........Even a War........
One of the best parts of being a crew chief on herks in the fact that we get to fly with the plane and when we break on the road we get to fix it. Jack of all trades and master of none. I have been awakened from my sleep by loadmasters pointing to the flight deck more than a few times. It is a sorta sign language that i have come to find translates to "hey chief.......your gonna have a long night."
It is amazing how quickly you can go from sleeping off a hangover at 30,000 ft to completely awake and focused in the matter of a second.....with a simple poke in the shoulder and point to the flight deck from the loadmster.
So i grab my headset and head up tp the flight deck........
I plug in and tap the engineer on the shoulder while i take a quick scan of the instruments looking for the offending malfunction.....Gen out light #3 eng...he looks at me and i nodd and point to the voltage freq selector switch.......
Understanding that i want to see the voltage and freqs for all three phases he cycles the switch.....I dont know why ....i just hate talking over the intephone with the crew on headset... i guess it is because i get too into what i am doing i am afraid i will talk over a radio call from "center" or something........
So I manage trouble shooting with pointing and grunting as all good crewchiefs can do if needed. I pointed to the generator sw and the engineer responds by resetting it.....i nod and he recycles the phase selector to check volts and freqs and load on all three phases .......still nothing. I reset the generator control panel... and yes..... we are in business. Since i was up and we only had an hour or so in flight i got a start on "the forms"...or aircraft maintenance records.......filling out the debreifs and other forms as much as i could to enable myself to save time on the ground.
And i'm up in the flight deck sitting on the bunk like many times before.....and it is a long approach in headed towards the west into the setting sun.The desert has some of the most amazing skylines i have ever seen.It is almost overwhelming.And it was one of those approaches in still skies flying toward the disappearing sun ....where you get to see the entire sunset....... and the by the time you've taxiied in and shut down it is dark outside.It is hard to describe.
But it is strange, how beautiful even a war can be from a few thousand feet.
It is amazing how quickly you can go from sleeping off a hangover at 30,000 ft to completely awake and focused in the matter of a second.....with a simple poke in the shoulder and point to the flight deck from the loadmster.
So i grab my headset and head up tp the flight deck........
I plug in and tap the engineer on the shoulder while i take a quick scan of the instruments looking for the offending malfunction.....Gen out light #3 eng...he looks at me and i nodd and point to the voltage freq selector switch.......
Understanding that i want to see the voltage and freqs for all three phases he cycles the switch.....I dont know why ....i just hate talking over the intephone with the crew on headset... i guess it is because i get too into what i am doing i am afraid i will talk over a radio call from "center" or something........
So I manage trouble shooting with pointing and grunting as all good crewchiefs can do if needed. I pointed to the generator sw and the engineer responds by resetting it.....i nod and he recycles the phase selector to check volts and freqs and load on all three phases .......still nothing. I reset the generator control panel... and yes..... we are in business. Since i was up and we only had an hour or so in flight i got a start on "the forms"...or aircraft maintenance records.......filling out the debreifs and other forms as much as i could to enable myself to save time on the ground.
And i'm up in the flight deck sitting on the bunk like many times before.....and it is a long approach in headed towards the west into the setting sun.The desert has some of the most amazing skylines i have ever seen.It is almost overwhelming.And it was one of those approaches in still skies flying toward the disappearing sun ....where you get to see the entire sunset....... and the by the time you've taxiied in and shut down it is dark outside.It is hard to describe.
But it is strange, how beautiful even a war can be from a few thousand feet.
posted by militarybrat at 6:58 PM
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