Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Goooooooood morning TW

 

... ^^^ ... Morning and nice sunrise ... love those mornings on runway ...

 

My bother was a C-5 flight engineer for 8 years, and C-130s for 6 more after that. He loved both birds.

I've heard some stories.

He was part of the massive airlift out of Afghanistan several years ago that involved 22 C-5s. All made it in and out of Afghanistan without issue. It was a maintenance miracle.

Not all the birds made it out of Guam, though. There is a direct proportional relationship between maintenance requirements and playable golf courses. It's a known fact.

C-5s break down in Hawaii all the time.

Seriously, the amount of redundant systems on that bird is crazy. They'd fly far more often than they do if they followed the same maintenance tolerances that airlines do. Fortunately they don't. When a C-5 went down, it was either because of cascading catastrophic failures or operator error.

It is a maintenance pig, but at the size you can see why. It's far more reliable than the few AN-124s still flying. They're horrible.

 

QFT ... With regards to playable golf courses.

EDIT: I remember hearing about the Afghan lift ... I'm willing to bet the ORM factor led to some gray areas on flyable write-ups.

 

And for the record, my first AF job was avionics maintenance on C130s at Pope from June 1984 thru June 1987. I'll always love that acft.

 

They flew with enough spare parts to build a 23rd bird. There were also some "interesting" decisions made, but as soon as they were out of SAM country then safety took over. 17 birds still made it to Canada though, and that's not shabby for that airframe. For a while Travis AFB had maintenance crews scattered around the world fixing planes!

 

I got my commercial cert with instrument rating at Central Texas College as part of a degree program at Texas A&M. Can't recommend it enough to people interested in flying.
I ended up going back to the navy to fly something cool with a pointy nose. Got disqualified from pilot because I had a retinal detachment in ocs. Now I'm a naval flight officer about to finish E-6b Mercury flight school next week.
I'm not at the controls like I wanted but it's a great career and much easier to fund my tacoma addiction than trying to get my foot in the door in the aviation industry. I love my job.

 

Not being a military guy (unfortunately) or even ex-military but, having turned wrenches among other functions at a few+ major US based airlines, this statement got my attention. Is the MEL/CDL/OIL different? Is there no MEL/CDL/OIL? Is the maintenance program different?

 

Anyone use this site?

https://www.flightradar24.com/FDX657/991e629

It's missed approach and go around time @ KMEM. Pretty impressive to watch.

 

Funny, I use the app on my phone. I didn't realize they had a website. The app has some cool features to play with.

Last week when we had to get around the line of storms over the Midwest we were looking at the radar apps on our phones to decide what the best route was to take.

The tops were reporting around 45,000 to 60,000 feet. Sometime the returns are a bit exaggerated so I pulled up the flightradar24 app to see if anyone was crossing the line.

We joined the conga line of planes south of the weather. That picture was worth a thousand words and made the decision very easy.

 

I was at work watching one of the fronts move east as it was approaching MEM. I noted the lack of traffic...it was a pretty crappy day once it hit.

 

I feel like I know you better now.

 

Helicopters ftw!

 

The employee cafeteria at the C-17 building complex in Long Beach plant was called "The Moose Cafe"...

 

Long distence pic of an unusual visitor today.

 

Beachcraft T6 Texan II?

 

Beech T-34?.... the canopy looks a bit different though.

 

Correct. There are a couple of AFBs in Texas that make pilots. They fly around to various bases, though it's usually the jets that make the longer trips.

 

I think T6...

When I first saw it on short final, I thought it was a Navion (which I hardly ever see).