted. Nowhere near dangerously low, just behind the curve.

The AC was a good friend of ours, and a hell of a pilot, so my father wasn't worried in the least. Finally, after the fourth or fifth time the RO came back muttering, my father looked at him and said, "When the guy up front starts to sweat, then you worry. Until then, sit down, shut up, and run your radios."

Guy didn't say another word about it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

About 1993 I was riding in a puddle jumper from Pittsburgh to Evansville. We were in the middle of a thunderstorm, bouncing up and down. The Flight Attendants stayed strapped in and didn't serve drinks. I'm sitting there dozing when one of the Flight Attendants taps my foot and asks "How can you sleep in this?." I pointed to the open cockpit door where I could hear the pilots and said "If they're not worried, I'm not worried." and went back to sleep.

I really envy you guys that have had the opportunity to fly and serve in different locations, on different aircraft, for different reasons and hearing all the stories. Just replying because these have been great to read so thanks. I can't add any stories to it other than experiencing some turbulent civilian flights, while other around me had the worried looks on the faces I've been sat there like 'woooah this is awesome'

Oh I had one flight, returning home from what we Brits call a 'lads holiday' probably like how Americans do their spring breaks. At the age of 21, just spent 2 weeks in Magaluf (Majorca, Spanish island in the Med) drinking nothing but alcohol and partying every night till the early hours our bodies were shot. I'm a very good flyer, I'm usually asleep for wheels have left tarmac, descending into Gatwick was the worst I had experienced. All of us (a group of 20 young hung over males) took up a few aisles in the cabin. Everyone feeling like they were on deaths door steps due to the punishment our bodies had taken over the two weeks. All you could hear from us was groaning and moaning and the odd muttering of 'jus land the ****ing plane already' ... for me my sinuses were in tatters every time my ears wanted to pop my forehead felt like it was going to explode. I was so glad to get off that plane. I'd hate to think what the other passengers thought of us we must of looked and sounded like a bunch of zombies

Anyways off to read the other thread now, thanks for posting love the stories

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

Palma!!! One of my favorite places on the planet. I had the privilege of going there four times.

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

I used to love flying into Maui. On one side of the airport were the West Maui Mountains. On the other was Haleakala. The airport was in the valley between them. That meant you were basically landing in a really turbulent wind tunnel. You could tell who was the inexperienced or nervous flyer by the screams as you started bouncing on final.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

Palma!!! One of my favorite places on the planet. I had the privilege of going there four times.

To be honest I don't remember much of the island not due to it being over 10 years ago but due to the fact that I don't think I touched anything that didn't have alcohol in it for two weeks. Passed out during the day and in nightclubs during the night

a reply to: Zaphod58
I can understand people being nervous about being strapped in a metal tube for hours on end and not having no where to go at 30 odd thousand feet. The way I see it though as soon as the wheels leave the ground my life is in the hands of the two crew members sat up front. If it all goes wrong there's not the slightest thing I can do about so I just strap in and enjoy the ride whether it's a bumpy one or not

a reply to: ThePeaceMaker

Yep! That was Palma. I had port visits there twice on the USS Independence and twice on the USS Forrestal. That would be from 1984 to 1986.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Yep.

I used to fly on bush planes fairly often while living and working in Alaska.

You've not lived until a commerical airliner, a Fokker of some sort, does for all intents and purposes, a split S turn followed by a wingover to hit the only whole in the clouds for several hundred miles...

We got a "buckle up", "flight attendants please be seated", then the swoops began. Nasty doesn't even begin to cover it.... Thank god, I was in front and didn't have to see the mass vomiting going on behind me. I could see into the cockpit, and it was like "another day, another dive into that little hole in the clouds..." Totally professional. The pilot sounded just short of bored to death.

a reply to: seagull

We used to have a small airline that flew to Molokai and Lanai using Caravans. The small airlines like that were the only regular service in and out. They weighed you and your bag at the ticket counter, and when you got to the plane, they called your name and told you what seat toy were sitting in.

The entire flight you could hear Betty when she'd talk, and just about reach out and touch the pilots. One of the most relaxing flights I've ever had.

a reply to: seagull

Sounds like fun. Try being a helicopter crewman during auto-rotation practice when your Pepsi starts floating up out of the can.

I thought of another one. Anybody hear about the shot-up UPS truck?
In 1985 an A-7 was returning from gunnery practice at Pinecastle, FL. He was landing at Cecil Field, FL and forgot to safe his cannon. When he hit the runway harder than he expected his cannon fired. The rounds went down the runway, through the fence and shredded the back end of a UPS step van. Nobody was hurt except for the driver's uniform and seat cushion.

That reminded me of something else. We used to fly down to AUTEC in the Bahamas. At the time RCA ran the place and subsidized everything. We could get a 12 pack of Bud for about $1.50. We ended up leaving a day early because of some nasty weather that was predicted for the next day. Because we were leaving early we had to go to Patrick AFB for Customs instead of West Palm Beach. West Palm Customs didn't care what you had as long as the drug dog didn't hit. Patrick AFB Customs were a pain in the ass. (sorry Zap) We had four extra cases of beer and our pilots had a few bottles of booze. The bottles were easy. We wrapped them in bubble wrap and stuck them inside the sponsons with the blow down bottles for the landing gear. We were trying to figure out where to hide the beer so that the clowns didn't confiscate it and have a party after we left. One of the guys got the idea of hiding it in the smoke launcher. If we put the used caps on the last can we could get four beers in each launch tube and they would be hidden. 24 tubes four cans per tube, problem solved. We flew in and out of Patrick with no problem. We had to go inland to avoid a storm so we were at about 5,000 feet over a suburb of Orlando when it happened. Our co-pilot had a check flight the next day and was practicing his switchology, when he accidentally jettisoned all of the smokes. It looked like one of those pictures of bombers dropping bombs except it was 96 cans of Budweiser falling out of the aircraft. I look down and all I see are houses and cars. We never heard of any damages, but, they had to hit something. We land and the co-pilot says that he will replace the beer if nobody say anything and he did.

a reply to: JIMC5499

Everyone hates Customs. We had a jet come in from overseas. Customs went out and cleared the crew, and sent a bus for the Space A folks. Only problem was, they sent out the short bus, so there wasn't enough room. The pilot, wanting to help, tells the other passengers to get on their bus and head to the terminal with them. They get to the terminal, and Customs says, "Thanks. That'll be $5,000 please."