I was reading through the different subjects, reliving old memories, and I was thinking back to my first week on the job being trained as an AZ. I went to VFP-63 for training as a photomate, but AZ was a new rate, and because I had taken typing in high school, I was given the choice of becoming an AZ or cleaning barracks at Miramar for four years. I became an AZ. When I first reported to the AZ shop as an E-2 right out of bootcamp, one of the old salt mechs came running into our shop straight to me and told me he needed the keys to his pilot's F-8 because he had a hop and was late. I musta asked five different guys where they kept the keys. Man, was I one dumb kid.
When I was at HS-10, one of the newbs had to go to a class at the building where the base CO's office was. He was about to leave, and me and another mech told him "hey, don't forget to salute the ensign and request permission to come aboard!"
He totally believed us, and went down there, popped tall, saluted, and requested permission to come aboard. He said it surprised the hell out of the ASDO, who was probably sitting there reading a magazine or something. A decent chuckle, but...
There happened to be a Master Chief standing there who thought the hapless newb was mocking Naval Tradition or something, and this MC proceeded to verbally drive his pee-pee into the deck for the next ten minutes. The poor guy ended up being late to his class, and was none too happy with us over our little joke.
lets c... 1. tell them that pumping the launch bar will make your x dimension go up 2. tell them the screw on the very tip of the nose of the jet (f/a 18 not sure bout others) goes all the way through 3. send them to material control to get a can of p.e.p.s.i
The P-2V did not have a head aboard like the P-3. Instead, there were "relief tubes" in the cockpit and aft stations. Newbies were told this was an emergency, voice tube communication system and were told to talk into the funnel like hose end.
A friend of mine was once sent to retrieve some pad eye covers. He knew they were screwing with him so he went to the metal shop cut six pieces of aluminum, the size of pad eyes, put a flashlight clip on one side, a wire handle on the other and put a "Remove before Flight" red flag on the handle. They didn't mess with him again. How about 50 feet of chow line? Or a four foot yardstick. The corpsman would send their newbies around for 20 feet of Fallopian tube. I was told about a young man from AIMD on the Coral Sea who went up to the bridge for the mail bouy watch. When the Captain asked him what he was doing he told him. The Captain turned his head, chuckled and asked the sailor where his binoculars were for the watch? The young man said he didn't get any. So the Captain gave him his and said,"try mine." The sailor said "thank you sir." and went back to his watch. Finally the Captain told the young sailor he'd been had and sent him back to AIMD. Anyone remember "Sea Bats?" WE got a young Ensign one night on the Indy with a big one! He tried to have us put on report and the Skipper and XO between guffaws told him to forget it, he'd been had!
I ran into an E2 newbie from my repair locker on the chow line. I was from AIMD & I think he was from DC. He told me that he was given the job of installing a black light in some obscure compartment that he couldn't find. In his hand he was holding light bulb that was spray painted black. I had to tell him.
Some of the other classics: go to supply and get me a roll of yaw string go to the bos'n locker & get me a squeegee sharpener
How about in Boot camp. I sent them to get a Bucket of bulkheads and the keys to the grinder. We had an FNG that we sent to get a channel buoy to change the tv channels. Also a handle for the Jack stays so we could raise the clothes lines. I had some old salts try the sea bat trick on me but I had read the book by ADM. Daniel V. Gallery so it didn't work. Rubber buckets for the Bilge pumps. I sent an AM after the keys for the ignition for an AD-5. Told him the pilot took them out when he parked it. I was an AO. We told him we couldn't arm the ordinance till he started the engine.I thought the plane captain was going to kill him. The Pilot wasn't too happy either.
I like reading this one, at least gives me a heads up on a few of them, and a chuckle. I'm sure though at some point or another I'll probably be the butt end of a joke or be had by a prank.
I remember an afternoon where an AMS friend and I thought we were the object of a prank. We were called to maintenance control and told to go out to the flight line and check on a gripe on one of our S-2s. We got to the Line shack and the chief told us we had gripe on a Stoof that read, "Aircraft squeaks somewhere in the port wing." Oookay? The Line chief saw the looks on our face and said "Guys, the gripe is legit, here's the paperwork on it. We knew what was up once we saw the pilot's name and rank on the bottom of the page. This guy wrote more imaginary gripes than anyone I ever ran into in 20 years active duty. The chief said, "I know guys, go start it up, pressurize the fuel system, check the wing fold and come back in." We were out for forty five minutes, found no problem on the bird and came back in. The Line chief said "Thanks guys, I'll take care of the sign-off go back to the hangar." A couple of days later a my AMS buddy shouted at me and told me to check the aircraft discrepancy logbook on that Stoof. He told me I'd get a kick out off the sign-off. The sign-off read, "AMS and ADJ turned aircraft, checked fuel system and wingtanks. AMS found mouse in Port wing tank, AMS borrowed hammer from ADJ, killed mouse, aircraft checks 4.0" About three months later this same stick jockey wrote up, "VHF radio does not work in the "OFF" position." Need I say more......
New guy in our shop was sent to medical to give a sperm sample. Lab tech was in on it, gave him one of those little paper cups, looked sorta like a ketchup holder.
The rest of us were waiting outside the bathroom with camera in hand.
With the pranks especially for those who came straight from aprenticeship school and striking for a rating was "Go to supply and tell them you need 200yds of flight line" I would give them a requistion and nine times out of 10 they would do it
While working "O level" Com/Nav/Ecm at NAS Lemoore... When we got a new kid in the shop, I would vex him with my own personal version of "get some relative bearing grease, bucket of steam" etc... "Go out on the line and get the serial# of the Tacan in number 406 (or #409), hurry, ops needs the info..." Of course, there WAS NO #406 or #409, and we sent the poor newbie on a royal wild goose chase looking for them, LOL! P.S. I had certainly paid MY DUES by then and was "rated". I don't recall "Them" getting me on a really dumb one like that, but having been one of two new & very green strikers in the shop, I definitely got my chops busted lots of times by the "old timers". Just part of the fun, you know.
Not a prank but when I was in VA122 (One Funny Zoo) in Lemoore, I was assigned as the squadron duty driver one weekend. I'm sitting in the office and the OOD hands me a short stack of papers that I later found out were the next days flight plans, and he tells me to run them over to the tower.
Now If you've ever been to Lemoore, you know that the barracks were called the "towers". So I hop into the haze gray, beat to sh*t pickup and drive the 5 miles to the "towers" where I hand the papers to the second class MAA on duty. He has no idea what they're for but he puts them in the inbox for safe keeping.
I drive all the way back the squadron and the OOD asks where I've been and I tell him it's a long drive to & from the "towers". At about the same time you could see the light bulb go off over each of our heads. I screwed up. Luckily, with VA122 being a training squadron, the OOD was about as green as me and he had to make his nightly rounds over at the "towers" anyway, so I drove us there, we retieved the flight plan and manged to drop it off at the control tower.
I'm laughing at this now but at the time I didn't seem very funny.
