pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
Guess your not keen on plumbing
Your Funny, Humorous or Incredible Military Stories
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davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
WOW! That tops everything.
Next entry,
Background. After the initial support noted in the previous post, the US started recognized active support for Israel. Due to the fact that only Portugal provided any support, we had to stage out of Lajes AB, Azores. Staging meant that a crew flew to Lajes and went into crew rest awaiting the next aircraft, a new crew, coming out of crew rest at Lajes would take the aircraft, fly to Israel and back, go into crew rest and another crew would take the aircraft back to the US and so on. Lajes was full of crews on various stages of crew rest, awaiting aircraft to fly. These were interesting missions. We had to avoid all controlled airspace which required us to split the straits of Gibraltar, and avoid all land masses and fly the borders of airspace control. In addition, two carriers were stationed in Mediterranean just in case the Libyans decided to stick their noses into our business, they didn't. Near Cyprus we picked up Israeli escort fighters and flew into Tel Aviv. El Al stewardesses served us box lunches (girls were nice, food so-so) while we unloaded. One of the guys supervising the unloading told us that the ammo we were bringing would be fired in 30 minutes! Close front. Then we had to fly back making it a long trip. Now the story.
We had gotten back from Israel and were waiting for our next aircraft. When we got off crew rest, I called ops to see when the aircraft we would take would land. They told me about 24 hrs. Just three hours later, we were alerted to go fly. However, the duty officer told me he could not locate two of my enlisted personnel, an engineer and a loadmaster. I thought, I'll bet the men called ops like I did and got the same answer. "Did you call the NCO club?" I asked.
As I was filing my flight plan, I was interrupted by someone calling my name. I was then informed that one of my crew members was in the brig. It seems one of my engineers, a multi-striped sergeant who was about to retire, had refused to pay his quarters bill. He was authorized a private room and he had been put in a room with other crewmembers and he wasn't going to pay. Remember, I said that there were aircrews all over the base, some sleeping on the hanger floor. One of the ops officers went and bailed him out and it appeared that we would be able to make the flight. Upon arriving at the aircraft, sure enough, all were present and all seemed well. That is, until I recognized that the two crewmen, the ones that were not jailed, were potted. The loadmaster couldn't find the aircraft if he was standing next to it. The engineer was at least on earth but not fully functional. I was fuming and now I had a big problem. Should I refuse to take the plane, which I could with inoperable crewmembers, or I could complete the mission. It didn't take long to decide to go, I had one good engineer (although a jailbird), and we had no load, so I didn't need a loadmaster. There no load to tie down and cg would be easy to figure. Going would be a lot less trouble than not, and that's including judicial action. Did I tell you that my navigator was a light bird who was head of the squadron nav section? That didn't help. Anyway, the rest of the flight was uneventful except that it was the quietest flight I have ever been on. On arriving at the base I went to see the Squadron Commander (who already had an encounter with me). He told me he didn't need to talk to me, just go and write a report. Apparently the nav already got to him.
Well, I have hijacked this site long enough. I have just one entry, my scariest landing, my proudest mission, and my most heartbreaking mission.
Next entry,
Background. After the initial support noted in the previous post, the US started recognized active support for Israel. Due to the fact that only Portugal provided any support, we had to stage out of Lajes AB, Azores. Staging meant that a crew flew to Lajes and went into crew rest awaiting the next aircraft, a new crew, coming out of crew rest at Lajes would take the aircraft, fly to Israel and back, go into crew rest and another crew would take the aircraft back to the US and so on. Lajes was full of crews on various stages of crew rest, awaiting aircraft to fly. These were interesting missions. We had to avoid all controlled airspace which required us to split the straits of Gibraltar, and avoid all land masses and fly the borders of airspace control. In addition, two carriers were stationed in Mediterranean just in case the Libyans decided to stick their noses into our business, they didn't. Near Cyprus we picked up Israeli escort fighters and flew into Tel Aviv. El Al stewardesses served us box lunches (girls were nice, food so-so) while we unloaded. One of the guys supervising the unloading told us that the ammo we were bringing would be fired in 30 minutes! Close front. Then we had to fly back making it a long trip. Now the story.
We had gotten back from Israel and were waiting for our next aircraft. When we got off crew rest, I called ops to see when the aircraft we would take would land. They told me about 24 hrs. Just three hours later, we were alerted to go fly. However, the duty officer told me he could not locate two of my enlisted personnel, an engineer and a loadmaster. I thought, I'll bet the men called ops like I did and got the same answer. "Did you call the NCO club?" I asked.
As I was filing my flight plan, I was interrupted by someone calling my name. I was then informed that one of my crew members was in the brig. It seems one of my engineers, a multi-striped sergeant who was about to retire, had refused to pay his quarters bill. He was authorized a private room and he had been put in a room with other crewmembers and he wasn't going to pay. Remember, I said that there were aircrews all over the base, some sleeping on the hanger floor. One of the ops officers went and bailed him out and it appeared that we would be able to make the flight. Upon arriving at the aircraft, sure enough, all were present and all seemed well. That is, until I recognized that the two crewmen, the ones that were not jailed, were potted. The loadmaster couldn't find the aircraft if he was standing next to it. The engineer was at least on earth but not fully functional. I was fuming and now I had a big problem. Should I refuse to take the plane, which I could with inoperable crewmembers, or I could complete the mission. It didn't take long to decide to go, I had one good engineer (although a jailbird), and we had no load, so I didn't need a loadmaster. There no load to tie down and cg would be easy to figure. Going would be a lot less trouble than not, and that's including judicial action. Did I tell you that my navigator was a light bird who was head of the squadron nav section? That didn't help. Anyway, the rest of the flight was uneventful except that it was the quietest flight I have ever been on. On arriving at the base I went to see the Squadron Commander (who already had an encounter with me). He told me he didn't need to talk to me, just go and write a report. Apparently the nav already got to him.
Well, I have hijacked this site long enough. I have just one entry, my scariest landing, my proudest mission, and my most heartbreaking mission.
davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
Okay, the last installment,
Scariest landing. We were flying an exercise with the Army, flying out of Ft. Cambell, Ky., I believe. As at Lajes, we had about six surplus crews pre-positioned to maintain smooth aircraft support for the exercise. The mission was over and I pulled the job of flying the return to McGuire with these crews as passengers. This is called "dead heading". The weather at McGuire was predicted to be marginal. When we arrived, things had deteriorated, an occluded front (bad) set squarely over the base. As we began our approach, the runway was above minimums. The problem was not ceiling nor visibility, but winds which were gusting with changes of direction. The C-141 was a great aircraft to fly, very predictable, reliable and powerful. However, it could be a handful to fly in a crosswind with a natural desire to lift the upwind wing and strong tendency to windmill (swing into the wind). This was multiplied several times in a gusting crosswind. Crosswind limit was 25 kts.(29 mph). The runway we were using, landing to the south, had Ground Controlled Approach (GCA, precision), i.e. radar directed approach, and a back course ILS (localizer only, non-precision). I was flying the GCA with localizer backup. Turbulence was moderate and the dead head crews were getting sick. Runway conditions were wind gusting 15-35 kts, swinging plus or minus 90 degrees to runway heading. I knew this would be fighting the bronco on this approach. I decided to make a go at it and go-around if conditions were out of tolerance. The GCA controller was having problems getting us over to the flight path. I noticed that drift (we had a drift meter and that is wonderful) was 30 degrees off heading. At one point the controller called out "left of flight path, left of flight path, too far left for safe approach, wait, I think you can make it", not reassuring, but I had already made correction due to drift and I also had the back course localizer. Now I had to deal with the crosswind landing so I had someone tally off the changing wind (talking directly to the tower). Luckily, as we got near the runway, winds dropped off a bit and normal landing was accomplished anticlimactically. After I shut down the engines I was wet with sweat and could hardly get out of the seat. I think everyone was glad to have their feet on the ground.
Proudest mission I always liked medical evacuation (medivacs) missions. They seem so constructive compared to carrying bombs and helicopters and other war devices. The C-141 provided medivacs from Vietnam and any other place in need (we also brought back bodies of fallen servicemen, which I am glad to say I never had to do). This particular mission started in Germany. We were scheduled to go home but got an aircraft set up for an emergency medivac. We took off out of Frankfurt and flew to Madrid and picked up an augmented medical crew. We took off out of Madrid and headed for Abidjan, Ivory Coast (located under the hump on the west side of Africa). Because no country would let us fly over, we had to fly around the hump, which made for a long flight especially considering that we had to return, thus the augmented crew. Our mission was to pick up a Peace Corps worker who had an ulcer. The mission went smoothly. I remember that, on our return trip, tired of flying, looking back and seeing this magnificent aircraft, an augmented flight crew and an augmented medical crew and a nearly twenty-four hour mission all put together for one Peace Corp volunteer. I was proud to be an American.
My most heart breaking mission. I hate to end with this story, but it was near the end of my AF career if not my last mission. I was pulling Presidential support and, of course, we launched, this time as a medivac. Oddly enough, there were two C-9 Nightengales broken down in separate places. Both had burn patients en route to Kelly AFB (a famous burn center) in San Antonio. We stopped in Washington D.C. for the first pick up and then on to North Carolina for the second pick up. Out North Carolina, heading for Kelly, we got a phone patch for the doctor. I heard him argue for a while and ended the phone patch. He said there was a request to divert to Jacksonville NAS to pick up a man who was in a jeep accident and had third degree burns over 90% of his body. He had argued against going but was apparently talked out of it. At Jacksonville, I requested fuel and was told that I had to wait as the base was running an exercise. I informed the ops officer that I was an emergency medivac and if I did not get priority, my next call was to Commander Military Airlift command. During peacetime, I believe that the only aircraft that has priority over a medivac is Air Force One. He complied immediately. We loaded the patient and his parents. The C-141 was configured with about one third of the space taken up by passenger seats in the front, the passenger seats in a C-141 face aft. In the rear were medical cots stacked with the injured and the medical staff. As I was taxiing out, the doctor instructed me to stop. He had to operate on the new patient, opening his chest so he could breathe. Remember, his parents are on board and, with the aft facing seats, watched all that was going on. Over Mississippi, the doctor requested a minister to meet the plane at Kelly. He did not tell me he had passed away, nor did I ask. It is a real pain legally for a person to die on an aircraft. We landed and I helped carry the guy off the plane. It was a sight I will never forget. The entire crew was emotionally exhausted and went into crew rest.
I know that I deviated from the thread, but I though you guys might find these interesting. One of the interesting parts of flying airlift, other than going all over the world, is that you tended to be involved in everything.
Sorry for being so verbose.
Scariest landing. We were flying an exercise with the Army, flying out of Ft. Cambell, Ky., I believe. As at Lajes, we had about six surplus crews pre-positioned to maintain smooth aircraft support for the exercise. The mission was over and I pulled the job of flying the return to McGuire with these crews as passengers. This is called "dead heading". The weather at McGuire was predicted to be marginal. When we arrived, things had deteriorated, an occluded front (bad) set squarely over the base. As we began our approach, the runway was above minimums. The problem was not ceiling nor visibility, but winds which were gusting with changes of direction. The C-141 was a great aircraft to fly, very predictable, reliable and powerful. However, it could be a handful to fly in a crosswind with a natural desire to lift the upwind wing and strong tendency to windmill (swing into the wind). This was multiplied several times in a gusting crosswind. Crosswind limit was 25 kts.(29 mph). The runway we were using, landing to the south, had Ground Controlled Approach (GCA, precision), i.e. radar directed approach, and a back course ILS (localizer only, non-precision). I was flying the GCA with localizer backup. Turbulence was moderate and the dead head crews were getting sick. Runway conditions were wind gusting 15-35 kts, swinging plus or minus 90 degrees to runway heading. I knew this would be fighting the bronco on this approach. I decided to make a go at it and go-around if conditions were out of tolerance. The GCA controller was having problems getting us over to the flight path. I noticed that drift (we had a drift meter and that is wonderful) was 30 degrees off heading. At one point the controller called out "left of flight path, left of flight path, too far left for safe approach, wait, I think you can make it", not reassuring, but I had already made correction due to drift and I also had the back course localizer. Now I had to deal with the crosswind landing so I had someone tally off the changing wind (talking directly to the tower). Luckily, as we got near the runway, winds dropped off a bit and normal landing was accomplished anticlimactically. After I shut down the engines I was wet with sweat and could hardly get out of the seat. I think everyone was glad to have their feet on the ground.
Proudest mission I always liked medical evacuation (medivacs) missions. They seem so constructive compared to carrying bombs and helicopters and other war devices. The C-141 provided medivacs from Vietnam and any other place in need (we also brought back bodies of fallen servicemen, which I am glad to say I never had to do). This particular mission started in Germany. We were scheduled to go home but got an aircraft set up for an emergency medivac. We took off out of Frankfurt and flew to Madrid and picked up an augmented medical crew. We took off out of Madrid and headed for Abidjan, Ivory Coast (located under the hump on the west side of Africa). Because no country would let us fly over, we had to fly around the hump, which made for a long flight especially considering that we had to return, thus the augmented crew. Our mission was to pick up a Peace Corps worker who had an ulcer. The mission went smoothly. I remember that, on our return trip, tired of flying, looking back and seeing this magnificent aircraft, an augmented flight crew and an augmented medical crew and a nearly twenty-four hour mission all put together for one Peace Corp volunteer. I was proud to be an American.
My most heart breaking mission. I hate to end with this story, but it was near the end of my AF career if not my last mission. I was pulling Presidential support and, of course, we launched, this time as a medivac. Oddly enough, there were two C-9 Nightengales broken down in separate places. Both had burn patients en route to Kelly AFB (a famous burn center) in San Antonio. We stopped in Washington D.C. for the first pick up and then on to North Carolina for the second pick up. Out North Carolina, heading for Kelly, we got a phone patch for the doctor. I heard him argue for a while and ended the phone patch. He said there was a request to divert to Jacksonville NAS to pick up a man who was in a jeep accident and had third degree burns over 90% of his body. He had argued against going but was apparently talked out of it. At Jacksonville, I requested fuel and was told that I had to wait as the base was running an exercise. I informed the ops officer that I was an emergency medivac and if I did not get priority, my next call was to Commander Military Airlift command. During peacetime, I believe that the only aircraft that has priority over a medivac is Air Force One. He complied immediately. We loaded the patient and his parents. The C-141 was configured with about one third of the space taken up by passenger seats in the front, the passenger seats in a C-141 face aft. In the rear were medical cots stacked with the injured and the medical staff. As I was taxiing out, the doctor instructed me to stop. He had to operate on the new patient, opening his chest so he could breathe. Remember, his parents are on board and, with the aft facing seats, watched all that was going on. Over Mississippi, the doctor requested a minister to meet the plane at Kelly. He did not tell me he had passed away, nor did I ask. It is a real pain legally for a person to die on an aircraft. We landed and I helped carry the guy off the plane. It was a sight I will never forget. The entire crew was emotionally exhausted and went into crew rest.
I know that I deviated from the thread, but I though you guys might find these interesting. One of the interesting parts of flying airlift, other than going all over the world, is that you tended to be involved in everything.
Sorry for being so verbose.
Wildcat
Major
Thanks for sharing these very interesting stories Davparlr !
A4K
Brigadier General
Yep, thanks alot, mate!
BTW, can you tell me how the drift meter works? I have to make one for my C-47 model, and was curious about it's function.
BTW, can you tell me how the drift meter works? I have to make one for my C-47 model, and was curious about it's function.
davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
Hmmm, I am not sure of how a drift meter fits on a C-47 model. To us it was just a gage and an unobtrusive antenna. I doubt many C-47s had that kind of drift meter. There is one, I believe, that predates radar and uses a ground looking telescope and a navigator looked at the ground and made measurements on drift and ground speed. I don't know if that was ever used on a C-47. Others may have better data on this system.
For the C-141, I believe that it was part of a doppler radar system that generated drift and ground speed. Both extremely useful for navigation in pre-GPS days . The drift was also a great help in flying approaches. The C-141 had state-of-the-art navigation systems for 60s and early 70s. This was also before good interial systems.
A4K
Brigadier General
Yep, that was the one, mate! I got close up photos of it from the RNZAF Museum as fitted in our C-47s, just wasn't sure how they used it. Thanks!
hurricanemk2
Airman 1st Class
My grandfather swears this tale is true but I think it may be a stock tale about aircrew .He was a Flight Engineer on Lancasters opperating out of Waddington in Lincolnshire .
One night slated for a raid on " The big city " the Lanc was over its max safe weight and was struggling to get airbourne , as bill and the pilot worked on getting the thing up and rapidly running out of runway , the mid upper gunner came on to the RT and said " Excuse me Skip but if we're going by road there's a 30 mph speed limit ! " It broke the tension and off they went for a non eventful sortie .
Bill swears thats what happened and I , for one , believe him .
One night slated for a raid on " The big city " the Lanc was over its max safe weight and was struggling to get airbourne , as bill and the pilot worked on getting the thing up and rapidly running out of runway , the mid upper gunner came on to the RT and said " Excuse me Skip but if we're going by road there's a 30 mph speed limit ! " It broke the tension and off they went for a non eventful sortie .
Bill swears thats what happened and I , for one , believe him .
A4K
Brigadier General
Love it, mate!
pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
Hot mikes almost desreves athread by itself
It was a slow Sunday with no scheduled flying so it was quiet in the Ratcon , so the always present card game was on .
We recieved an inbound on a weekend cross country (or dad can I borrow the T bird and go to Florida) the boss was winning in cards and made us move the game into the unit so the ACC in Moncton handed us off the aircraft and it was identified on handoff . The aircraft is heading inbound but isn't talking to us , so the boss gives him a call no answer
asks him to squawk Ident which he does . The boss says look at this Ahole doing a no comm has he got nothing better to do and now he's ruining the game. So he prceeds with a no comm approach
The boss is calling this pilot every thing under the sun combinations of words unheard of before
to make a long story short the aircraft lands still no comm and about 15 minutes later this Bgen walks in the unit walks up to the controller and goes "Hi I'm the ahole how are you "
It turmed out the foot pedal we used to transmit was stuck in the on position so every word uttered by the contoller was heard by the pilot
The Bgen was a good guy and just laughed it off but made the boss squirm a bit
It was a slow Sunday with no scheduled flying so it was quiet in the Ratcon , so the always present card game was on .
We recieved an inbound on a weekend cross country (or dad can I borrow the T bird and go to Florida) the boss was winning in cards and made us move the game into the unit so the ACC in Moncton handed us off the aircraft and it was identified on handoff . The aircraft is heading inbound but isn't talking to us , so the boss gives him a call no answer
asks him to squawk Ident which he does . The boss says look at this Ahole doing a no comm has he got nothing better to do and now he's ruining the game. So he prceeds with a no comm approach
The boss is calling this pilot every thing under the sun combinations of words unheard of before
to make a long story short the aircraft lands still no comm and about 15 minutes later this Bgen walks in the unit walks up to the controller and goes "Hi I'm the ahole how are you "
It turmed out the foot pedal we used to transmit was stuck in the on position so every word uttered by the contoller was heard by the pilot
The Bgen was a good guy and just laughed it off but made the boss squirm a bit
davparlr
Senior Master Sergeant
Good post!
Lots of Darth Vader breathing on take-off from first time soloist pressing the transmit button with white knuckles.
Lots of Darth Vader breathing on take-off from first time soloist pressing the transmit button with white knuckles.
A4K
Brigadier General
Yep, with Dav!
My unit (conscript combat engineers company) was on exercise in Oksbøl, the biggest military exercise area we have here in Denmark. I was in the "park" platoon, as a truck driver.
My truck had an HMG ring on the roof, and about a half-foot gap between the cab and the bed - I was hauling anti-tank mines, btw (dummies).
One fine dark morning while we're tactical, we all of the sudden have to move camp. Now, Unlike the other trucks in my squad, I don't have a designated container for my camouflage net. Add to that, for the first (and only time), I'm pointed out as the first truck in the convoy. So... I bunch the net into the HMG ring as best I can, then use straps to secure it. Get about halfway there when I'm told to... get my finger out...
So off we go!
2 km later, chugging along at about 70 kph, my truck suddenly grinds to a halt. The camouflage net had flipped up and over, fallen in between the cab and the bed, and had been reeled in by the trans-axle until I ground to a halt.
My sergeant was not impressed.
My truck had an HMG ring on the roof, and about a half-foot gap between the cab and the bed - I was hauling anti-tank mines, btw (dummies).
One fine dark morning while we're tactical, we all of the sudden have to move camp. Now, Unlike the other trucks in my squad, I don't have a designated container for my camouflage net. Add to that, for the first (and only time), I'm pointed out as the first truck in the convoy. So... I bunch the net into the HMG ring as best I can, then use straps to secure it. Get about halfway there when I'm told to... get my finger out...
So off we go!
2 km later, chugging along at about 70 kph, my truck suddenly grinds to a halt. The camouflage net had flipped up and over, fallen in between the cab and the bed, and had been reeled in by the trans-axle until I ground to a halt.
My sergeant was not impressed.
pbfoot
1st Lieutenant
Don't know if it's true or not but I heard a crew was on a check flight on a C130 when the ICP walked over to the FE's panel and feathered an engine , the flight engineer apparently looked at the ICP and quickly feathered another engine with these words
"it's your turn again sir"
"it's your turn again sir"
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Sub story.
We were generally under-manned in my division, with an average of 9 guys doing the work of a 12-man div (on a submarine, divs are rather small), and a grand low-score of 6 men at one point. I think we were near this low point when we all found ourselves assigned about three or four repair jobs at one time, and just sorta Round Robin'd between them as one became too frustrating to continue for the moment. The boat I was on was well over 20 years old, so of course things kept breaking. Anyway, our Div-O was a freshly minted Ensign straight out of ROTC or something, really good with book-smarts, but not quite there in the real-world application. He kept coming around, trying the "hands-on" leadership approach, just buggin the crap out of everybody, especially me since I wasn't all that up on troubleshooting. Repair, no prob. So, finally, I'd had enough of his pestering, and decided to kinda get him out of my way for awhile. So the next time he came down to find out if I'd found the problem, I told him I had. Yup. Somebody'd let the smoke out of the wires, so the electricity wasn't flowing anymore. Seems like he hadn't ever heard of the "smoke theory of electricity" before, so I calmly explained it to him.
"Well, sir, they usually don't teach this unless you're more involved with electrical repairs, because the math involved is rather complex, so what they do is teach the 'solid copper cable' concept. What really happens is that nothing can move through a solid, by definition, so these plastic 'insulation' covers on the wires are really nothing more than nifty tubes for smoke travel. The electrons latch on to the smoke, kinda like O2 and bloodcells, it travels down the tubes and into the components."
He gave me this priceless "deer in headlights" look, and sorta-kinda questioned my logic, caught between wanting to believe what his precious books told him and "being one of the guys" and let in on a secret. So, of course, I had to reel him in.
"Yes, sir....think about it. Have you ever seen an electrical device that works after the smoke has been let out?"
I'll be danged if the lights didn't come on (talk about nothing more than an dim orange glow!!!). Anyway, it worked just fine, because I didn't see the guy for another twenty minutes. Which is when the Engineer showed up (guy in the heirarchy just below the CO and XO). He said hi (nice guy), inquired how my repair was going (I'd figger'd out the prob by that point and was polishing up the last little bits)...I didn't think much of it, until he looked at me and said "smoke theory, huh?" Well....I'm an E-4 at this point, he's an O-4, so of course I turn sheet white and start sweating. "He didn't come to you with that, did he, Eng?" Thankfully, the Eng was a great guy (I think I mentioned that earlier), and sorta-kinda slapped me on the wrist with a comment about "respect the uniform, not the guy wearing it" blah blah blah...as he was walking away, I swear he was trying not to laugh.
We were generally under-manned in my division, with an average of 9 guys doing the work of a 12-man div (on a submarine, divs are rather small), and a grand low-score of 6 men at one point. I think we were near this low point when we all found ourselves assigned about three or four repair jobs at one time, and just sorta Round Robin'd between them as one became too frustrating to continue for the moment. The boat I was on was well over 20 years old, so of course things kept breaking. Anyway, our Div-O was a freshly minted Ensign straight out of ROTC or something, really good with book-smarts, but not quite there in the real-world application. He kept coming around, trying the "hands-on" leadership approach, just buggin the crap out of everybody, especially me since I wasn't all that up on troubleshooting. Repair, no prob. So, finally, I'd had enough of his pestering, and decided to kinda get him out of my way for awhile. So the next time he came down to find out if I'd found the problem, I told him I had. Yup. Somebody'd let the smoke out of the wires, so the electricity wasn't flowing anymore. Seems like he hadn't ever heard of the "smoke theory of electricity" before, so I calmly explained it to him.
"Well, sir, they usually don't teach this unless you're more involved with electrical repairs, because the math involved is rather complex, so what they do is teach the 'solid copper cable' concept. What really happens is that nothing can move through a solid, by definition, so these plastic 'insulation' covers on the wires are really nothing more than nifty tubes for smoke travel. The electrons latch on to the smoke, kinda like O2 and bloodcells, it travels down the tubes and into the components."
He gave me this priceless "deer in headlights" look, and sorta-kinda questioned my logic, caught between wanting to believe what his precious books told him and "being one of the guys" and let in on a secret. So, of course, I had to reel him in.
"Yes, sir....think about it. Have you ever seen an electrical device that works after the smoke has been let out?"
I'll be danged if the lights didn't come on (talk about nothing more than an dim orange glow!!!). Anyway, it worked just fine, because I didn't see the guy for another twenty minutes. Which is when the Engineer showed up (guy in the heirarchy just below the CO and XO). He said hi (nice guy), inquired how my repair was going (I'd figger'd out the prob by that point and was polishing up the last little bits)...I didn't think much of it, until he looked at me and said "smoke theory, huh?" Well....I'm an E-4 at this point, he's an O-4, so of course I turn sheet white and start sweating. "He didn't come to you with that, did he, Eng?" Thankfully, the Eng was a great guy (I think I mentioned that earlier), and sorta-kinda slapped me on the wrist with a comment about "respect the uniform, not the guy wearing it" blah blah blah...as he was walking away, I swear he was trying not to laugh.
RabidAlien
1st Lieutenant
Another thread reminded me of this one:
A friend of mine and I were at the uniform shop one day, buying the latest ribbon our boat had won (Battle-E, I think). We were standing in line waiting to pay when he made a comment about the Coast Guard. Me, being the clueless village idiot that I am, didnt' think there would be any particular reason why he'd say something about the CoastGuard, and so decided that that would be a perfect time to whip out a joke I'd picked up somewhere: Did you know that the US Coast Guard doesn't have a swim qualification requirement during bootcamp? Yeah....apparently, if the ship goes down, you just wade back in to shore. Now...normally, he's a fellow fun-loving guy, always ready for a quick slam-the-other-guy mental bash-fest (what subber isn't???), but this time he's not laughing. Even slugged me in the arm. I figured the joke had bombed (I'm notorious for that) until I notice him very conspicuously NOT looking behind us....yup, a Coast Guard commander was standing right behind us, buying some doodads for his uniform, too. Apparently he hadn't heard the joke before either, because he was trying not to laugh, also.
John wouldn't let me forget that one.
A friend of mine and I were at the uniform shop one day, buying the latest ribbon our boat had won (Battle-E, I think). We were standing in line waiting to pay when he made a comment about the Coast Guard. Me, being the clueless village idiot that I am, didnt' think there would be any particular reason why he'd say something about the CoastGuard, and so decided that that would be a perfect time to whip out a joke I'd picked up somewhere: Did you know that the US Coast Guard doesn't have a swim qualification requirement during bootcamp? Yeah....apparently, if the ship goes down, you just wade back in to shore. Now...normally, he's a fellow fun-loving guy, always ready for a quick slam-the-other-guy mental bash-fest (what subber isn't???), but this time he's not laughing. Even slugged me in the arm. I figured the joke had bombed (I'm notorious for that) until I notice him very conspicuously NOT looking behind us....yup, a Coast Guard commander was standing right behind us, buying some doodads for his uniform, too. Apparently he hadn't heard the joke before either, because he was trying not to laugh, also.
John wouldn't let me forget that one.
Glider
Captain
This isn't clever at all but it was amusing at the time. We were on parade for an inspection by the Third Sea Lord, everything as you would expect had been checked, double checked, practiced until we could do the parade in our sleep. When splat, one significant seagull dropping all down my right shoulder. I groaned quietly and people started to notice.
Nothing I could do, just take the inevitable. When he came around on the inspection with his entourage he just stopped, looked me in the eye, asked me my name, 'Apprentice Slack Sir' he just looked at me again with half a smile and replied 'Not your lucky day is it Apprentice Slack'.
What was interesting was the reaction from the people behind him. The more senior and experienced ones were fighting to keep the grins off their faces, the newbies were giving me looks like daggers as if is was something I had done deliberately.
Nothing I could do, just take the inevitable. When he came around on the inspection with his entourage he just stopped, looked me in the eye, asked me my name, 'Apprentice Slack Sir' he just looked at me again with half a smile and replied 'Not your lucky day is it Apprentice Slack'.
What was interesting was the reaction from the people behind him. The more senior and experienced ones were fighting to keep the grins off their faces, the newbies were giving me looks like daggers as if is was something I had done deliberately.
Konigstiger205
Staff Sergeant
Funny stories guys
A4K
Brigadier General
Yep, with Tiger! 
