Aviation BS and Photo Thread

There ain't enough room to walk around - it's all crouch.

Also, there may be some A/C...but it's not for the people.

 

Still a whole lot more comfortable than the rest of us.

 

Working in the bush between the Alaska Hwy and the Yukon border just north of Liard River Hot Springs back in 1981. The B26 was slung out to the highway the following year. locals said that a museum from somewhere in the US had recovered it.

 

I'm the whiny little bitch. I want no part of a ten hour mission. My longest King Air leg was 4.7 block time. Never again. Too old for that silliness.

Yep, crouch to walk around. A/C is for all but most models it's undersized from the factory if the OATs are getting near 100F.

 

Almost had a mid air at night with a spy C-12 (u12) sCARED THE FK OUT OF ME.....This was in 1996

 

My son has about 600 hrs in Afghanistan in one of the -12 variants as a sensor operator. He said the worst part was no heat in the fuselage and he was never warm no matter how much he wore. All missions were 8+ hours. Had several close calls with helos and drones.

 

oof ... I can only imagine. Yes, it can quickly get real cold back there with little heat. And add in many continuous hours, that would be miserable.

I am curious why no heat though.

 

All the electronics ran hot, even in the cold weather.

They could do a lot in that plane from all signals type spying to guiding bombs and other stuff. I know he has pictures of the inside, but he won't show me, even though I do have a security clearance. He's a good Marine.

 

I get that but with fans and robust electronic design there should be a balance. Too often processes like this it's *because we've always done it this way.* Or I'm clueless.

 

The pilots had heat. I told him that was the incentive to move to the front of the plane if you don't like being in the back.

It is nice having him fly with me. I turn the radio over to him.

 

ding, ding, ding - good answer.

When people ask how hard it is to learn to fly my answer is learning to talk appropriately on the radio is the hardest part (and it ain't that hard if you practice while driving in your car alone.)

BTW, kudos to your son for helping us!! It is always appreciated over here.

 

He had a pretty interesting deployment for a signals intel Marine. Worked for JSOC (or whatever they called themselves in country) and flew with civilian pilots.

 

Oh boy, he has some stories. And most of them he cannot share.

 

Yeah, I'm sure. He's pretty tight lipped about anything mission related, even though his Mom and I both have security clearances and his Mom sat in on some of the drone missions he worked with. He did complain about the pilots non stop debates on who had the better smoker and what type wood was best. Every single mission.

 

The -12s and -28s

That's pretty cool. Sounds like he might know a few friends of mine flying up front in Africa and the Middle East.

 

One of my top five funny: we'd been at cruise for at least fifteen minutes without a word spoken between us, both staring straight ahead.

Out of my right eye I see his head slowly go back into the headrest, a three-count pause, and while still staring straight ahead into the distance, "... how many chugga-chugga's before a choo-choo? ..."

I couldn't stop laughing. It then became an engineering study to find the correct answer.

 

If they like to smoke meat when not flying, he definitely does. Before deployment, he didn't have a grill or smoker. Now he has three. I guess they rubbed off on him.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_RC-12_Guardrail

 

If your son wants to transfer to the USAF-maybe he could be flying in one of these -more comfort! I flew on this same airframe 53 years ago over in in SEA.

 

Some old birds, but man can they do cool stuff.