'407' actually.

Going shopping?  I see your shopping carts duct taped to the sides. 🙂 

Great shot!

Very nice screenie, OnD

6 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

I see your shopping carts duct taped to the sides.

😄😄

12 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

Going shopping?  I see your shopping carts duct taped to the sides. 🙂 

Great shot!

In the aviation world we called it 'hundred mile an hour' tape 'til it got expensive.  The original tape is what you Navy guys covered gunports with. 

22 minutes ago, olderndirt said:

In the aviation world we called it 'hundred mile an hour' tape 'til it got expensive.  The original tape is what you Navy guys covered gunports with. 

Hehe....yep...we used it for a LOT of things....of course....in my trusty SH-3....calling it "100 mile-an-hour" tape was stretching it a bit. 🤣  She could do over 100...but spent most of her life hovering 40 feet over salt water, dipping her sonar, looking for Bubblehead hotels, right @wthomas33065? 😉

And you can imagine what that salt water spray did to the aluminum and magnesium (main rotorhead gearbox) when it came time to inspect for corrosion. 😞 

Our squadron acquired an airframe from AUTEC who used them for torpedo recovery.  Civilian-contracted maint. (so those in the know....KNOW how this story is gonna turn out.)

When we pulled it into the hangar, we started a heavy corrosion inspection (among other inspections).  There are canon plugs between the fuse and sponson that carries power to it for landing gear, lights, aux flotation bag control, etc.  As an avionics guy I was in charge of all the wiring to my boxes, and the AEs (Aviation Electricians) chipped in so we covered the whole bird. 

Anyway, I noticed a lot of white powder on the ring that you 1/4 turn to release it from its socket (not a good sign)...it was stuck...with a little more pressure, the whole dang thing broke off in my hand!  Most of the wires were completely corroded away!  Did I mention that the plane was cared for by civilian contractors? (and flown by them too).  They actually pinned the gear down so it would not collapse and obviously never raised it (because there was no power to solenoids)...no nav lights either (same canon plug)...and they completely took the aux flotation bags off...so no worries about a stray voltage from a bad wire blowing the bags...LOL.

And believe it or not...this was not even the really scary part.  Back to that main rotorhead gearbox made of magnesium.  It has an extremely thick and durable paint that keeps all salt water from it. One of the mechs, while inspecting the bolts that hold the main scissor link to the lower swashplate, noticed the same whitish powder in the edges of the bolts.  When he went to unbolt them...you guessed it...broke off!  Once they got that part off...they saw a hole in the main gearbox, under the scissor foot, that was never noticed by....you guessed it....the civilian contracted maintenance.

The bird was a hangar queen for months...but the worst kind.  It was so bad you could not "borrow" parts off it to keep other birds flying (in the real world of Naval Aviation, there are things you are supposed to do by the book...then there are the things you do to stay mission-ready....different book, hehe).  There is a reg that if a bird does not come out of maintenance and "fly" within a certain timeframe...there is some serious paperwork and inquiries that no Maintenance Officer wants to go through.  We got one wavier for this bird, then when that expired...we just about rebuilt it from spare parts to do one thing (and the best thing about a helo in this case).

On the last hour of the last day the waiver was to expire, we put the plane in "flying" condition...pushed her out of the barn.  The CO hopped in, started her up hovered her about 6 inches for about a minute...shut her down and logged the "flight time". 🙂

We pushed her back in the hangar again after he wrote up a downing gripe on her...and well....we finally just about rebuilt her by the time we were finished (since she was such an old airframe and we were not getting anymore in the fleet...and the SH-60s were still a few years out....we had to keep the airframes flying).

Anyway...I'm a sailor...don't get me started on a sea-story!  Hope it was at least interesting for those curious about such things.

Best part of day today...got TWO free meals as a Vet! 🙂 

2 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

looking for Bubblehead hotels, right @wthomas33065?

...I can neither confirm nor deny...

"Officer of the deck, can you make out the ship we are tracking?"

(Panning through the Periscope).  "Yes, Capt. I can read it's name...It's the Nosmo King....."

"That's No Smoking, you id10t !!!!  Diving Officer, emergency deep!!!!"

 

Edited November 12, 20205 yr by wthomas33065

Nice crop - I love that helo in XP!

11 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

Our squadron acquired an airframe from AUTEC

Ahhh.   Andros Town.....A cheeseburger from the Lighthouse Cafe, a cold beer from the Beach House and Jimmy Buffett on blast.....good times...

28 minutes ago, wthomas33065 said:

Ahhh.   Andros Town.....A cheeseburger from the Lighthouse Cafe, a cold beer from the Beach House and Jimmy Buffett on blast.....good times...

Yeah...never been to that mystical place...and after seeing (and having to fix) the abomination that came from there, I really had visions of a run down dump where the mechs were pouring used hydraulic fluid thru a strainer lined with a used coffee filter, then dumping it back into the hyd system. 🤣  That bird did not leave a good impression of the place in my young mind. 🙂 

Did you guys ever do some shoots down there? (I imagine so) 😉 

1 hour ago, Steve Dra said:

Yeah...never been to that mystical place...and after seeing (and having to fix) the abomination that came from there, I really had visions of a run down dump where the mechs were pouring used hydraulic fluid thru a strainer lined with a used coffee filter, then dumping it back into the hyd system. 🤣  That bird did not leave a good impression of the place in my young mind. 🙂 

Did you guys ever do some shoots down there? (I imagine so) 😉 

I don't think you are entirely inaccurate.  It is a bit of a dump.  You can look at it from Google Maps and see for yourself, not very impressive.

We had to do sound cuts near there.  (Basically the sub goes back and forth over a set of hydrophones installed on the ocean floor, and then the sonar weenies evaluate the readings and tell us where we have sound shorts, or other things that might be causing us to leak sound into the water.  (bad news if you are a bubble head).  Rack Space is a premium on board a sub, so to accommodate the extra sonar weenies, we decided that we'd let off 1/3 of the crew to AUTEC every 48 hours so that we could have some fresh air and sunshine.  So for me, AUTEC was a well deserved VACAY.  You were on Port and Starboard watches the other 4 days, so that sucked, but two days off were worth it.

Yes, we also did some Mk48 testing down there, but never got off the boat for that.  

But again, as you can see from Google Maps, for 48 hours it was awesome, but if I had to stay there over a week, I think I'd start to go nuts....

But in an attempt to keep this Aviation related, I noted in the welcome package to Autec, flights from West Palm Beach to Andros Town International.   Hmm,  Might have to start making runs there.  

Sorry, Hijack over......back to our regularly scheduled programming already in progress....

Edited November 12, 20205 yr by wthomas33065

4 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

Nice crop - I love that helo in XP!

Actually no crop.  I'm using the XP freeware 'ABC camera' which allows me to fill or overfill the scene with the aircraft.

Love the Nosmo King story  and the SH-3 horror story. Screen shot thread turned into a Hangar Chat - this can be a good thing IMHO. 🍻