083 “That’s a biggin’!”







084 Final ridge crossing nailed at exactly 500 ft on target with pitch and power.







085 Punched this day in the mouth! Let’s park this rig, and find a bar.







Next day headed home no problems.

 

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Great pictures...gracias!!

 

If I was 19-years-old these pictures would have me hustling down to the nearest recruiting office! Are you planning on being career military, because the cubicle at your civilian office job would seem pretty small by comparison......

 

I just crossed 8 years two months ago, and the current deal takes me to the ten year mark. As long as no one punches me out on the way to work that day, i'll sign up for 4 more leaving six to go. I turned down an electrical engineering job back in the day to come fix airplanes, and have gone to work happy every day since.

Adrianspeeder

 

Trip 089, Spring 2015, Germany



086 - We had both blocked about the same time. Fred made a left out of parking and bumbled down the front of the main ramp. We banged a right out of parking and U turned by fuel cell. Hustled down the back of the main ramp to meet up with a, “Jumbo 596 give way to departing C-17 traffic.” Slow to the show fat Freddy! Heh heh heh…







087 Hey! Who stole the runway?







088 Dover AFB’s AMC museum.







089 They put the broke C-5A model fat Freddy in the corner.







090 Navy boat was haulin’ *** through the Bay Bridge Tunnel.







091 Top floor high life.







092 Mercedes Benz HQ.







093 Never stayed in a place with this décor. It is like Ikea meets plastic.







094 Nice view and great to go somewhere other than Ramstein in Germany.







095 I don’t know what to say about what goes on in this bathroom.







096 Normally 74 is a rock solid bird, but with some fuel transfer pump shenanigans, she gave us a delay. I figured out a work around procedure, and we were on our way.







097 Sunday morning sermon brought to you by big birds on short final.







098 Programming the TomTom GPS for the left turn at Berlin.







099 Splash of gas and lets haul some ***!







100 Can’t look this good and work hard too.

 

Great pictures Adrian...at least 4 or 5 aircraft at the museum look like old Air Guard planes I flew in back in late 60's and early 70's!

 

Thanks for posting all the pictures. Very nice.

 

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Trip 098, Spring 2015, Delaware



Just a quick local one day haul from Delaware to Virginia and back to northern DE. Didn’t even pull the gear up from New Castle airport back to Dover.



101 Loadmaster hero shot.







102 Loadmaster hero shot. Because of construction, we had to back out of parking.







103 Lets parallel park this thing, “Come on back!”







104 Pilot hero shot.







105 “I ain’t scared being this close to that unit there. I grew up next to Three Mile Island.”







106 Traffic low…







107 Always an interesting stubby runway to land at.







108 Overrun is lacking in the length department. “That’s what she said.”







109 Things started to unravel with a bad APU. Had the ground guys bring me out a power cart, and I also asked for a huffer cart to keep the avionics cool while we load, and eventually start the engines when we need to leave. Ground guy then asks, “What’s a huffer cart?” My Air Force to Navy language barrier was biting me again. While trying to figure out what the guys here use to air start their helicopters, the power cart starts making angry noises. Looked to see a thrown rod right out the side of the block.







110 Had to squat down a bit to see under the jet for when the next power cart would be pulling up.







111 Turns out the Navy doesn’t use big huffer carts. They have, “Lil smokies.” Hooked one up and it could barely run one air conditioning pack at 7psi. Did the rare double hookup when they brought out another and together, they could muster 18psi. Recommended pressure is 20psi to even try to start one engine, but we’ll give it a try since we can do no better. Pulled off the slowest engine start I’ve ever seen on the timing limits, as well as hot as the desert on the flight deck with no air conditioning during the start. Oh well, good enough for government work. Crossbleed start the other three, and lets get out of here.







112 Ole clunker hand me down McChord jet strikes again makin’ me work harder than the nice jet we gave away ever would have.







113 Beautiful DelMarValous day back in the air!







114 Hey Brandon and Jason, I can see your house from here.







115 Big city of Middletown DE.

 

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When I was in the Navy, we called them huffers. The ones we had were bigger than those 2 toys though.

Yep, no APU is a pain in the ***.

What base was that? Doesn't look familiar and I think I've flown in and out of every NAS and NAF in the country.

 

Quantico.

Adrianspeeder

 

Oh - never been in there. That's the Marines, not Navy, and the runway is legally too short for a P-3, we were restricted to 5000' minimum by the book except for operational necessity. I'm impressed that your beast can use it.

Should have put 2 and 2 together - support equipment on Navy bases is yellow.