"Quit Screwing Up The Reports!"

[MIflyer]

During WWII the USAAF created a extensive system for reporting logistics information on individual aircraft. Flight times, engine times, fuel and other consumables used were reported on a monthly basis using a standard form and sent to Air Material Command HQ at Wright Field for compilation.

One day the maintenance chief at Muroc Army Air Force Base got an angry call from Wright Field. "Quit screwing up the reports!" the guy in Ohio complained. "Did you even look at the report you submitted for this airplane 6063? Now the flight times are pretty short, 30 minutes or less, usually, but according to you the engine run times are ridiculous! Five minutes engine run time for a thirty minute flight! How can that be right? And despite that it used a huge amount of fuel! Not only that but the thing has only one crew member but he used an incredible amount of oxygen! This can't be right! These reports are important and you'd better stop screwing them up or you're going to be in trouble!"

The maintenance chief assured the man at Wright Field that the data was correct. The airplane he was so upset about was the Bell X-1.

 

[rochie]

 

[Gnomey]

 

[swampyankee]

Well, now he knows somebody was reading the reports, as opposed to just tossing them in File 13.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, actually one of the absurd aspects of the reports is that they were designed to support logistics analysis. But there was no reason to do logistics analysis for an experimental rocketplane given that there was only going to be one or two of them flown at only one location and not a whole fleet of them spread all over the world.

At one of my assignments we got our own call from Wright Field. A lady at AFLC HQ called and said she was having trouble with the records on some rocket engines. Our rocket engine guy asked which engines. She named a couple serial numbers and he replied, "Those were launched on Atlas such and such." She asked, "Where are they now?" He replied, "At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean." Clearly confused, she responded. "Did they crash?" He said, "If they they work correctly they all crash into the ocean." She replied, "Oh, I see. I guess you think I'm pretty stupid, huh?"

Why was anyone at Wright Patt AFB keeping track of rocket engines, anyway?

 

[GrumpyOldCrewChief]

I would reply "No ma'am, just under-informed." Been on both sides of that kind of conversation...

 

[GreenKnight121]

I've seen that kind of thinking as well.

In 1988 HMT-302 (USMC CH-53 helicopter training squadron at MCAS Tustin, Ca) underwent its first IG (Inspector-General) inspection since being re-established in late 1987 (CH-53 training had been under HMT-301 alongside CH-46 training, but the two types were separated into different squadrons in Nov. 1987).

Most of the inspection went well, but a "fail" grade was given for the personnel training department, due to there being NO personnel in either the Remedial PT (those who failed the annual Physical Fitness Test) or the Weight Control (those overweight according to USMC standards) programs.

When the squadrons were separated, the USMC made the mistake of finding a square hole for a square peg to fit into... the new Training Officer (a CH-53 instructor) held a degree in Physical Education (with emphasis on physical therapy). As a result of his efforts to completely re-do the PT programs, all of the "fat-bodies" and "weaklings" either made weight & passed a PFT - or were on medical waiver.

Of course, since the IG regs set an "acceptable number" for the R-PFT & WC programs (both a maximum allowed and a "normal expected minimum"), and zero was outside that acceptable range, they issued an automatic fail! Never mind that the alleged purpose of the programs was to get all personnel properly fit and not-fat, actually achieving that goal was completely incomprehensible to bureaucrats who were ONLY concerned that the numbers fit their expected ranges!

By the time the squadron's appeal managed to reverse the "fail", headquarters had already forced the squadron to replace the Training Officer with someone who knew nothing about physical training and rehabilitation - just as is supposed to be the case, apparently!


A good friend (and my roommate in our off-base apartment) was one of those who had benefited from the training officer's knowledge & skill to be free from both programs for the first time in a couple of years - a few months later he was medically discharged from the USMC due to the "correct" PT regimen aggravating his existing physical issues.

 

[MIflyer]

A good friend of mine's last assignment in the USAF was in a happy unit at a nice location, just the kind of place people seek as a last stop. Then they got in a new commander, an O-6 from an extended tour in the Pentagon. The new guy had majored in psychology in college and proceeded to hold Sunday afternoon wine and cheese gathering for the junior airmen, asking them about their supervisors. Then he created a folder on each supervisor and began to diagnose what he saw as their mental illnesses. Morale went in the toilet and the unit fell apart. Congress even had an investigation into how such a outfit could go bad so quickly.

So sometimes specialties learned in college do not work out.

 

[glennasher]

"So sometimes specialties learned in college do not work out. " and some folks are educated beyond their intelligence (or promoted, take your pick).

 

[jetcal1]

During the East Coast F-14 empty firewall crisis, my crew-leader let us "bank" a day off for each engine we pushed through the test cell that met his minimum standards, No spare bolts or clamps left on the shelves, no problems in the test cell, no more than 10 AIMD QA acceptance discrepancies and finally no more than 3 discrepancies from the squadron QA acceptance inspection. We were cranking out out engines in 10 days rather than the 15 days the other crews were taking.

The other crew-leaders complained we were taking too many days off. The Senior Chief running our division, instead of telling the other crew-leaders to do the same (And potentially increasing production.) came to my boss and told him to knock-it off.
A few months later? 12 on-12 off shifts started and basically ran some variation of that for 9 -15 months. (Thankfully we left on work-ups and a cruise!)