I told this story down in the Officers board,and though you all might get a kick out of it.

One of my flight instructors, a commercial pilot, told me a story about a time when he was filling in for a line-boy at an airport. This Citation rolled in, shut down and some big wigs got off. The grey-haired pilot got off, leaving the young-gun rookie co-pilot, in his Ray-Bans, onboard to keep an eye on things.

So my instructor, having done this before, walked on up to the flight deck and asked the 'kid' if he needed anything? The kid, with his nose in the air, just shook his head 'no'. So then my instructor asked the kid, "Mind if I take this baby for a spin?" Again, the kid just sneared, and with his best John Glenn voice, smugly said, "If you can start it, you can fly it.", just thinking this guy is a dead-beat line-boy. So my instructor says, "Sweet!", jumps in the left seat, pulls out the check list and starts flipping switches. He said that kid just about crapped his pants as he lunged over to get the checklist out of my instructors hand. Meanwhile, the grey-haired pilot is standing just outside the flight deck, laughing his a$$ off.

Don't know if it's true, but a funny story anyways.

I've got one better than this. A friend of mine work on offshore oil rigs in Louisiana. They were routinely flown out to the rigs on a fleet of helos. One hot summer day one of the pilots was sitting in the back of the heloin the passenger seats casually reading a newspaper and waiting for the passengers to show up. When all of the passengers showed up they thought he was just another one of them. Everyone was wondering where the pilot was and was making comments about the hot weather and the delay. After a bit the pilot, without giving away his true identity, says "Hell, if that damn pilot isn't coming I think I can fly us out to the rig." He moves up to the pilot seat and starts flipping switches and lights the engine off and engages the rotor. My friend who was a witness said that all of the passengers jumped out of the helo and were calling the pilot a crazy SOB. It took management personell from the office to calm them down and convince them that the guy really was their pilot. Must have been a real hoot...

H3's had a gyro located in front of the radioman and a broom closet in front of the mech's seat full of servo's in case you wanted to be funny and maybe spend the night in Ketchikan or Juneau!

Not really a story, but a fun trick:

If you are riding in the back and a FNG pilot is doing the startup on a Blackhawk, keep depressing the weight on wheels switch for very brief intervals. It cause the low rotor audio to go off. Especially fun if you can time it to his/her actions so they think they are causing it.

Back in the dinosaur days of aviation CGAS San Diego overhauled the J4F Widgeon. At completion, test hops were made for various reasons, one to check out the radio gear. The ARM was usually a very serious person and brooked no sass checking the direction finder etc.

I was asked along in the right seat probably to get my time in. To give the radioman a chance at humor I took along a piece of plastic tubing, and after airborne inserted it through the back of my seat into the radio gear, then lit a favorite Pall Mall blowing a goodly amount of smoke through the tubing. In those days we smoked if we did not smell gas.

Never was a smoke test more frantically received as the cigarette smoke curled up through the receivers. His eyeballs did not cage until we were back on the ground.

ackack: that's a good one!

There are plenty of C130 stores that I have heard, but I'd better stick to the one I "saw".

There used to be urinals in the back of the bus, halfway up the aft ramp. A platform folded down and you stood there, hanging on with one hand, holding open the snap-shut door to the urinal with another hand, unzipping with another hand, and reaching in to find your dispensing tube. As you can see, it takes four hands or lots of practice.

Anyway, the mark made his way to the back to use the urinal. Right next to the one on the LH side of the plane is the electrically driven Aux Hydraulic Pump. When turned on it makes a huge screeching noise and always makes you jump a bit.

Meanwhile, the mark is now folding down the LH platform. The progress of "deployment" is called out step by step over the intercom (the mark is off headset). As soon as the person in the back calls out "OK, we have flow established," the next call from the back is "Aux Pump ON!"

Which is similar to the one I saw ... took a bunch of my ship guys off PSTAR down to Buttercup in Treasure Island on a C-130. One short guy didn't understand the concept of the platform, and that damn urinal's pretty high. He was trying to "arc" it in, 'til the loadmaster or somebody straightened him out. Hysterical.

Which also reminds us of the times people have tried using the old "honey bucket" without lowering it down from the stowed position. Quite a climb up and an exciting ride down when the uplock finally gives way.

The honey bucket is no more, replaced by the "atomic toilet."

I know of a young man that had never seen or had ever used it. He climbed up there in a rush because time was crucial. Bag was installed and he held on pirched up there like an Owl. Thinking what a strange way to have to take care of business. Mean while one of the other crew members made a round thru the aft portion conducting a saftey check and about bust a gut when he spotted the young man pirched up on the honey bucket.

Don't know if any Falconers read this, but the C-130 bubba's might get a kcik out of this. When the Falcons were first upgraded to the 'C' models and started using EOW/FLIR, the pilots and I convinced a couple of new guys that I could fly the Falcon from the SSO position using the slew transducer.

We do that every time we go on a deployment. We just use the search light controllers. We usually get a few of the ride alongs to believe that one.

CGNR 1455 was blazing around the pattern at Selfridge ANGB (i.e., Air Sta Detroit) as the XO and a new copilot racked up some required monthly flight time and some approaches. There I was, a baby flight mechanic, eager to fly and become salty (ok, the Great Lakes are freshwater but you know what I mean) which led me to put my name on that flight while not quite comprehending the relief clearly visible on the AT1 who was originally on the schedule. 30 minutes after take-off, I realized that it wasn't going to get any better than it was at that time so, utilizing knowledge I'd gained from a grizzled ol' AM1, I packed my flight helment bag onto the "headrest" bar behind my noggin, lodged my helment securely onto the headrest and into the flight helment bag, and concentrated on making it through the rest of the runway assaults. Next thing I remember was the sensation of true Zero-G flight as I floated in space, restrained only by the single lap belt installed on the FM seat. And I was screeching like a little girl as my arms and legs flailed about as I tried to grasp something, anything, to make myself at least feel like I was still attached to the aircraft. And the XO & copilot were LTAO as I attempted to regain my composure. They had been trying to call me on ICS without success but soon realized that I had become preoccupied with deep internal thoughts of a snoozing nature. The XO thoughtfully brought me back to daylight awareness via means of a straight-in autorotation.

A good one for 130 mechs is one I learned the Air Force. When the birds in the doc for ISO or heavy insp. Have an FNG (prefferably the biggest guy you've got) crawl into the intake, and hold a wind meter behind the exhaust and tell the guy you need to do the echo check insp. Have the FNG yell as lowd as he can so you can check for any defects in the comperssor and turbine blades. Use the wind meter for effect. When I was at Pope AFB we had a guy siging it off in the forms for months before he figured it out. If you want to add effect tell him to give you waivering tones after solid tones. For an even better laugh have him sign off the isnp IAW some T.O. number.

A friend of mine flys these:


He said the best addition the pilots made to the plane cost less than $20.00 from WalMart.

(not this model, but you get the idea.)

--M

In years gone by when flying in a C-130 droning along the pilots will let the crew get some stick time at altitude. Well Ronnie Dye was in the Co-pilots seat trying to fly along straight and level. We just so happened to have a USO tour on board with some, shall we say heavys on board. The cargo compartment was relatively empty so we played a little trick on Ronnie. We ran from the 245 to the aft ramp. and the nose would raise and we would climb... Ronnie would finally get everything all trimmed up and flying along level and we would all run to the 245 blkhead and we would dive.... We did this for maybe 20 minutes before he became aware that maybe it wasn't him... Great fun...

That's funny ... we used to do the same thing on the buoy tender. Never seemed to make any difference to the OOD or the helm, tho.

John Greathouse was our last enlisted Pilot.He was a ADCM(AP). He had over 15,000 hrs flt time.
In the late 1970"s while on a Hurricane eval flt. we landed at Keesler AFB for fuel.It was a busy,crowded ramp and he had the Co-Pilot (Some JG) ask the tower for priority fueling.The tower came back and said "Only VIP's can have
priority fueling"John held out his E-9 badge on his shirt and told the Co-pilot "Tell em we have a 2 Star as Aircraft commander".. We got
head of the line priority fuel !!


The good old days--Charlie 32

My father, Tal Sivils (CGA # #344), was on approach to Quonset Point in an Goat when warning lights indicated that his landing gear was not engaged. All checks came up that the problem was probably a malfunctiong light bulb. Daddy did a fly-by of the tower but they were unable to help with a visual and advised a water landing. Unhappy with that advice (he didn't want to risk a dead-in-the-water aircraft), Daddy continued to fly loops while he thought about what to do. Finally he contacted the tower, declaring an emergency, Daddy told the tower that he was "just going to have to step outside and take a look at things myself." The tower's response was "What do you mean "step outside"? At which point they saw my father being lowered out the hatch while 2 of his crewmen held him by the ankles! Of course he was tethered around the waist but they couldn't see that. The tower immediatly sounded the alarm to the carrier Essex to launch her rescue boats because the aircraft was off her bow. Daddy checked the landing gear and found all to be extended and locked. They landed without incindent. Well, maybe the tower crew was a bit wiped-out.

There was mention of the late, great John Greathouse who graduated from flight school with my Dad, Tal Sivils (CGA #344). What a lot of people don't know about him is that he and his co-pilot once bailed out of a helicopter and lived to tell the tale!

It was during WWII,at the Pliladelphia Naval Yard and were filing a flight plan. They were to be calibrating radar in helicopters and to fly over Center City that day. As they were filling out their papers, a Navy officer called out very rudely to them, "Where are your parachutes?" Greathouse and his partner looked around, puzzled, until they realized the officer was talking to them. "Uh, sir, we're helicopter pilots." they replied. Still ticked, the officer barked, "I don't give a **** who you are, you need parachutes!" Greathouse just stared, "Sir, we're Coast Guard; they don't give us parachutes." The officer threw a temper tantrum. "You WILL draw parachutes. No pilot takes off from MY field without he and his crew having a parachute!" So John and his co-pilot went and got parachutes. Then the officer watched them as they got into their helicopter so there was no chance to ditch them. Off they went, all scrunched up.

Mid-way over Center City they were pinging the radar when all of a sudden there was the mind-splitting sound of ripping metal from overhead! Before they could react, they saw their main rotor flipping off into the distance! John and his co-pilot just looked at one another then each plunged head-first out their doors.

When John landed, he looked around; he had come down at a bus-stop next to Jefferson Hospital. As he was gathering his 'chute, a cab pulled up and told him to get in, that he'll take him where he wants. John said he wanted to go to the Naval Yard. Then the cabbie asked John if he had a buddy with him! John said "yes" and asked if he had seen him. The cabbie said, "Better yet, I'll take you to him." And a couple of blocks away, there is his co-pilot laying on the sidewalk. He had gotten hung up on a 2 story building and when rescuers were cutting him down, he fell and broke his leg. So John packed him into his cab and they returned to base. Broken leg aside, they both would go on to fly many more hours.

Back in the Mid-1950's I was at CGAS St. Pete.I rec'd a call from Ops to report to the helo (HO4S)on the line and bring your .45 pistol.I did,and after takoff I asked what was going on.
Pilot told me a small plane is down in the everlglade swamp(it had been there for many days)and
nemerous flights overhead had reported it to the FAA. To avoid further reports the CG planned
to paint a big X on the upside down belly of the plane. I asked-"How was I chosen to be the
painter?" Pilot said "We figure there may be some Gators near the plane and you could handle them with the .45" We arrived on scene-Plane was in about 2-3 ft. of water in the swamp. As I was being lowered,a piece of cowling from the crashed A/C went flying near our Helo. Pilot decided to put me down (with paint & .45 )about 20-30 yds from the A/C. I made a rapid dash and
jumped onto the wing of the A/C and sure enough a gator about 5-6 ft swam away. Needless to say,
the paint job of a huge X was very quickly done. After a wet ride back to St. Pete, we all had
a good laugh about the episode..



The good old days ! Charlie32