Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Still a neat history in aviation. I'd imagine that is a lot of patients in a 141. My mom was a flight nurse on C-97s. I'm an OR nurse (new) and if I were younger I'd go back with the Air Guard as a nurse.

 

Took the Heli out to the glaciers on Saturday, first real blue bird day in a while.

 

Liked reading your story. We've tread a lot of the same sky in the same birds.
Also a TWA charter for me; also time in C-141s; tons of time in all of the commercials you listed, (sad you missed out on jump seat in a DC-10 with that huge window!), but what really caught my eye was the BirdDog and Helio time!
Except my experience was in O-1 BirdDogs and H-395 Couriers (USAF Ravens and Air America) in Laos. STOL for the Helio should be spelled SSTOL - for "Super Short" TOL. No problem hovering like helo with a good headwind. The Helio was nothing less than Amazing! But also a true ground-looping bastard if you weren't johnny-on-the-spot with every landing! And that damn roll-cage cockpit played pure hell on swinging the whisky compass!
Those faults, the tremendous gain in power, and a reversable prop is why I believe the Pilatus Porter won out and became favored over the Helio. (Ignoring useful load, of course.)
Have to throw in the fun with DeHavilland Caribous (DHC-4) doing STOL on remote dirt strips in the mountains of SEA too. The reversable props again paying huge benefits.

Good Luck to your SIL! Hope he gets picked by the line of his choice! (Look at Delta too, as we are in a large hiring mode right now. (Pilots and A&Ps))

 

Thanks, and you sound like you've had one hell of great aviation career. I've read a bunch about the Ravens, at least what can be printed about them, mostly autobiographical stuff. For several years, I flew radio control planes as a hobby, and built a 25% model of a L-19, but sold it before I completed it. While I no longer fly them, I still build one occasionally and am in the middle of a 25% L-4 build, I just love the L-birds and their mission. I'm involved with our local aviation museum as a volunteer (I'm retired), which is starting a big expansion along with a new facility to house our collection indoors. Plans are for a 55,000 sq. ft. hangar with meeting rooms, work rooms and simulator rooms. Our largest display aircraft is a P-3 Orion, still airworthy, and we have a big selection of mostly Navy aircraft that range from the early 1950's to present, including a Blue Angels Legacy Hornet.

My SIL is keeping his options open, for sure. He's applied to the two I mentioned because he'd joined their Cadet Pilot programs, which provided mentoring and in the case of Sky West, also put him in the seniority line for a job with them. Delta is one of his preferred passenger carriers, and he is also considering cargo hauling, no unruly passengers or TSA to deal with, and the routes are more stable to allow him a more regular schedule, but their admission requirements are a bit more strenuous than the passenger carriers. He's even talked to a couple of guys who do corporate flying, one company is a large fiberoptic corporation and has several Challenger 300's, and he's talked to a couple of pilots who fly a NASCAR team's Gulfstream around.

 

I've heard about the one in Hickory. It would be really cool if they got it up and going again. I flew up there during my PPL training for some XC time. Stopped for fuel and walked around the ramp with all the aircraft on display. Pretty neat stuff to see. Plus now they have one of the retired Blues' Legacy F-18s. Also, thanks for your USAF service! I went to Warner Robins AFB earlier this year and checked everything out at their huge museum, including a C-141. Tons of really cool aviation history down there on display.

 

My gig as a Flight Nurse was probably the highlight of my Nursing career. I entered the USAFR as a means to broaden my experiences, while keeping my civilian profession, which was as an O.R. Nurse. At the time I joined the Reserves, I was at the maximum allowed age, which at the time was 31 (you could not have reached your 32nd birthday) and I had a week left when I took my commission. My job in the Reserves was more than what you'd consider "part-time", it was a much bigger commitment than the one weekend a month and two weeks summer camp" that many people think, and I did more time in Reserve duty than in my civilian job for the first five years I was in. I served in Operations Just Cause, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and also did TDY's for staffing needs at several base facilities as an O.R. Nurse, too. My civilian Nursing career was 37 years, all but a small portion as an O.R. Nurse

The ANG's medivac mission is slightly different from the USAFR. Our mandate was strategic airlift where ANG's was tactical. They flew C-130's where we had the C-141B. I have some time in C-130's, all AF Flight Nurses trained in them as well as the Starlifter and the C-9 Nightingale. I got out just a couple of years before the C-17 started replacing the C-141B so I never got to fly in one, unfortunately.

 

I had aspirations of being Hugh Hefner's pilot on his "Big Bunny" jet (DC-9).
*Sigh*, past incomplete dreams.

 

I was at the Monroe show on Sunday. The old Hickory shows were good too, I wish they would come back. They are planning a new museum, so maybe it will happen.

 

Well…..let your dreams come true. A friend of mine started the flight department back up with a falcon 2000. It sold after a few years, he got to keep his job/pay, while they looked for something bigger. They bought and refurb’d a global with8n the past year or so. My buddy moved on to a bigger flight department before the new bird arrived.

 

I haven’t used Apple earbuds in years because they used to always fall out of my ears. Not sure if the AirPods would act the same way.

Wow that looks amazing

 

30 hours this week. Nice sunset to end it at home.

 

It might look like the B-2..
https://twitter.com/ap/status/1598670860612673539?s=46&t=XpUFHR1g61pl8hOQa_4b7Q

Speaking of the B-2, years ago I was on the north shore of the MA coast and saw a dark sliver coming in from the NE. As it approached, it was a B-2 banking almost directly above as it turn south over Cape Ann to do a flyover in Boston. Unmistakably quiet compared to other military craft I’ve heard. Indelibly etched.

Thanks to all who serve and protect our country and Constitution

 

From what I remember before I retired, that one is going to make the B-2 more like the B-1. Gone before you knew it was even there.

 

For a number of years I lived and did my flight training near Whiteman Airforce base. It was amazing to see the B-2 flying around. I remember seeing one in slow flight just above the highway once and if it wasn’t for the position lights and beacon being turned on, you wouldn’t have known the thing was there. But when they were on a mission and departing out of the base they would sound like a rocket taking off too. Amazing piece of machinery and it never got old watching for them. I knew a guy who piloted them and said the B-2 was worth more than it’s weight in gold and cost nearly as much, if not more, than an aircraft carrier when they were originally built.

 

Amazing how quiet they are coming toward you not so going away. We live about 85 miles east of where they are home based, and I hear them fairly often coming or going somewhere. I have learned whenever I do try and catch a glimpse they are always moving away from me.

 

Free wifi plus retro dial-tapping. You can have it all.

 

Some of the best Reno pilots started in ag...could be worth a couple years...

 

https://twitter.com/usairforce/status/1598717584605593605?s=46&t=bmXS0L1RlCJ3gLs-tjS6Rw

 

I was going through an old hard drive and found some gems I'd forgotten about from the days I worked operations at KLGB.