Trip 030, Summer 2014, Spain



237 – Bravo alert to go rescue some stranded cargo in Spain that was stuck on a broke C5.







238 – Easy money on this jet.







239 – Two ocean crossings in one day, and we timed out in Virginia. Quick nap, then a quick flight tomorrow for home.

 

Trip 031, Summer 2014, Jordan



240 – Second production jet ever bolted together. 1988 model.







241/244 – Holding short for a McGuire bird to go play ahead of us.



















245 – The Germans!







246 - Thought this was a volcano at first the way the cloud lined up.







247 – Egypt







248 - Boats linin' up to use the Suez Canal.







249/250 - Actually have no idea what they are digging or workin' on here, but that has gotta be over 50 ft deep holes and piles.











251 – Let’s eat!







252 - This translation guide story had us all laughin'.







253 – Italian spaghetti.







254 – Fresh fish.







255 – Walkabout







256 - So we all decide to pay 5 Euro to see these "ancient ruins" with the ticket stub lookin' like the Roman Coliseum.







257 - We've been hosed Tommy, we've been hosed...







258 - Italy is great! Ice cream and beer!







259 - The end of the trip had us stopping for gas in Bangor ME, but it was weathered in, so the divert was to a place called Goose Bay Newfoundland. Four hundred miles out we were cleared in number one for landing. No kiddin'. Not a damn thing else around.







260 - Only other bird on the ramp was this nifty lookin' boat thinger.







261 - Always good to get home one more time.

 

...

 

AS - I always enjoy checking out your pics. One of my favorite things about traveling with work is the local food and beer! Of course, the culture and scenery can be interesting too.

 

Great pictures Adrian...I remember seeing my first C-5 at Travis AFB and my jaw dropping. This was in early 1971. What fuel does the C-17 use...straight AV Jet A or a military exotic blend? Take care and keep the pics coming!

 

JP-8, Jet A, Jet A+100, Jet A-1, JP-4, JP-5, Kerosene, and for an emergency alternative no more than 10% volume, good ole Aviation Gasoline.

Adrianspeeder

 

Got around to smashing a video together from the trip.


Adrianspeeder

 

Great video Adrian!

 

Trip 032, Summer 2014, Missouri



262 - Next load was to take the Prez out to St Louis. Never been there before, so let’s load up and get 'er done.







263 – No home game today.







264 – Not far from the arch.







265 - "Sir, we have many fine craft beers..." Naa, I'll take some Colorado koolaid.







266/267/268 – Next day we are just waiting for the motorcade to load up and then we can roll. Jet is good to go.















269/276 - "So I'm just sittin' out here watchin' airplanes..."

 

Thank's for the pictures Adrian...my almost 14 yr old grandson looked at them with me yesterday. Now he's thinking Air Force when he get's out of school...be safe!

 

You are welcome!

One month deployed down, one night off, and with 100.4 flying hours on the books, it's been non stop action.


Lots of bits and pieces come together to get bleed air from the APU, a ground equipment huffer cart, or cross bleeding from another motor wound up at power reverse to spin the starter to spin the motor to life. Sometimes that doesn't all come together, but Pratt & Whitney thought of everything, so all ya need is a speed handle to manually move the starter control valve, and let 'er eat!

Adrianspeeder

 

1st FCC Stage (OOTH 2014) - Workin' in, above, and around the sandbox on my first deployed flying stage.
001 - Home sweet shipping container home. For sure much much better than a tent.

002 - "Hey Chief!" Yeah? "This fell off the jet all by itself..." Why you *@(!(#*&@^....

003 - Worked on this ole girl a few times in the past, but finally got to crew 'er. Ran damn good too, but they've had 20 years to work out the kinks...

013 – Desert sunrise and the heat is already cranking above 110.

022 – You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.

023-025 – Hero Shot!


029-032-034-035 – Roxanne. You don’t have to turn on the red light!




037 – Contract freight dawgs bringing the good stuff for us to haul into Afghanland.

040 - Dubai World International runway 12.

045 - Dubai World International tower.

051 - Chasin' that hot sun.

053 - Northern Afghanistan mountains.

056 – ‘Murica.

061 – I’ve been livin’ on the wrong side of Memphis.

062 - Persian Gulf sunset.

071 – Team America. **** Yeah.

 

072 – Team America. **** Yeah!







073 – Tug life.







074 - Brakes released, clear to tow. Copy that, we're on the move.







079 – Omani horse/camel racing track.







089 - Oil well fire. It's just a choochin'!







093 – You left your spoilers armed ya noodle!







104 - Block 15, non COSA, legacy color weather radar, no forward printer, and confused all the younger people on how to AERO-I. What penalty box has Chucktown been keepin' you in the last few years to not get updated? 022 - Camp Bastian Afghanistan. You call? We haul. Fits through the door? Chain it to the floor.







106 – Boom.







108 - Southern Afghanistan mountains.







111 – My dad always had a towel around his neck. Hot as this place is, it’s a handy item.







120 – The 230 dirty!







122 – Sent the copilot in for smoothies!







125 – “We got guns and ****!”







129 - "Down there is the field where I grow my ****s. As you can see it is barren, so henceforth, no ****s to give."







131 - "Yay! I did a maintenance!"







133 - CHEEZEBURGER!!!







136 - Flag flight in combat heavy airlift for 2014-09-11. This morning as the 9/11 sun rose across the wings of my C-17, I realized I'm just a tiny puzzle piece doing what I'm good at to keep the BS of this God forsaken land of sand from ever getting across the ocean again. Ya'll have a great day. 'Murica.







138 – Best launch crew ever!







143 - Ready to ride out on a Mission Recovery Team like in the good ole days.







147 - Hangle of the dangle.

 

153 – Stealth C-17.







156 - Edge of one crappy sand land to a different kind of crappy sand land.







158 - Gettin sporty out here in split axis.







162 – This is war ole son!







163 - 2 mission computers, one fuel quantity computer, one MJP, one pilot seat, one wiring repair, one pin replacement, two software loads, one database load, and a partridge in a pear tree.







164 - Ole ***** 4 had been broken for four days straight stranded at Al Maktoum International. No one’s fault sent there to fix it, but every take off attempt cropped up a new non flyable failure. While funny for a day or two, it seemed to have about the same amount of mechanics in Dubai trying to get this one airplane off the ground as our deployed location stretched thinner working the remaining functioning tails. Day five was heading in the same direction when the maintenance group commander knocked on my shipping container turned very nice bedroom’s door.

“Sgt Fargo, how are you tonight?”

“Evenin’ Ma’am. Sorry, I just fell asleep. What’s going on?”

“I just talked to the ADO, and he’s good with it if you are good with it…”

Never a good start to a sentence I thought.

“…But can you go get ***** 4 and bring it back no matter what it takes.”

“I thought they had it fixed?”

“It just broke again.”

“When’s the next jet passing through there for me to ride along on?”

“Two pilots and a load are going to fly you there now. Gas them up when you get there, send that jet back, and then ***** 4 is your new home until it’s ready to return.”

“Do you mind if I take some, “Extra parts?””

“What do you need?”

Two pallet positions of every stinkin’ computer, component, and specialized tool that can make or break a C-17 in the middle of nowhere was hand loaded shortly thereafter. Aerial port wanted nothing to do with manifesting non TACC tasked cargo, so we went around them and did it ourselves.

“Ok Cap’n, wake me when we get there.”

“You’ll make sure we take off before you go get wrapped in ***** 4 right?”

The aircraft commander of my ride was worried about being stuck himself leaving after losing his FCC, but it was a great jet to start with, and I had a perfect record of getting every jet I crewed off the ground without having to call in extra help. His worries ended up unfounded with a no-frills departure after I filled up his Jet A1, unloaded my hoard of spare parts, and packed baggage carts to get them moved to ***** 4’s lair of despair.

Cheese and crackers people, it’s just an airplane of nuts and bolts built with parts by the lowest bidder. All week everyone had referenced this parked jet with a mythical aura that it can’t be fixed.

“Will we need Boeing?”

“How long will it be broken?”

“Will ***** 4 replace 90-534 for the title, “Christine”?”

No. Let’s get to work. For all the buildup, it was pretty straight forward to troubleshoot, isolate, and quickly repair everything in a shift or so with all the stuff I brought. I sent all the extra mechanics home on a nearby C-17 that was heading back, and called TACC to alert the crew that was in a hotel downtown.

“She’s ready to go. Send me my crew.”

I remember that call at about 2200ish local, and because I’ve fallen for TACC’s tricks before, I noted the initials RC. It should take them an hour to get checked out, through customs, and out to the airplane. I had the preflight updated, and fuel in the tanks, so we should make midnight chow at home no problem. What a time to take a short nap in the copilot’s seat, and… …And the sun beating through the windshield startled me awake. Who? What? Where? Huh? The ****? Watch shows 0500 in the morning, and tank 3 is missing about 3,000 lbs of gas. The crew was supposed to be at the jet hours ago, and I have to pee! I call up TACC, and ask about the crew for ***** 4.

“We’re waiting to alert the crew when XOCL says the jet is repaired.”

Face palm.

“It’s good to go. Is RC still on shift? No? Oh well. Send me my crew.”

This could have all been avoided if I had any of the stranded crew’s phone numbers, but since I didn’t start with them, the info wasn’t in my phone. Amazingly through some modified magic of the system of sitting alert in Charlie, to an instant Bravo, to a crew bus they happily showed up ready to ride. Preflight pass, preloaded flight plan checked for a fifth time, walkaround complete, and right at engine start…

“BEEEEP. Master Caution. FUEL QTY FAIL.”

Tank 2 shows those lovely dash’s from a Multiplex Junction Probe rearing it’s weakness at the exact wrong time. Go to B channel? Nope. Reset computer? Nope. Reset computer again? Nope. Transfer all the gas from two other tanks to wet and cool the probe? Nope. Well friends, this sucks, but I can actually fix it with my hoard of spare parts. One small problem though as this is the only avionics component that requires an In-Process Inspection to be signed off before continuing the job of replacement. Were we getting shot at? No. Were we in a safe place? Yes. Was there another C-17 coming through later that day that could bring along an avionics minion to legally get the signature of a corrected by if I sign the IPI’s and red X? Yes. We’ll go with that plan, but I still had to call TACC, and make the ever-common statement of, “***** 4 is broken again.”

“What is the part number, TO, figure, and index of what you need for the repair?”

“I actually have one on hand.”

“What career field mechanic do you need for the repair?”

“I’m actually an AFIN 7 level by trade.”

“Why are you calling, and not fixing the airplane?”

Now this is where the Aircraft Commander can make or break a relationship with a below the liner flying crew chief. Thankfully she was a good one, also listening to the call on headset, and broke into the conversation.

“The FCC has not had adequate rest in weeks. We’ll go back to the hotel, wait for an assist to show up later today, they together can make the repair on top of the wing, then we’ll depart tonight. He says it can be safely fixed in under an hour, so that’s what we’ll do.”

TACC stumbled over their words a bit, agreed to the plan, and I was indebted to one of my new favorite A codes to ever fly with. By this point of the deployment, we as a detachment were moving more equipment out of Afghanistan than I’ve ever seen moved at once. It was an amazing airlift achievement with 9 C-17s, 18 sets of pilots and loadmasters, but only 4 flying crew chiefs. A glitch in the matrix, and in my opinion an oversite in the rules, does not hold the FCC to crew rest rules afforded to pilots and loadmasters. As a consequence, myself and three other FCC partners were on average only having 5 hours off between a landing and then alerting with the next crew. In the course of three months I had racked up over 600 hours airborne. By no means was I complaining, but the chance for a day in a Dubai 5 star hotel with an in room hot tub sounded great. The room looked down on the Palm Island, had a great bed, enjoyable dinner.







166 - Downtown Dubai. Vegas of the middle east.







168 - Beats the hell out of a tent.







169 - Gotta love a palm tree shaped island view.







170 – Two days of hard work fixing a plane that was broke down in the desert for over a week and all I get is this tee shirt.







184 - Let’s get the fawk out. "Chalks repositioned."







194 – The man the myth the legend.







195 – Epic DO. I’d fly with her anywhere!







196 – Pilot hero shot.







197 – Loadmaster hero shot.







198 – Shower, shave, pass the **** out time.







201 – I always know that nose gear will lock down, but that 2 second delay after the mains gets me looking on every gear extension.







202 - All 5 foots are down and locked…







211 – I think the weather is giving us the finger.







212 – Cloud surfin’

 

213/214 – Cloud surfin’.











218 – How bout that? All this time I've been in the desert for years, and the first camels I've seen.







223 – Freight dawgs.







230 – Short final at Dubai World International.







238 – Whooooaaaa back!







241 – Never knew dead L-1011s has the same towbar connection as me.







243/244 – Hangin' at ops when I got back.











245 – Talk about a small Air Force world. After 7+ years, a deployed to the desert 413/414 reunion!







246 - Ain't Coors Lite, but still pretty good for being French.







251 – Where the Hell are we?







253/254 – I “borrowed” a 50 ton crane over from CE in the middle of the night to change a broke APU.











255/256 – The only difference between men and boys is the size of the toys.











257/258 – Way excessive, but we got ‘er done.











261 – Try as I might, I really don’t know how to caption this one.







263 – Nothin’ like the sound of a power run in the desert making a dust cloud miles deep.