strangest freight

[AT463]

Just wondering what the starngest thing you have ever had when handling cargo. Be it a coffin or gold or such.
Do you get any extra money or do you just get sweet FA for it.

[Ex Oggie]

Excluding the military, which we dont talk about :mad: , most desirable was an experimental Lamborgini Countach strapped to two AML pallet's with 'P' strops :ooh:

[CR2]

A whale from Barcelona to San Diego. A white rhino from a zoo in Germany to South Africa to be let free.
My favourite: a load of empty boxes....

[cargohappy]

a clapped out old italian job mini to iceland, along with some
snow ploughs and a pallet full of cadburys mini eggs. i like the
sound of iceland.
rgds all...ch

[VP8]

Know how you feel Mike had a classic from Commercial last week upped freight by 30% but didn't tell ops or the loady!!!!

Same crap different company!!

VEEPS:p

[mutt]

200 COWS.........................

On our passenger aircraft we actually have instructions on the seating arrangements required when passengers bring FALCONS on board.

Mutt.

[Specnut727]

Here's something a little smaller than whales or cows.

I have heard that there's a daily shipment of live crickets out of Brisbane. Headed for zoos around the world as food for lizards, small monkeys etc. A friend of mine built the machine to package them, 30 to a container, with food for the flight.

[VP8]

A 30% increase, ouch, that hurts!!!! Still, gotta pay for that Jaguar somehow!

Mike

Now a Porsche :mad:

VEEPS

[bacardi walla]

I could tell you what the strangest cargo I ever carried was, but then I would have to shoot you. lets just say it involved flying under the cover of darkness, flanked by 2 nice shiny silver jets and we flew over a lot of sand.............:mad:

whoop whoop pull up - ;)

[CR2]

Condom charters (B74F) to Brazil for carnival. :eek:

[Zones]

With no reference to MJ or VP8's comments on commercial staff ;):

Whilst stationed at Nairobi sales office, I sold, coordinated and accompanied a load of 3 x juvenile Rothschild Giraffe (was going to be 4, but 1 died of stress in the boma pre departure... :sad: )

Aircraft - L100/20
Eldoret, Kenya to unprpeared dirt strip in Uganda.

Great fun all round! Pretty hard to beat the experience as non-pilot!

Cheers

[taffman]

Dont suppose you are ex SAT are you Mr. Zones:confused:ok:

Dont forget S.A.T moving the killer whale Free Willy in a Herc with UPS coulours on its tail. The plane not the Whale. :ooh:

[Ex Oggie]

In EDI once saw a 124 being filled with a load of bricks !, strangely that was on its way to Reykjavik.

That must have been the Icelandic gold reserve cunningly concealed by being wrapped in sheets of sandpaper to save on the cost of security. :p

[CargoOne]

The ad-hoc charter flight (widebody) from LUX to Mombasa, Kenya.
Estimated payload was 50 000 kgs.
At the time of loading it has turned to 50 (fifty) kilos (one small box).
Nevertheless aircraft made a techstop at Cairo for refuelling as initially planned, becuase it was too late to change overflight/landing clearances through the Africa.

[Buster Hyman]

Had an AN124 take train carriages from MEL to somewhere in India a few times, plenty of "Mr. Stiffy's", boullion and some sort of scanner weighing 20t but we could only offload 18t!!!:ooh: :uhoh: Just ask Ratty about that one!:uhoh: :ooh: :ouch:

[CR2]

Ah yes, the scanner. :sad:

Erm, least said about that the better. Blerry ozzie unions. :ouch:

[acmi48]

11 elephants in a 747... offloaded with a large bucket in toe...
furniture to baudolite for ex mr maputo
kuwait airways spare engines baghdad to kuwait 1991 confiscated by saddam's men in GW1
artic foxes from oslo to harbin
dolphins from mexico to lux in a dc8
the ship used in water world from france to hawaii -the film bombed and went way over budget(not suprised)
alpacas peru to europe-spit included

the list goes on. still the strangest has to be a russian reg jet that showed up- loaded up a load of ericsson phones and filed outbound to ukfv (which is the ukraine fir) and left,about 20 minutes later another russian jet showed up legitimately for the phones and they had gone..

[Buster Hyman]

Ahhh...the memories Ratty!!!:E

acmi...Do you mean the tanker in Waterworld?:ooh:

[CR2]

Ah yes, those yachts used in Waterworld, forgot about them. I loaded the :mad: things. November morning -15 degrees or something horrible like that. B744F maindeck completely full, 20T payload if I remember..

Did a generator to HKG, 40ft pallet gross weight 42000KG. Tie-down was fun :yuk: .

[Buster Hyman]

Stop it you guys....I'm getting all misty!:{

[Phil Brockwell]

Took a baby gorilla that had been orphaned from Bristol - Stuttgart last year in a Seneca, no crate, just a baby bottle and his surrogate (human) mummy.

[BRISTOLRE]

Did it wear a seatbelt Phil?

[Phil Brockwell]

Funnilly enough we put one of the infant belts on, I'm not looking forward to bringing it back, mustve grown a bit in the last 18 months.:ouch:

[Dan Winterland]

A big box of hamsters. Some got out!

[Zones]

Taffman:

Mr? Zones

But of course, you are most correct my dear Watson - about the SAT part of course! (Of course I could always be Miss Zones, couldn't I?:p)

Not directly involved with Free Willy, that was sold and organised Stateside:hmm:. U r correct though, SAT did lots of fun stuff with the Hercs. Airdrops, oil spraying, refugee's, lots of odd cargo similar to that recounted by others herein.:ok:

I got mainly involved with good old fashioned ACMI stuff with the jets.... but the fun stuff such as the Giraffe's provided much needed distraction to day to day chores!!:D

Those were the days...:(

Enjoy France, Taffy. ;)

[mini]

Mate of mine recieved a load of armoured cars (civvy type) in Basra last year from ZA. They were stuffed with Castle and the finest steaks...

Needless to say we ate & drank like kings :ok:

[sniper 50BMG]

2500 lbs of uranium fuel rods from Spokane WA ta North Carolina to refuel a nuclear reactor,(the packing container was an addtitional 8000 lbs.)

[CR2]

We didn't fly 100T of gold bullion from MNL to Europe 10ish years ago.... They couldn't pay for the flight.

:confused: :confused: :confused:

Flew Rwanda's new currency in about 6 weeks before they started killing each other off.

[freightdoggy dog]

Zimmer frames and toothbrushes from Brize Norton to Nairobi for the Army. Something to do with hearts and minds!

[Capt Snooze]

Baby (and adolescent) crocodiles, loose, in an Islander in West Irian. (I figured if the croc hunter was prepare to sit down the back with them it was OK, although some of them wound up under my feet a couple of times) I was younger then. :O :O

Opium (legal) out of Tasmania, in a 727, but then, everyone's done that.

[Nineiron]

"Baby (and adolescent) crocodiles, loose, in an Islander in West Irian. (I figured if the croc hunter was prepare to sit down the back with them it was OK, although some of them wound up under my feet a couple of times) "

Had a baby pig that made a run for it and got behind the rudder pedals. A lot of squealing and incontinence (the pig) while we got that one out!


Stangest was being accused of stealing (in flight) of over a ton of Yams, by a shipper who could not grasp the concept of evaporation loss, (although on a previous flight we had dumped a couple of tons of loose macheroni from split sacks, by using a hose pipe through the sextant hole.)

[RampTramp]

Back in the days of the ol' CL44 we did things like -

20T of special grass (green stuff, not THAT grass!). Flown from California with a Tigers 74 into LHR, trucked to STN & then flown to MCT. Had to be in the ground within 24 hours of pick-up so the Sultan of MCT had a bunch of locals with dibbers in hand awaiting our arrival;

Also into MCT, a complete circus but I've told that one before so won't get boring;

4T rhino HKG to MST;

Won't even go near the 9mm carpet slippers & the 7.6mm agricultural machinery although did do 4 rocket launching Landrovers into THR 2 days before the Shah left!

(Goes misty eyed - nostalgia 'ain't what it used to be)

RT

[Dan Winterland]

Not my story, second hand from a mate - but I'll tell it anyway.

An RAF Hercules many years ago with my mate as the FE was due to fly from Colombo to Singapore empty, but at the last minute some frieght showed up in the form of an RAF police dog with it's handler. The dog had an abcess on a tooth which was going to be treated in SIngapore and was loaded in a wooded kennel crate.

In the climb, the dog's abcess got a bit painful as the pressure reduced. The dog went apesh!t and smashed it's way out of the crate. The crew barricaded themselves on the flightdeck and suggested to the handler that he should go back and calm it down.

"**** Off, h'ell eat me" was the reply.

So the solution was to go onto oxygen, depressurise, wait until the dog passed through hypoxia out than lash it to the floor!

[Flightmech]

13 adult male Rhino's JNB-REC-MCO....
165 dairy cattle CGN-SHJ
Satellites SVO-AOX (Baikanour)

and the best of all...

An MD11 CMB-DXB-FRA full of Victoria's Secret underwear, some modelled by a fine looking female F.O. on route!:O

[Yarpy]

Without doubt, I carried the most unsavoury cargo just prior to the last UK General Election.

From Rome to London:

Two large crates of red party baloons all emblazened with the logo:

"I voted New Labour"

To this day I wish I had found an excuse to offload them.

[hailstone]

did not fly it myself, but arranged for it in the late 80's:

the oceanic games (or south pacific games) were to be held in tonga and a 20' container worth of rubber granulate (for the running track) was not depatched in time from europe by seafreight.

2 weeks before opening of the games, this was noticed and off went 18 tons of 50kgs bags to SIN by airfreight, palletized - still mae it down to AKL palletized, but from there it was belly in 727 and 737.

the running track was useable (eg DRY) 6 hours before the opening ceremony.

invoice value of the rubber granulate came in at a mere USD 5.000, but the freight went six digits.

about 15% of the bags were broken in transit in AKL, but the quantity ended up bebing sufficient.

the supplier of the rubber granulate went bust in the early 90's following a major scandal.

[Burger Thing]

A collegue of mine had a flight with thousands of one day old ducks in the back. During the flight he and the FO suddenly heard funny sounds inside the cockpit. They searched and found one little duck behind the Captains rudder paddel.... :D

[Cardinal Puff]

Know of a bloke who wrecked a TriPacer with 20 odd baby ostriches crawling around in the back and on the right seat (Engine failure, actually, before anyone barks up the wrong tree). Rumour has it he then shovelled the wreck down a well to hide the evidence of ostrich smuggling..........?

[wheelbarrow]

Just a few weeks ago I flew eight pallets of porcelain toilets out of Valencia. They were enroute to the Middle East. Expensive s*** if you ask me.

[Willit Run]

DC-6 load of Penthouse magazines with a serious bible thumper, southern babtist captain! What a hoot!

80,000 lbs of sand in a DC-8, it was very special sand!

50,000 lbs of HAZMAT, curious to find out what it was, went down stairs to find I had all the wart remover for the next 9 months for north America!( well maybe 6 months) we grow em big over here!

Oil well fire fighting equipment. that was really neat stuff!

[Flip Flop Flyer]

35 tons of Euro notes from, well that I can't say, to, well can't say that either really. Never had quite so many, very heavily armed, police officers looking and scrutinizing me. Quite scary, I mean, there's a reason they're there right - it is quite amusing to pet the thought of making a run with, oh around 20 Billion Euro's ..

[FLY BY NIGHT]

Eels are my thing, fly them all over Europe in a C-208. They're all alive and we get about 3000 to the kg. Regularly have well over a million in the back.

[Moose Loadie]

3 Pallets of bubble wrap, so funny watching the stuff try to escape through the holes in the net as we pressurized.

[splat72]

Sand
Plain old sand

From Port Moresby to Woitape in the Goilala's (Papua New Guinea).
It was a charter for the Japaness govt to help the villages build a new school but as usual the land owners wanted to much money for the sand out of the river to build their own children a school so it was cheaper to fly in a Twin Otter load.

PNG's sad story ..... Greed:(

[CR2]

Stickied for a while. Keep it coming!

[Yorky Towers]

Carried "Dug Brown" on a few ocassions !!! does that count ???:confused:

[Nineiron]

Shifted about 3 tons of tropical birds for a Zoo. A discussion followed as to what would be the weight of the aeroplane if they all went flying at the same time and hovered above their perches.

[GBNGH]

3 x Lotus Esprit Turbos in the lower deck of a passenger 747 LGW-YVR for Expo

[Nineiron]

OK CR2, you asked.
Just turned back the logbook pages to jog the memory:

Silver ingots in sacks, from the Gulf to Italy
White buffaloes, from Lahore to Varna
Armoured Caddillacs, to north Africa
Goatskins, from Kano to Spain
An entire 747 sawn up into bits, from Benghazi
A 24 ton ship's engine block, from Holland to New Zealand.
Currency, printed in UK, for PolPot in Cambodia.
Cement and bricks for an orpanage in Burundi.
26 tons of toilet paper and beer mugs for Idi Amin
A load of 60foot boiler tubes for a stricken liner in the Caribbean
Oil well fire fighting gear for the Gulf ( remember Red Adare?)
Thousands of goats, 700 a trip, into Dubai
The Rothmans Team Pitts aircraft.
A satellite

etc etc.

[gooneydog]

Hemp'ill perhaps Willie RUN ???????? Just the odd manatee and dolphin from Seaworld ans crickets by US Mail

[CR2]

Just found this old pic...

27800KG ship's gearbox (http://groups.msn.com/LatinFlyersAirportBar/pprunegallery.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=513)

Flew this one out to Madras..

[Buster Hyman]

Well obviously it wasn't going to MEL!!!:p

BTW, nice photo in the FO's seat Ratty!:} Did you sneak in before the "real" crew got there?:E :E

[CR2]

'Twas obs seat and I assume you are refering to the pic on the way home...
Shorter sized Canadian Capt took piccie, was doing me bit monitoring HF over Bay of Bengal (think SELCAL was :mad: )
LUX/KWI/SIN/MAA/AUH/LUX and straight down the pub!

[Buster Hyman]

Ahhh, you were the SkySlut for that trip huh? Mind you, the routing sounds like the MEL-LUX run!!!:eek: :eek:

[markwinterb]

Best one I ever had - was 2 x Ferrari F50's on board B747F (Air Hong Kong) out of Manchester (EGCC)

The were individually strapped down to P1P pallets using straps and tie dwon rings

Got there in one piece - minus the keys (left behind in office at Manchester in error)

How about 75 Ostriches on Board a Martinair MD-11 from Manchester to Vancouver??

Noisy creatures I tell you

Propshaft for a canal barge - loaded on a MP DC-9 at Leeds (EGNM)

[Flap Sup]

742F to DXB carrying aprox 70 dairycows - and I fell in love!! She was dark haired and had beautiful brown eyes. I am talking about the veterinarian of course. Never saw her again.

When I first started dispatching, just after arrival the load team leader called me on rt and said "you better get down here, take a look at the holds - there is a box with HUM with a hole in it. Its all over the bloody hold".
I had no specific interest in taking a look at a leeking HUM, so naturally i inquired for more info over the radio: "what, how much, how bad, babble, babble, yadda, yadda".
The loader now answered "yeah, and they are moving!". Now young Flap was wondering - moving?!?

This radio conversation was in danish, where "hummer" (hum plural) means "lobster", however, young Flap didnt realise until after a few minutes. A box full of lobsters was cracked open and as soon as the lobsters were free of the protecting ice, they started crawling around the hold. One of the loaders took off the rubberband on the lobsters claw, resulting in a blue and sore thumb. They really can use those claws.
Gave me a bit of a scare.

/FS

[A and C]

Four live sharks from Amsterdam to Kerry.

The guy who was looking after the sharks worried me more than the sharks !.

[witchdoctor]

I bet somebody somewhere is regretting the decision to ship the freight in the following article from this weeks 'Flight International'. DOH!!!:D

"Squirrels' bid for freedom leaves aircraft on tarmac.

Tolga Ozbeck, Istanbul.

An Airbus A340-300 of THY Turkish Airlines has been grounded for a week at a cost of some $1 million after a cageload of squirrels escaped inside the aircraft.

The aircraft (TC-JII) is at the THY Technic facility at Istanbul Ataturk Airport where it is now undergoing a C-check during which it was hoped the 36 missing squirrels would be found.

The incident occurred on 12 April when a cargo of 15 cages of squirrels was uploaded in Beijing for carriage to Rome via Istanbul. But at Istanbul two of the animals were seen in the cabin by flight attendants.

An inspection revealed that one of the cages was open and 40 squirrels were missing.

The aircraft was taken to the hangar and gas used to try to kill the squirrels - but by last week only four had been found, raising safety and health fears."

Never knew the little packets of nuts on board had such strong customer appeal.:} Just hope these squirrels were the furry variety and not the whirlybird sort.

[deltahotel]

Land rover and trailer to Saudi Arabia. Contents of trailer? Jerry cans full of petrol.

[Silas Blattner]

The Roadsweeper from Hell,

Last day of 1GW - to Bahrain - a pink roadsweeper - presumably to kill the FOD that did for the Tornado(s). Also presumed that the OBBI local trucks were insufficient and that Manama UDC didn't have any to lend or wanted them back if they did.

Anyway this delivery must've terrified Saddam 'cos he gave up after that.

SB.

[Conc]

15,000 copies of Lara Croft, unfortunately the PS2 game not Angelina Jolie.
Regularly carry rocket motors for the military and ejector seat production.

[Sleeping Freight Dog]

Ok, heres my contribution. I had to oversea 3 Komodo Dragons from CGK to LAX on GA and then ship two to MIA and one to MSP.
The one to MSP went fine, if you consider you couldnt approach the cages and had to stay at least 10ft away from the fronts.
The duo to MIA was the nightmare from Hell. At 11pm on a Friday
night, Bloody domestic carrier, no naames here, decided they wouldnt carry the creatures onto MIA. So with Customs, Fish & Wildlife, and Officers from the Center of Disease control standing around to monitor the process, I had to figure out how to get them to the Miami Zoo. Thankfully cargo carriers dont have problems with animals that could kill ya by looking at ya..LOL.

Also shipped Sly Stallone's Ferrari to the Sultan of Brunei.

Just remembered the time we loaded 30tons of McNugget
powder to OZ. We all looked like Pillbury dough boys after that
one

[Basil]

Princess Royal in Viscount - only one old lady noticed and then kept going to loo so she could walk past for a look.
Suzie Quattro - strange lady :confused:
Sir Teddy Taylor MP (before his K) Really nice guy.

Oh! You mean in a freighter?
Most amusing: Two adolescent female gorrillas, one of which (whom?) made a grab for the FO. Best offer he'd had all month! :D
Boring: Usual horses, flash cars etc.
Strangest: A selection of colleagues of course! :p :p

[Trumpet_trousers]

...a 'sighting device' for one of Betty's underwater cigars.......raised on wooden pallets so that it would fit over the ramp incline. Cigar had exceeded 'peeping speed' and bent the other one 'somewhere down south!'

[Basil]

No shuftiscope LRS then? :uhoh:

[classjazz]

The SBS I suppose - on a live mission in a c-130. They were "very" strange.

Hi - Mike Jenvey - David D here ex HLA - remember?

[The Sandman]

Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders squad on week-long morale boosting tour of various US Army remote posts in Turkey. MY KIND OF SELF-LOADING FREIGHT!

[Airguitar]

:oh:

5 Live Ragged Tooth Sharks from Joburg to Maastricht...
It was a bitch getting caviar from those guys...

[747400CA]

Full loads all

Horses Calgary - Anchorage - Sapporo (hot and sweaty)

Dairy Cows New York - Amsterdam - Kuwait (hot and stinky)

'Smart' bombs Norfolk - Bosnia (can't remember the place)

Cigarettes New York - Tashkent (local politician's wife bought the charter - unloaded by hand via 10m ladder in 12 hours by a horde who received 1 box Marlboros ea for their efforts)

Glad those days are over

[ocnus]

How about a load of ostrich from South Africa to Christchurch. Took longer to clean than to fly.

[spud]

1. Gonorrhoea samples to DXB (all they would have to do is scrape a Dubai bog seat and they'd save a fortune)
2. Manchester United football shirts to HKG to be trucked to China, embroidered, trucked back to HKG and then flown back to Manch & sold.

[Mr C Hinecap]

The mention of bubble wrap as a surprise shows the civvy side here - us mil types ship that cr@p all the time.

Moving 120T of salt was amusing. Was supposed to be road salt for a special and remote place. We got 120T of table salt delivered! We flew it. And it worked.

[Howard Hughes]

3 Pizzas out of Darwin in a C-210 many moons ago.

About $500, Bl:mad: dy expensive pizza's.....

Numerous Crocodiles (dead of course).

And my personal favourite, a frozen indonesian fisherman (also dead of course).


Cheers, HH.


:ok:

[Shuperstar Loadie]

A gorilla from JER, a carpet to Rome, 2 tonnes of suchi to Milan for a fashion show and strangest of all about 100 Kgs of mail to EMA on a sunday! WHY!!!! a van would be cheaper!!!!.

Oh the best was watching 100 upset West Ham fans getoff a B737 last saturday Ha Ha Ha!!!!

EAGLES!!!!!!!!

[freightdoggy dog]

watching 30,000 palace fans cry, when they go back down next season:{

[CR2]

On topic gentlepeeps...

[EMACargo]

The strangest one i have had was an uncle sending his niece a few pairs of crochless thongs. :O oooeeerrrr missus. And that is absolutly true.

Stu

[Sonic Zepplin]

:cool:

Six in a Learjet

Six in Six out

What a life

[Hobo]

Was at EGPF in the 80s when a USAF C5A arrived to pick up an American submarine to take home for servicing.

Doing walkround at LGW prior to flight to ESSA. Loaders were considering what to do about a box about 15'x3'x2' which was leaking clear fluid. Closer inspection revealed that it smelt of fish.Turned out that a Swedish holiday maker had caught a Marlin (?) whilst game fishing in the Seychelles and was shipping it back to Stockholm. I declined to take it, never did find out what happened to it.

[pigboat]

14 live caribou in a DC-3 on skis from a lake out in the boonies to a nature park. They were tranked and hobbled.

A load of beds in a Beaver on floats in to a fishing camp. The cabin was full of matresses, so the bed frames were strapped onto the canoe strut. There was no room for a seat for the passenger that went in, so he climbed up on the matresses and lay down for the whole flight.

Live lobsters in an Otter on floats. The were loose and I spent half the time kicking the bloody things outta the cockpit.

Max Ward once carried a full sized upright piano strapped to the float of an Otter. He said his touchdown was so smooth there was nary a sour note. :cool:

[matkat]

B747f full of various armaments
DC-8 container full of CS gas to Zimbabwe
same DC-8 returning from Zim 3,feet x 3 foot box of platinum
and my Favourite,chitty chitty bang bang.

[Dagger Dirk]

A couple of decades ago. Six whores (and a load of booze) to a mining camp in the middle of absolutely nowhere in lousy rainy weather, arriving after midnight to land on a gravel strip without comms - and the only lighting being trucks and cars all on high beam pointed into the approach along both sides.

The boys had struck the mother lode. The ladies brought much of that home with them the next morning and boy were they ripe...

It was only after I sighted the size of the cheques that they were comparing (all signed by the Company Secretary) that I realized that I'd been born the wrong sex. Caught a ride home with one of the ladies in her Jaguar. Wife monitored my arrival home and grilled me about that fairly exhaustively. I needed to show her the flight-plan to get out from under her suspicions.

[saltyswede]

Enlish football fans coming back from Portugal. Beckhams fading star, do they need to make the goal bigger?

[bacardi walla]

1994, flew 4 Russian made T62 tanks from Bourgas to Luanda. When we got there we discovered no keys to start them. Eager to escape the flack building up around us and the fact that an F27 had recently been attacked by ground fire, we fuelled up, filed a plan to PMI, then jump started the tanks and drove them into the sand. Why PMI - sounded a good place to escape to....

With nobody in sight, we obtained our clearance and got airborne. Funny how the credit card numbers disguised as permit numbers always work when overflying Africa :ok:

[stella arrival]

Once carried a plane load of Euro notes and two bullion guards into BOH, but on a slightly different note....
A buddy of mine was being interviewed about freighting by a TV show, the presenter said,
"Have you ever carried any unusual cargo?"
"Oh yes! We once carried a roll of carpet!" Really....

[Africa Dog]

Couple of years back i had a flight flying tank shells out of Zim to Sri lanka,

[Africa Dog]

How about this one about two years ago flying JNB TO KGL,650 goats inside the A/C,the locals where runing out of food i think,we done a few flights back to back all with goats onboard,what a stink inside the aircraft,but they where good passengers,did'nt complain about the food and inflight enterainment.:ok:

[Milt]

Gum Tips

Decode for non Ozzies = New leaves of the Eucalyptus Tree

Was down in Idris, Libiya out of Boscombe Down with a Valiant.
Along the approach to the civil terminal is/was an avenue of Gum Trees. Family in UK would appreciate the smell of eucalyptus.

Picked a bunch and secured in weapon bay.

How can one explain to health/customs the importing of a bunch of leaves. Nearly locked up on suspicion of being a drug runner!

[leardrivr]

I went to KJFK in a Convair-580 to get 14,000lbs of car engines. The truck driver came out with a check in a yellow envolope for 1.5 millon dollars. We flew that 6 ounce load all the way to Mexico city. And people wonder why cars are so expensive.

[rotary]

I had Penguin Eggs once.All the way from the Falklands.Bet they were homesick when they hatched though.

[El Burro]

In June of 2003 I flew 2500 lbs of seedless watermelons from YUM to ORD for Oprah. She used them on her show the next day. After all it was said and done each watermelon ended up costing her about $100 each.

[Varipitch]

25tonnes of Peach trees-ain't nuthing strange about those is there?
Oops-they were for Sebbha middle of Sahara Desert where soil is a little thin on the ground.
Oops 2 they were metal, had a wooden end and a hollow end
ain't seen peach trees like that nice Man Mr Gaddafi wanted since that day

[Cargocainine]

CR2, Well since keep pestering all of us about this and I don’t much else to do in this hotel room in the middle of the night I might just as well share my part of the glory in this, I am a bit sarcastic today but no pun intended so if you are faint of heart you should skip this.

Seem to recall carrying a 747 SF full of “Rush Baggage” from Jeddah to Kano, well it wasn’t in much of a hurry as it had been sitting in Jeddah since the previous Hajj with the accompanying grit and a stowaway cat the Nigerians took an instant liking to, not so sure it made the right choice there as it tended to look out at us from the doorway during the offloading obviously not liking the look of Nigeria for the first time, When we finally coaxed it out on the last pallet the last we saw of it was when it went scurrying across the ramp chased by 4 big black men with saliva running from their lips and plastic knifes and forks from the Trash bags in each hand.

Next trip I went down there was a week later again on the 747 SF with a plane full of Instant Identify card booths sponsored by the UN with the purpose to Issue Identity cards to all Nigerians, My initial hopes of the identity cards being A4 size so that you could spot them at a distance were proven false when it turned they were just like any other identity cards, Wallet Size!

And like the rest of you I have done my fair share of Ferraris, Porches, Mercedes and other display cars, Last pair of fancy cars I carried were a 57 Caddy and an 1960 Oldsmobile Limo belonging to one of the Royal Families in South East Asia going for service in Detroit. In retrospect it probably would have been cheaper to send a couple of Auto Mechanics First Class.

Did a couple of Rhinos to the Zoo in Shangahai, But then again with the Chinese you can never be to sure. The older one of the two we can be certain isn’t going to go easy on their dentures if they ever decide to go that way.

And again like the rest of you I have done my share of Goats, sheep, horses and even monkey’s although I am sure 3 of them didn’t go with their kin during the offloading.

The most unusual of the lot was one Pitts Special and a Piper Cup in the Forward belly of a B747 Passenger Aircraft going to the Oshkosh Airshow last year. Still not quite sure how we managed that without damaging the Aircraft.

And just to finish of I did an unusual one last week where I had a 16´ton Semi Truck going to SYD and a Huey right behind it.

So if I offended anyone; Tough Luck as you obviously did not head to my warning before reading.

So CR2, is the beer on me or you next time at Check in?

[CR2]

The most unusual of the lot was one Pitts Special and a Piper Cup in the Forward belly of a B747 Passenger Aircraft going to the Oshkosh Airshow last year. Still not quite sure how we managed that without damaging the Aircraft.

Now that is impressive :ok: Tell me more. Guess wings off, layed out the belly with empty pallets and pushed them in? I've driven cars (Audi A6 just fits) in that way.

Hajj baggage :yuk: Fortunately I've managed to avoid those over the years :p Some of my colleagues have done them, I don't need to see it for myself ta very much.

Let me know when you're going to be in the Check Inn then! May well be my round....

:ok:


Edit 01 Oct: Thanks for the sms Canine, beer on me!

[policepilot]

Is it true?? Heard a story of a transport plane carrying cattle that bolted, opened the ramp at FLxxx, and some landed on a Japanese fishing fleet below. Explain that to your insurance man.

We carried a Land Cruiser into the middle of the DRC (had to flatten the tyres to get in). After off loading, humanitarian organisation in question realised they'd forgotten the pump.

[Farrell]

policepilot - i think it's just urban legend.....

...... a Japanese fishing boat had been sunk by a falling cow in the Sea of Okhotsk off the Eastern coast of Siberia. The shipwrecked crew were plucked from the sea, claiming that cows had fallen from the sky and one of them had gone straight through the deck and hull, capsizing the vessel. The fishermen were arrested for suspected marine insurance fraud, but freed after Russian and Japanese investigators found out that the story was true. Russian soldiers based on the island of Sakhalin had used a army transport plane to rustle a herd of cattle. Once airborne, the cattle moved about the aircraft, throwing it off balance. To avoid crashing, the crew drove them out of the large loading bay at the tail of the aircraft at 20,000 ft (6,000m).

According to Andrew Gimson's report from Berlin for the Daily Telegraph, a German diplomat sent an account of the incident to Bonn to illustrate the appalling state of air safety in Russia. His fax stated that he heard the story from the "well informed" Moscow representative of the American Federal Aviation Authority. The Daily Mail and the Express said the report came by e-mail to the German embassy on 28 April from one of its consulates in eastern Russia. The Scotsman, meanwhile, claimed that Reuters had traced the story to a Russian television comedy series 18 months ago called Peculiarities of the Hunt. The falling cow was then written up in Pravda in its urban legends column, and from there made its way to the Internet, where it was mentioned in The Scotsman's humorous report on the Darwin awards before being sent to the German embassy in Moscow, who took it seriously (the implication being that Germans lack a sense of humour).

All these journalists have a very short memory. The folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand was sent the story from the Moscow News in 1990 - or possibly even earlier. In this version, there was only one cow and one surviving fisherman, and the latter was sent to a mental hospital rather than to prison. This was reported in the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio on 17 Sept 1990

[ocnus]

A load of Nigerian currency from Uli to Zurich on a Super Constellation.

[Michael Ochsbigg]

Strangest freight had to be 2T of guado (think its spelled right) from AIG to ALK a while back. Didn't bother asking why, maybe I should have!
(btw, thats bat poo to you and me, guys n gals)

Then there was the time when we carried a flea circus for the Prince Nmbulu. Think someone could've been having a laugh there....

[Captain Magic]

A cargo ground handler that accidenly got locked in the rear cargo hold. Flew from JHB Int. to Durban. Needless to say he was a tad paler when he was let out at the other end. It was not me flying but it was my company. Apparently he did not see the funny side of things. Unlike the cockpit crew who had to delay the next leg by an hour or so due to uncontrolled fits of laughter.

cm

[nooky]

I have unloaded a B24 liberator off a C5 Galaxy, broken down of course, and in a bad state of repair, looks alot better now that duxford have finished working their magic with it. Have loaded a hawker hurricane, and a tornado onto C5 Galaxy's. They were a swap between museums in england and america.

[Rapid_Climber]

Just before the good 'ol days ended at HLA we operated 20 flights using IL76 to move 35,000kgs of Gold per flight over a 3 month period, when the British Gov. saw fit to sell 80% of the UK Gold reserve to Germany.

[ehwatezedoing]

Late 80's, early 90's, ramp rat at this time in cymx

Loaded couple of Formula 1 racing car in a Alitalia 747 after the Montréal grand prix.
Each pallet having two F1 stacked one on top of the other in bunk bed.

They looked a bit weird with their "tiny" wheels (used for transportation to save room)
The amount of "real tires" & tool boxes was pretty impressive also!


:ok:

[AirYard]

probably caryying a Giraffe from Lux- DME, was only a young one though :D

have the pics to prove it and how cute it was, but cant post!

[stanley]

80,000 Lbs of paper eurs from VIE to ATH and 80,000Lbs of eurs rom LIS to BRU .
thats a lot of money.

[fr8doggie]

5,000 cases of Budweiser and Xmas trees to Thule AB
54 thouroughbred race horses to Macau
The "flycatcher" perimeter defense system to Ankara, Turkey
Several long haired "fellows" and a non-descript white van from point A to point B

[AirYard]

finally got it to work!.


Voila, the strangest one I've seen yet.

http://groups.msn.com/LatinFlyersAirportBar/airyardspics.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=1505

[classjazz]

Wonder if anyone actually gets down this far apart from me - ah well - here goes.
In the Belfast freighter everything that you could get on board was carried. Satellites to Canaveral and during the last Cypriot punch up, a cargo bay full of polystyrene packing. Absolutely full - no weight but bulked out.
The worst one was when flying in the Middle East when we carried a homicidal maniac from France to Luxor. He tried to kill the flight crew three times, The first being on the ground in France then twice in the air approaching Cairo. Unfortunately he was the Captain. I left the company immediately afterwards and never flew again with that outfit.
With another outfit - one that flies very old aircraft out of an airfield in the Midlands - the crew inadvertantly forgot to tell the g/crew in Spain that the forward hold was full of new tyres. They( the Spanish) signed as having received a full complement and the tyres went back to the UK. They wouldn't admit in Spain that they hadn't received them and they were off loaded until some time later when "allegedly" they were sold to a local garage. Couldn't possibly tell you who sold them.

[Irish Steve]

Didn't fly it, but I reckon the strangest thing I've seen was a fully operational Main line Diesel locomotive for Irish Rail that was shipped across the Atlantic on on of the Russian heavy lifters (an AN124 I think).

It took quite some work to get it out of the hold and on to the transporter that took it through Dublin to the maintenance base.

As to why it was flown over rather than coming by ship, as the rest of the order did, we never found out the reason for that.

[bostonpilgrim]

During GW1 the 3rd a/c into Dhahran carried approx 15 ton of sandbags (full!!). Waste of tax payers money?, nearly as bad as the VC10 full of NBC boots that when opened turned out to be jungle boots. Needless to say the went back on the same aircraft!!.

[max payload]

... on our passenger aircraft we actually have instructions on the seating arrangements required when passengers bring FALCONS on board...

Funny that- we actually did some falcon flying from the great sandpit to places like Rahim Yar Khan- hunting trips in a 146 Statesman...

Max.

[rolandpull]

Op safe Haven, Southern Turkey/Northern Iraq just after GW1. Loose loaded (shovelled on) bread loaves delivered in the hover from our Chinook.

Four 20 ISO containers of dead Argentinians (by Chinook) from Port Stanley to the argy cemetary in Goose Green?1982.

[neil armstrong]

Some IRA prisoners form a High security prison in the UK to Ireland!!
Lots of security on the ground! flying freight is a lot safer!!

Neil

[mac]

Flew with a doll that kept saying "mommy, mommy" and that is scarry!

[fernytickles]

AirYard - I love your picture "the difference between Europe and the USA"... :ok:

[scottwarnick]

Flew Jordan last week out of BNE without any make up ...

Never seen anything like that before!

[excrab]

400kg of dried fish wrapped in hessian with what appeared to be an equal quantity of flies (it had been piled at the side of the strip in the sun for four hours waiting for me) - it must be the most disgusting thing I have ever smelt, flew the whole 2 hour flight (and the empty return) with the windows open and the aircraft reeked for days afterwards.
Otherwise saline drips for a cholera epidemic supplied by the Indonesian government that were clearly marked as being 3 years past their sell by date, 45 gallon drums of diesel (not unusual until one splits in flight and you find two inches of diesel slopping around the rudder pedals), and ladders which are to long to fit in a 185 so you have one end sticking out of the front pax window and the other end out of the rear baggage door as if you had just picked them up from B & Q and are hoping the police won't spot you on the way home - the ladder made little difference to the aircrafts handling characteristics but when I repeated the experiment with rolled up sheets of corrugated aluminium roofing it flew like a pig!

Or as the aircraft was a kind of mini combi how about naked tribesmen covered in an inch of rancid pig fat to keep the cold out, or the guy with comound fractures of both thighs whose family simply bent his legs up as far as they could so there would be room for them to sit behind him on the flight to hospital.

Or the tribal passenger who decided he needed a dump in flight so he just let go in the back seat of a 185, with results that you can imagine. That last one actually happened to a colleague of mine and I p*ss myself laughing everytime I think of it (as I am doing now)!

[jozeph]

Our strangest freight was a full AN-124 575Cumtrs of empty egg-
cartons from AMS to CPT with a payload of only.....21Tons

[jonjie]

"Notice to Captain" on the Loadsheet says "One Live Animal on Hold #1- CAT"....during pre-flight turned out to be a beautiful Tiger Cub.

[Rapid_Climber]

Best I ever heard was during my days in the commercial dept at HeavyLift, where one of the sales team sold a flight to carry 100,000kgs of ice cream on an Antonov An124 Spain to UK. Of course a An124 is not a freezer and some of the ice cream melted, well most of it in fact, then the shipper decided to try and sue for the lost ice cream.

Of course you do not work at some where like HeavyLift without hearing the odd story or two, or three, four, well lots. Especially if Webby was around.

[Ryancoke]

We had a body come in once, usually the funeral home comes to pick them up in a herse and it's all perfectly normal. There was this one guy that came in a beat up old dodge, got us to throw the stiff in the back and make sure it was secure 'cuz he had a long drive ahead of him' kinda a morbid thought - spend your last few hours above ground in the back of a pickup.

[Big Tudor]

During the '90s BY did a lot of work with the Born Free Foundation. One flight they brought back a couple of lions from Mombassa (I think) to go to the Born Free sanctuary in the UK. Problem was no-one told the loaders! Hold door open, GROWL, 2 loaders leg it! :O
Recall talking to a C130 skipper during GW1. He had been feeling very proud of himself having flown 3 Gazelle heli's and 10 tonne of freight in the back of his Herc. Didn't feel so good when a C5 parked beside him and offloaded 3 Lynx, 5 Gazelles, 50 tonne of freight and 40 pax! :eek:

[spacedaddy]

Back in the good ole 707 days out of Belgium we carried the lions, rhinos, llamas, pigs, chickens, rockets, hand grenades and the like but during gulf war 1 in '91 we carried 2 flights a day of rocks. It seems the king of Saudi proclaimened all in his kingdom should have a gas mask so we were hired to transport gas masks from Bratislava to Jeddah. Turns out that the factory couldn't keep up so they crated up rocks and sent them. The Saudis were so slow in opening the crates and distributing to their people that they didn't discover it until the day before the war ended. That was about 2,000 tons of rocks. hazzard pay was great.

[turbynetrip]

Jellybeans...

Over 100K of jellybeans, from Prauge to ATL a few months back.

It was a happy cargo, anyway...

TT

[RJP1962UK]

In February 2002 I flew on an MI8 out of Basankusu (DRC) with a cargo of 3 crocodiles, several chickens all alive, smoked fish and empty diesel drums.

The smell was horrific as one of the crocs insisted on shi***ng all over the floor but at least I could open the windows for the 2hr flight to Mbandaka.

[capt. skidmark]

i once flew $15.000.000 cash, very close to the mexican border. i must admit it crossed my mind for a second or two to bash the fire extinguisher to my captains head and go way down south. unfortunately i didnt have the guts to do such a thing.

capt. skid

[CAT1]

Once flew a ton and a half of partially crushed garlic fron Coventry to Belfast for the Bachelors soup factory over there. We all ended up on oxygen and couldn't see properly, eyes streaming from the fumes. Declared a Pan.
Couldn't get laid for months.........

[Hueymeister]

We flew a goat in Belize once...it was a present to the Gurkhas who were down south on the border....it then broke free, and then jumped out the open doors and free-fell 6000ft into the jungle!!! The Gurkhas weren't impressed.

Flew a body (which had been in the water for a couple of days) and the bag split...the smell was undescribable.

[Kolibear]

I flew my wife up to see her parents once...

Opps, sorry, wrong thread! :O

[Sherwood]

A pride of lions from Manchester to Malaysia - never been that close to a lion before when strapping down the paletts!
Kimodo Dragons, tons of kellogs nutrigrain bars, not all at the same time though.

[Hurkemmer]

Fly with anything in the hold if doesn't burn, bite or bitch!

It depend on a/c but we have many options.

[Arrowhead]

80 odd cockroaches - found behind the galley. Didn't even have boarding passes either. Freeloaders..... didn't mind too much though until one day a few visited the cockpit and ran up my colleagues's leg...

[African Tech Rep]

Rock band roadies and stage equipment on a 6 – the strange thing was that when they got they were knackered (it’s hard work), after t/o one asked if he could “check his luggage”, it was down the back so no probs, he was Very happy when he came back, one by one they all “checked their luggage” and all became happy – they carried their own bags off.

Scariest story (from old FE) – flying a 6 from South America to Miami – on landing customs insist on checking cargo despite crew warning they think it opened during flight – crew refuse to open cargo bays – customs very suspicious – crew stand well back – customs open fright bay and are showered by live tarantulas.

If anyone remembers Bernie (and if you meet him you would) – doubt if he’s still around but he deserved to be – Shadwell says Hi.
Memory jogger - he was FE on G-APSA on it’s original delivery from Douglas and did his last flight on her years later.

Nicest flight – the Dak one that took me away from Sumbrough.

Scariest – maybe trying “wingovers” in a Rapide but probably in hindsight survey flights especially when I realised the pilot had left the party AFTER me.

[Kiwiguy]

Ah back in '79 we were told to put a 1500 kg electric forklift into ATL.98 Carvair ZK-NWA. The load sheet said if we ever managed the feat of getting it up to the sill the floor beams could not carry the weight anyway. Kept telling the marketing manager but he knew nothing about planes and the first guy to refuse was summarily sacked.

First we used a big Toyota landcruiser to try and drag it up an inclined ramp. Well half way up the clutch caught fire.

Plan 2. Use our own forklift to hoist it up to the side door. Gotta be nuts huh ?

We'll they started to lift it but thank fully it got up about two feet off the ground before the forlift performing the lift toppled over. Honestly what a buch of squareheads they had for management.

[bigbeerbelly]

Just after locking the pax door in a J32, the ramper knocks on the side of the plane. I open the DV window and he hands me a styrofoam container express package to Allentown. Usually this means we are a "Lifeguard" flight. Lungs, eyes, etc. When we get to Allentown the Ops agent, enthusiastically says, "Finally, our bull sperm has arrived"

BBB

[L8 Fr8]

This is probably still classified, but years ago when the US Navy decided to finally let Female Sailors be stationed on Deigo Garcia we brought in 4 pallats of Kotex and Tampax to "Fantasy Island" aboard a Giant C-5A Galaxy!

[MetAl]

2500 goats Sydney to Seoul. Half for dinner, half for breeding.

6 Camels, again Sydney to Seoul, to be used in the Seoul Opera production of Aida. The sellers had preped the camels by playing loud opera music to them for 6 months prior.

White House Press Corps, DC to Madrid, enough said.

[MysticFlyer]

One aviator who now flies heavies, did hour-building flying a C210 seated on the coffin for a funeral parlor.

Still on 210's, upon landing at an seashore airfield used frequently by holidaymakers, the "pilot" was summoned to the tower where the ATC requested to see his licence, and afterwards refused to return it....

Reason: Excess baggage, after volumetric space (wich included the kitchen-sink) expired upon loading, was tied down on top of the wing using bungies, ropes and duck-tape!:}

L382 relief drops, when followed in a certain coutry, made for easier target aquisition for the enemy-paid aircrew.:yuk:

[GuardDog]

I work security on freight (hence guarddog) and my god, the crap we get through!

14 pallets of Rod Stewarts band gear (I hate that guy).
Medical Cocaine.
3 boxes of monkeys from indonesia.
1 heavily sedated grizzly bear from the zoo.
1 human brain being sent for autopsy.
The entire front nosecone of a fighter jet.
And once, 16 kilos of cryogenically frozen dog semen. (I didnt ask and i still dont want to know why.)

That is the top of my list of strangeness. Hope it made some of you smile.

[Rubberchicken]

Jordan F1 Car, 13t of fish, Misiles, Rocket motors, Ejector seat charges, Nokia phones, stuff wot glows in the dark and more nasty viruses than you can poke a stick at....... I really miss night freighting...:ok:

[PLovett]

I'm with Howard Hughes on this.

Flying a C206 out of Gove with 2 bottles of cordial, 2 packets of crisps and 2 packets of cigarettes. A $500 charter for that. Went on to pick up a load of mud crabs from Baniyala to take back to Gove.

Another day and call to fly the C210 back to Darwin. Load will be a body (bagged). He had been speared in the neck the night before and there was still plenty of fluids sloshing around in the bag when we loaded him. Best pax I have ever had though. :ok:

[jjpiloto]

400 pigs from Canada to Santiago de Chile...still smelling!

[ros]

Half a kilo of plastic buttons to fit on car seats, from Coventry UK to Pisa Italy. Only freight on board, mesuring about 20 x 30 x 30 cm. Must have been important.
"climb higher, we can almost make it" :E :E

[Gustav]

2x100 kg of the rarest insects from Madagascar to Europe!!
Arrived in Stn 14hrs later. Not a single fatalitity. Big bonus(u Think?) Then the Health inspector boards the A/c and fumigates !!!! No Bonus for us. Health Inspector? Promoted.
O Well.:{

[CR2]

I remember doing a charter some years ago from BCN to VCP. They'd forgotten to deliver one little box from the factory, so they chartered a helicopter to go get it & bring it straight to our aircraft.

[VH-GRUMPY]

When I was first learning to fly bugsmashers in the late 1970s, my instructor told me that he once had to take a hessian bag of brown snakes (the deadly variety) from one aerodrome back to Canberra for the wildlife service.

He suddenly realised on approach that the bag had opened and the snakes were on the floor in the rear of the PA28. He didn't declare an emegency but I understand his approach and vacation of the runway was expedited.

[Adler3]

Standard cargo load, but interestingly enough the NOTOC had one HAZMAT item listed: poisonous frog. one each.:confused:

[Caraman]

Well, I had the opportunity of flying some bulk, including a big barrel containing concentrated peppermint oil. Of course it broke during flight somehow. The aircraft never got rid of the smell, so the aircraft ended up in a semetary. Including my uniform :D

Also, I love flying around boxes with the labels of "toxic" and "human remains" :ugh:

[MRDART]

Well, I had the opportunity of flying some bulk, including a big barrel containing concentrated peppermint oil. Of course it broke during flight somehow. The aircraft never got rid of the smell, so the aircraft ended up in a semetary. Including my uniform :D
Also, I love flying around boxes with the labels of "toxic" and "human remains" :ugh:

Aahh The famous "mintexpress":cool: :cool:

[wilford@global]

twice flew 200 ,yes 200 ostrich (knee high , some hip high birds) ,necks folded down, then squeezed 3 to 4 next to each other in plastic banana boxes,with the next box placed on top, to keep the birds in, from a farm strip in Swaziland (Kabuto) to Matsapa and then to Gaberones ,the first lot of birds were then trans shipped on British Airways and ended up in America.the second lot , had to be returned to Swaziland as the Shipper ,one Monty Wales , had not the correct paper work to export the birds

[GEE BEE r2]

We once offloaded a flight from CPH ... and you could hear a sound like raining coming from inside a AAC ULD ... it turned out to be two massive split sacks of Mexican jumping beans .

[2000hrsinVN]

Critters were artificially inseminated, multi-lamb-bearing and very pregnant....
Auckland-Narita-Anchorage-London, BA, with an overnight change of planes in ANC. US Dept of Agriculture monitored in Anc.... Customs off and on.... Ground handled by Delta.
happened multiple times -- herd-building in the UK. :hmm:

[Ag2A320]

Lightest -in a LR35, a cigarette pack size of computer chips KTUL-KYIP-KELP-MMCU-KTUL carried them in my shirt pocket, Ford needed them asap in mexico: a production line stopped due to a computer malfunction.

Strangest- 1200cc of Frozen Boar semen for a texas gaming lodge KBRO-KSAT

Most Playful - a pair of golden retriever puppies on A 737 BBJ KDEN -KMIA 5 crew and two puppies in all fairness we were repositioning from KLAX in flight the SatCom rings and the boss's P/A said stop in DEN and pick up his wife's birthday presents.


I miss flying freight it didnt bitch and moan much and rarely did i ever have to make excuses for company delays and missed connections as i do now with the 188-230 SLF that pays my salary now.

[learlear]

Veins- human veins. They ship in a mushroom shaped container the size of a 30 gal. garbage can. Also umbilical cords, which I guess are harvested for the cell research. Whatever, I'm just the delivery boy.

[No Mate!]

Human genitals.

[Ganbare]

Christmas trees to the leper colony of Kaulapaupa on the island of Molokai via a Beech 18.

[gib]

235 p155ed up 18-30 chav grade pax. the bull semen was probably more intelegent:}

[MelA]

How about live rabbits carrying Bulls semen in test tubes to maintain body temperature

[alexban]

Not me,but a friend of mine: ugent call from standby,during night ,to find out they'll have to fly a small box,no larger than a shoe box, on a 707 for a 7-8 hr flight. Once arrived,they were expected by an entire suite of limousines.Out of curiosity ,they asked what was in the box (they thought ,maybe diamonds ),just to find out that there were new printed bussines cards for the sultan of...
Happened many years ago..

[42ongo]

Has anyone ever got involved in this ?
I remember getting involved in my youth thinking this was a bit bloomin
dangerous until someone explained the ins and outs
we never did carry it in the end ..shame

[11Fan]

42ongo,

Depends how you want to classify “freight”.

Back in 1996, a Delta Air Lines Passenger MD-11 carried the Olympic Torch from Athens Greece to Los Angeles (in this ship) for the start of the cross-country relay. It took us two weeks to paint this aircraft.


http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=0595433&size=L&width=1024&height=695&sok=JURER%20%20%28ert%20%3D%20%27A812QR%27%29%20%20BEQRE%20O L%20cubgb_vq%20QRFP&photo_nr=3 (http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=0595433&size=L&width=1024&height=695&sok=JURER%20%20%28ert%20%3D%20%27A812QR%27%29%20%20BEQRE%20O L%20cubgb_vq%20QRFP&photo_nr=3)

How you may ask?

Text blatantly stolen from:

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/1996/06/12/6779/Home+run.html (http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/1996/06/12/6779/Home+run.html)

In April, the Centennial Spirit's historic 14h flight from Athens to Los Angeles carried the Olympic Flame in a safety lantern mounted in the main cabin. At some 11,270km (6,100nm), it was the longest distance ever travelled by the Flame in an aircraft. Special approvals had to be obtained from the US Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration to transport a flame aboard the aircraft. The safety lantern consisted of a self-contained unit, sealed and leak-proof, encased in a fluted, decorative, container. For its journey, it was secured to an interior wall by aluminium brackets designed by Delta mechanics and was monitored continuously by an ACOG representative. Once in Los Angeles, the Flame's overland relay across the USA was begun, with Delta professionals among the 10,000 torchbearers. It will arrive in Atlanta on 19 July.

11Fan

[samfish]

hi.
saw a tank dissasembled -but being curious to what kind looked at manifest ,it was written down FARM MACHINERY.
one tough farmer eh.:ok:

[priapism]

Was in Alice Springs , Central Australia years ago and saw a battered Irish Dc8 or 707 which was loading camels bound for Saudi Arabia. Aparently the aussie models were pretty quick on the racetrack and were highly sought by the odd Oil Shiek or 3.

[ship's power]

Two chain wrapped garbage dumpsters, each filled with $80 million in cold cash, on a B-747 military charter from Travis AFB to Yakota, Japan. . There were two armed military MP’s aboard, but both quickly fell asleep during cruise over the North Pacific. I spent the entire flight fantasizing on how/where to divert.

[razzele]

Private charter for one very Large and very expensive bangladeshy, curried tigerfish!

To be flown across the atlantic !

Plane was a bit wiffy on landing !

[Pollards]

CEG-JER C550 four goldfish (one died)!

[Flying_Spam]

A camel spider from Masirah, Oman to Diego Garcia. I had no clue it was on board until the "funeral" in DGAR...it died enroute...

[Evening Star]

Didn't fly it, but I reckon the strangest thing I've seen was a fully operational Main line Diesel locomotive for Irish Rail that was shipped across the Atlantic on on of the Russian heavy lifters (an AN124 I think).
It took quite some work to get it out of the hold and on to the transporter that took it through Dublin to the maintenance base.
As to why it was flown over rather than coming by ship, as the rest of the order did, we never found out the reason for that.

IE Class 201 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IE_201_Class) built by GM in North America. Timescale for delivery and introduction was very tight. If they all came by sea, there would not have been time to train all the drivers and maintenance engineers in advance of scheduled introduction. Flying the first one over gave a couple of extra weeks for the training programme so that the rest could be used almost from the dockside.:ok:

[phantom of the paradise]

154 live penguins and 3 live sharks. Cute little devils packed on ice.

[homebuilt]

Just landing on this post...Did somebody here spoke about General Electric Dash 9-44 CWs diesel locomotives (180 tons) that were ferried from GE factory (Ohio?) to Australia on board of an An 225 a few years ago?

Dom

[onetrack]

Highly unlikely. There is just no reason or need for any Dash 9's to be airfreighted to Australia from the U.S. The charter cost over that distance would be astronomical.
They are West Australian Iron Ore loco's .. the Iron Ore Co's plan ahead, and any imported from the U.S. (new or used) are shipped by sea.
Can't even recall an AN225 ever landing at Perth .. however my memory has been faulty, once .. :)

Maybe this is one you're thinking of?? ..

http://www.historyofaircargo.com/i-Train-takes-the-plane-or-the-plane-takes.html

[WHBM]

They are West Australian Iron Ore loco's .. the Iron Ore Co's plan ahead, and any imported from the U.S. (new or used) are shipped by sea.
Sending the Irish locomotive (which you linked to) by Antonov was all part of planning ahead. It allowed the maintenance teams to get up to speed on an example before the bulk of the delivery arrived by sea so they could be deployed immediately on arrival. All calculated out, it gave the best return on investment.

[Standard Noise]

Thousands of cubic feet of stale air, how's that for strange? I kid you not, it happened 21st Sept TOM2017 Cardiff-Sanford. They offloaded every pax hold bag in favour of transporting a load of old manky stale Welsh air. Airlines eh, aren't they just fab!!

[TownshipDog]

Human blood and spinal fluid for analysis from Bujumbura to Brussels

[Fish Head on Final]

Hope the Barrier Nets are sorted Nellie
http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n97/OPSQUEEN/LetshopethoseBarrierNetsareinNellie.jpg
120 Cows JNB - DUB On L-1011 PAX ( No Carco Door ):ugh:

[Low life]

Strange, lead lined, canisters into a grass strip in Holland, A BMW would turn up, swap the canisters over, then drive off.
I should imagine all was perfectly legal, but there always seemed to be a lack of paperwork.

[DC8VideoMan]

Strangest freight carried.....

A DC-10 load of silver bricks from Switzerland to Mambi India as an F/O for Gemini Air Cargo, and a 3/4 load of dead chickens delivered to Venezuella in a 727 while Captain for Capital Cargo. (No Ground A/C in Miami during a departure delay) Man were they ticked down there....

Back in the early 80's, transportating a load of Bahamian Defense Force soldier/drug types delivered to an out island at night in a DC-3, and consequently heard popping sounds in the plane's metal airframe after take-off. That was fun!

Jackie Onasis's race horse delivered to a tiny airport in Northwest France, with a taxiway too narrow for the DC-8, and a perfect single trench on both sides of the taxiway, from the outer main wheels, as we took out all their taxi lights.

Cheers!
Capt. Dave Bertrand (Ret.)

[xdc9er]

Myself;$16,000 USD worth of caviar for a well known singer/artist couple's breakfast in StBarths. 10kg box with its own handler!
My co-worker: 2 150lb endangered Turtles for a certain owner of a record company/airline/soft drink brand.
X

[scudpilot]

Apologoies for jumping, I am an ex freight forwarder, and could not resist the opportunity to post.
Back in the late 80's I worked for a forwarder at Gatwick who was tasked with the importation of a 28ft python constrictor for a tv ad. ( was the follow up to the real fires "the cat, the dog and the mouse" which someof you may remember.
Anyway, the said snake was packed in a crate with instructions to be loaded loose in the hold on arrival @ lgw due to the cold temperatues (jan in UK is never warm), these instructions were totally ignored, and the result being, that when said snake was delivered to cargo warehouse door, the vet who was looking after him looked at him and said snake was suffering from Hypothermia. We loaded crate into the back of a transit van, and headed for the nearest hotel, screeched up outside, and asked the hotel reception for a room with a hot bath for our dangerously cold snake! Anyway, all had a happy ending, advert was shown (just the once before it was banned, apparently a snake in the bath with a small child was deemed unsafe...)

[class a]

A Gorilla to Jersey zoo

[BYALPHAINDIA]

A Dog with a Wedding Dress on!!:D

[BYALPHAINDIA]

A Party of 'Bees' going on 'Honeymoon'!!:D

[GCSLoady]

Hi Folks, As I am new to the Forum, Hi My fellow Loady's.
Biggest / Heaviest I ever had to deal with B747-200F FRA-ORD
1 x Pump for the Canadien Gas Line 52,000 kg. That was fun :ugh: ,
We needed 2 Loaders, Cranes and losts of smoke and mirrors.
The straping alone made it look like a cocoon.

[Cpt. Underpants]

28000kg of gold bullion.

10 baby elephants and 10 Aldabra tortoises

[international hog driver]

1 - Large aircraft

1 - 20 Litre bucket

75 - day old turtles destined for a sanctury


One of the best things I have done in my flying career.

[Dengue_Dude]

Thumrait to Abu Dhabi by C130, was 4 x 1000 lb bombs and a pallet of bananas.

I said to the skipper, 'if this lot goes up, we'll be the biggest banana split ever'.

Needless to say it didn't.

Odd mixture, but we were 'ad hocing' anyway.

[globetrotter747]

A dolphin, a Maibach (The only thing on the 747), carpet, and of course for Valentine's day 220,000 lbs of roses!

[saffron]

5 hunting JP233 airfield denial weapons (bombs) from EMA to RAF Wildenrath in a Merchantman (Vickers Vanguard) subsequently used in Gulf War One resulting in several Tornadoes down.

[**MM**]

2 adult White Rhinos, UK-JNB.
1 4ft inflatable dingy (deflated) with oars, CGN-HKG (only freight on board)
98 Tons of Tic-Tacs, SNN-EWR
1 6ft roll of carpet on pax 727, ATH-CMN
118 Tons Generators, MRS-CMB. 2 days later, CMB-CDG-CMB as pax on Air France to recover ignition keys for 118 Tons of generators.

[pgtipss]

How about the CAA loading inspector. Managed to get rid of him before departure though - due to weight & balance problems!!:p

[fr8_hound]

123 lbs of crystal methamphetamine in a big cardboard box, a 70's era VW microbus with a false floor used to conceal said drugs, the driver of the van, two DEA agents and the Kansas State Trooper who made the bust. All this in the back of a C-141B from McConnell AFB to ORD.
Sheesh, wonder what a rapid decompression would do to the contents of that box...?:ooh:

[CorsairDB1]

My intro to night cargo was flying a Beech 18 with around 10,000 passengers from Ankeny Iowa to Opalocka (recently hatched baby chicks for export to Columbia).

They didn't smell yet (they were to young to even sh#t yet) but at the end of the flight your throat would be sore and dry and everything in the airplane was coated in yellow dust (from calcium that coats their feathers as they grow). We also flew altitudes based on temperature instead of winds to keep them happy. Try explaining that to ATC. It was a little different.

You don't hear much of their complaints once you crank up those two P&Ws but an old hand told me that "They peep when they're hungry. They peep when they're too hot. They peep when they're too cold. If they're quiet, it means they're either happy or dead."

[tangles500]

Two bottle-nosed dolphins in seperate holding tanks. The flt was a 4 hour jaunt in a Hercules L382g from Walvis Bay to Durban.
The 2 dolphins were for the dolphin marina.

[hardcase]

i had 1000 day old chicks onboard down to Jersey, Channel islands. noisy little devils....:E

[PK-GDU]

How about transporting dozens of drums filled with DPK ( dual purpose kerosene, good for avtur as well as cooking stove fuel for natives of Wamena high plateau ) from Sentani Airport ( Jayapura, Papua ) to Wamena airstrip onboard 27 yrs old Transall C-160 (A-MBB's "twin Hercules"). A complicated tying down job for those battered drums, really. You guys may ask why not using collapsible tank or....flying tanker instead. Well, we used to fly them in HS 748 and then An-12 too recently.

[alb.///]

... the most extrange, among many CAOs ... 320 poisonous snakes, from Brazil to the US for laboratory works.
Ahh ... no extra money, but really not big deal ... safe boxes and kept the door of our B763F closed all time ;-)
alb.///

[ssangyongs]

2 noisy pigs from the heartland of borneo. 4 passengers onboard. DH6 Twin Otter

[Outta_Guage]

I have read this forum a many times, but only registered today......not all of it so bear with me if I duplicate or post a 'strangest freight' mine may not be so strange........

Approx 12 tonnes of US embassy material headng for Russia (cross load from a 747F to DC-8F).....not so strange but had a US guard.....due to 'allegedly' an incident that happens many years ago between Russia and the US.

A rabid dogs head for research.....rather the resarechers than me to be honest (oh and we lost it for 2 days.....that was interesing).

Is there a scariest freight thread?.....23 ton download on a Commander 30 with no crane.....that was a buttock clincher.

Other 'stuff' will pop in my mind as time goes by no doubt

Love the Freight Dog thread by the way.....shame it doesnt get more interest.

[MR.ATOZ]

6500 lbs of IRS, checks SLC to DFW

[Caboclo]

Japanese sushi from Denver to Durango, CO in a Navajo. It was a daily shipment, came across the Pacific on NCA, not sure who brought it to Denver but by the time it got on my plane it was already smelling bad, in spite of being packed in ice and styrofoam.

Also took assorted mice, birds, etc to the pet store in Durango on the same plane. Unpressurized, no heat in the cargo compartment, minimum 16,500 feet over the Rockies. The critters were always scratching and chirping in Denver, always real quiet by the time we got to Durango. The customer never complained.

I also frequently haul Millstone coffee from Denver to Cody, WY for Walmart. Why Walmart has to pay UPS' overnight airfreight for coffee is beyond me.

[ArielDC10]

My strangest freight was a couple of baby giraff from Miami to Buenos Aires.
Other strange flight was from Buenos Aires to Brunei with 67 horses.
We had fuel stops in Maputo (Mozambique) and Kuala Lumpur. After Brunei, we flew to Macau for electronics cargo and then to Anchorage-Los Angeles-Miami.
All this flight with only one crew, one week adventure.
It was a flight around the world.:ok::ok::ok:

[Tony Mabelis]

We were a private 707-320C, fully loaded with a ground to air guided missile system (missiles, warheads, launch system etc.) from Singapore to Dubai.

While flying in the Madras FIR we had an airmiss with a KLM 747, flying eastwards, that was cleared by Madras to climb through our flight level.

At the end of the aircraft to aircraft conversation with KLM, regarding who would report the incident, the KLM skipper said 'that could have been a very serious accident' we replied 'you have no idea how serious'!!!!!

[TowerDog]

DC-8-73F full of paper money.

2 billion Riyals from Jeddah to Riyad.
Had armed guards and holy water onboard. The guards to keep the pilots honest. The holy water for blessing the money.

Yes, we did discuss how to de-pressurize to put the guard out of business, then set course for Brazil...There was a slight fuel problem however...:ooh:

[KingAir77]

Freight itself was not that out of the ordinary, but the circumstances:
A fairly recent Maybach (basically a severly pimped Mercedes) from Kinshasa to Europe, due to go to Denmark I believe, for an inspection.
Don't know if customs had a closer look on arrival though :E
KA

[andyf16]

built by GM in North America. Timescale for delivery and introduction was very tight. If they all came by sea, there would not have been time to train all the drivers and maintenance engineers in advance of scheduled introduction. Flying the first one over gave a couple of extra weeks for the training programme so that the rest could be used almost from the dockside


an ex colleague of mine claimed to have been the loading master on that flight - never sure if he was telling the truth or not :hmm:

[Mudfoot]

For a number of years I was on the receiving end of the freight - delivered mostly to Northern Virginia & NW Wash DC. Had a delivery to the FBI building, small box about 10 inches long and 5-6 inches square. Sounded like something was loose inside as I approached the guard gate, so I check the waybill for the description...

"Human hand - crime evidence" :eek:

Gave me the creeps for the rest of the day. :ooh:

Cheers, y'all.

[DIRRIK]

30 pairs of human eyes....

[frozenboxhauler]

My first post here, greetings from the Pacific Northwest! It would have to be 170,000 pounds of strawberries! I can still smell 'em:yuk:
fbh

[EricTheRed]

35,000 "beneficial insects".

Not itching yet!

[Caboclo]

Eric, care to elaborate on those insects?

I fly bugs all the time. The Colorado farmers regularly import potato bugs to fertilize their crops. Maybe the pesticides they use also kill the good bugs. One little box really stinks up the plane. I'm guessing the honey bees are also for crop fertilization, but I don't know. Lots of crickets; fishbait maybe? The nightcrawlers are labeled as fishbait right on the box.

[Bullethead]

Five lions :ooh:, in a 747 combi years ago to go to the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Oz.

[stellar]

Just heard the weirdest! Due to internal fraud and trying to escape the consequences a manager who's passport was taken to prevent him leaving the country.He tried to get home to Kenya and had taken "enough" O2 bottles,food/water, and blankets hid in a box destined for cargo however was detected when he :{:{tapped on the box to get out!!!! Seems like he had got his taste of the time but in a 4x2 box would he not have been better off in a cell!!!!!Ergo don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time!!!!!!!!

[lewis272]

My favorite the 3 original GT40's that finished 1st 2nd 3rd at 1966 Le Mans, plus a prototype "new" GT40 and Caddy concept car, all for Goodwood festival of speed. We got a dab hand that weekend lifting PMC 's onto the floor from a set of four, and wheeling the cars off. happy days !!

[s2h]

Aaah flying in Africa! a live goat in a bag a pax tried to sneak on, a baby in a kit bag a pax did sneak on(UN flying in DRC) Over 1kg of cut diamonds (Botswana).A freeze dried tiny antelope of some kind stuffed into a cooler box, Equatorial Guinea. A colleague flying for DHL was rudely interrupted on the descent into Libreville by a very drunk ground handler who somehow passed out in the back of the ATR (after loading freight in Malabo)and only woke up on the descent, had to spend a few days in LBV before paxing back. Oh and definitely the smelliest was a stinky pax who was told he couldn't use the loo ,as it wasnt possible to service the damn thing in Kisangani, so he promptly sh@t on his seat(UN DRC):=

[matoto]

For me it was a coffin in Cessna310 fron Madagascar to Comoros. To load it, we have to put down the wing's door....then in flight it was an unusual passenger.... I dont know why but the deceased man didn't like the flight and the coffin start to smell very bad during descent :yuk: .

[merlinxx]

2 mil Rats won't get ya anywhere, can't just nip into Ala Moudi's and get it fixed. Couple of mil dollari, yup! Just divert with the odd Head of the National Guard enroute to his West African hawking safari would've done it!!!! Bin there, seen it, thought about it, did it? Well can't hide a N/TF reg 8 can ya?

[tipan13]

525kg of frozen chicken wings 3 times a week from Kununurra ( Australia )to a remote Aboriginal camp called Kallumbaru in a C207.......one word :mad: frightening!!!

[waddawurld]

Sydney, Aus. to New York (via LAX) in an MD11-- 1 6x6 crate with 5 Picasso's. (The handler was gorgeous)

[ex dog]

Never really wanted to post this but , 144 tonnes two trips DC-1030F
Prestwick to Carracus (Venezuela) i no you all no
with cases of JONNY WALKER RED LABEL WHISKEY very odd but the guy on the ground was happy ,and we never even got one single bottle to share

such is life !!!!!!!!!!

And someone please back me up don't we ALL LOVE Goats from IRELAND

[Seatfool]

I hauled dolphins in a DC3 from Kansas City, to Gulfport Mississippi for a casino once. I hauled 9500 pounds of explosives in a Convair 340 from Florida to St Croix once. I hauled 4000 POUNDS of catheters in a DC3 to Chihuahua Mexico once.

[Downunderontop]

What about a Liquid oxygen tank that need the beluga to carry it from
new orleans to the skunk works (SAC) for the X-33 (replacement space shuttle - now shelved) . A few months later it was pressured tested and blew sky high hence end of the X-33 program

rgds
downunderontop

[Airline Pirate]

Fresh live prawns caught in Alaska, packed in ice and seawater. Every styrofoam box we grabbed as we loaded would start vibrating loudly as the prawns would thrash around inside the box....They felt rather LARGE for prawns.....
Flew them down from Ketchikan, Alaska to Vancouver as the many fine seafood restaurants awaited.
Night flight down from the panhandle following the western coast of B.C. We were bulked out and the boxes were pretty much right behind us...
Everytime we hit a few bumps, they boxes would all start thrashing in unison. Sounded like a facehugger alien about to scuttle up your shoulder....:ooh:

[non iron]

Real Scottish Whisky from scottish grapes out of Taipei, but no bugger will believe that.
ln fact, it was going south internally, guess the korean sailor market was hot in Gowshung.

[RobinB]

tangles500; Two bottle-nosed dolphins in seperate holding tanks. The flt was a 4 hour jaunt in a Hercules L382g from Walvis Bay to Durban.
The 2 dolphins were for the dolphin marina.

When did this happen ? I was doing a navy camp at Walvis and said dolphins were "pooled" at the navy base prior to shipent to Durbs - i have photo's of these dolphins - interested ?

[Liftr]

#110,000 pounds of softshell crabs from MNL to TPE.

[glhcarl]

I remember a delivery flight of an Saudi L-1011 out of Palmdale, with entire C-3 (bulk) cargo compartment filled with "Toilet Paper".

[fesmokie]

Back in 90, Out of Europe to Jeddah with A DC-8 full to the nuts with Wedding gifts for a Saudi prince (or whatever). The most interesting item was the full size horse made of Gold. It took up two positions up front. There was also another B-747 loaded with gifts as well right behind us. The other memorial trip was with the same DC-8 loaded to the max with brand new paper currency $$$$ on it's way to Jeddah. The 3 of us were dreaming of all the possibilities, diverting and what not. Don't know if it was true but someone in Jeddah told me it didn't have any serial numbers on it yet. It was fun dreaming though.:{
Also, Whales and other fish, C4 and other weapons, pigs, horses, cows and Bull's, 600 deer, rat's, chickens, spiders,frogs, Oil of Olay, Jeans, Prisoners, Coka Cola concentrate( highest security ever) Cocaine in various methods of packaging:= Cars including "James Bond's", F1 race cars trucks, motorcycles, helicopters, all kinds of chemicals,things that glow in the dark, and...People dead and alive. .:}

[Eagle402]

Fascinating and often highly amusing tales from you guys who all seem to have the same - drier than a nun's dry bits - sense of humour too. Presumably from many years of second-guessing your commercial departments/weight claims/loadies in a hurry etc etc.

Whilst I can't claim to be even an apprentice freight-dog I did have an amazing experience whilst in Sudan, December 1979. I was (unqualified, rhs) in a Cessna402B Utiliner operating off an earth strip (yes, the original salesman must have laughed all the way to the bank) Sobat Camp (Jonglei Canal Project). We had arranged to fly to Juba (southern Sudan) to load some fresh pork (strictly hush hush) for the Christmas celebrations at the camp. En route we get commandeered by the Sudanese government (to transport the 'coffin' of a government minister killed in a car crash the day earlier). Attempts to refuse met with threats of the a/c being grounded for keeps so we had to say yes.

Land Juba. Hurry up and wait for at least 2 hours and then suddenly this vast throng of wailing, chanting mourners arrive in several Landcruisers with a packing case customised as a coffin. They, despite attempts at dissuading them, surround the a/c and the immediate relatives try and board. I remember stopping one guy pulling at the static wicks!

After a huge struggle to get the box on board we had room/weight for the guy's wife and 2 others. We then flew to a strip (run by a Dutch agri-research outfit but I can't remember the name of the place) near his local village and were met by a huge mob of fully painted/dressed to the nine's/assegai'd up tribesmen who virtually dragged the box off the a/c and carried it off on their shoulders, chanting at the top of their voice.

Suffice to say that by the time we got back to Juba, the pork was off !

Apologies for this being somewhat longer than most of the tales on here but the episode has lived me with me very vividly!

Eagle402

[docflygood]

well, luxury cars is fairly normal these days, i loaded 12 Wolves and dog last week to siberia, they will be starring in a film they are shooting,

film will come out next year, the project name is " Wolves" dont know what the film will be called,

[rob rilly]

210000 lbs. of Polar Beer, from Caracus to Miami. Who drinks that rot-gut ?:bored:

[The Dragon]

The 007 Aston in the latest Bond Movie Casino Royale

[Apucutout]

Didn't happen to me, but there's this story in the company about a first officer on a 747F who went for a walk and didn't return for a long time. When he finally did, he said that while he was on the main deck he found a dog, a sheperd that had managed to escape from his box. He then put that dog back into the box. The captain, checking the freight papers found out they didn't have a single sheperd on board - just wolves..

[exmover_and_happy]

Sultan of Oman's Air Force C130, Salalah to Seeb mid-80's.

Large cardboard box marked "Snacks" brought on board. Box stowed on flight deck in the hope it was something really good to eat. During flight something in the box starts moving so it gets moved to the back for the Omani Loadie to take care of. Turned out to be a box of highly poisonous snakes going to some government place for them to research anti-venom. The Pakistani that labeled the box did his best at spelling "snakes" but was slightly off.

Same route and vice-versa, the Sultans personal stable of racing camels. Highly valuable and incredibly bad-tempered beasties.

[wizo]

Hi Guys / Girls,

A lot of amusing stories on this post, how about adding some photo's ??

[CargoMatatu]

Pictures?

Can't := Classified, Old Chap :cool:

[wizo]

Go on I won't tell !!

[fesmokie]

It's funny cause in all those years of flying box's I never thought to take a picture of the freight. :ugh:

[Admiral346]

3,5 tons of Caviar from Tehran to Frankfurt

1 tiger from Frankfurt to Budapest

From TLV to FRA a mining lamp lit at the church in Bethlehem where Jesus is supposed to have been born, with a fireman next to it. There were boys and girlsscouts on board to carry down the flame in FRA and give it to protestant and catholic bishops... the weather was very bad, and the poor kids puked all over their uniforms during the flight, though...

15kg of cut diamonds

...

[Rhyspiper]

Stuff so secret that if I told you what it was 50 million ninjas infected with HN-51 (who also happen to be freemasons) hired by the same arm of the CIA that blew up the WTC would absail from black helicopters with no lights on and they would all simultaneously give you the touch of death and then you would be dead and no-one would ever know that you existed because they would erase your identity.

That is how secret this was, and it was even more secret than all the other stuff that other people on here have "claimed" is so secret that they can't tell you about it or verify it for that matter.:mad:

[Fred Elliot]

Regular run: 2 x F27 (knackered), MAD - CDG and CDG - MAD each week night for Fedex (without Tom Hanks, thenk the Lord!). One night, Elliot, MAD - CDG, 2hrs +, no autopilot, mucho icing etc., no freight at all. Nix. Nada. Rien.

:ugh:

[Storminnorm]

Can anyone remember Ace Freighters flying 2 tons of Nitro Glycerine a time
(Frozen in CarDice packed containers) from Lyneham to Woomera
in 1966. Did three trips on one of these.
Apparently for the Snowy Mountain Dam scheme in Aus.
Lovely SMOOTH landings

[SPIT]

I am not a freight pilot but I do remember ("in the 70s") when a French Dc 3 /C47declared an emergency at Liverpool (Speke). When he landed and the side cargo doors were opened out popped a lot of LIVE LOBSTERS that had got loose and in the rear hold and onto the flight deck. These were being freighted to Paris and the lobsters obviously did not want to go :eek::eek::eek:?

[Storminnorm]

There was a similar incident to the Great Lobster Escape
at Luton involving EELS from Ireland, and an Autair Lizzy.
Eels were popping up everywhere for weeks after.
Stronger crates were needed.:O

[fesmokie]

The secretest secret load with extra secretness

Stuff so secret that if I told you what it was 50 million ninjas infected with HN-51 (who also happen to be freemasons) hired by the same arm of the CIA that blew up the WTC would absail from black helicopters with no lights on and they would all simultaneously give you the touch of death and then you would be dead and no-one would ever know that you existed because they would erase your identity.

That is how secret this was, and it was even more secret than all the other stuff that other people on here have "claimed" is so secret that they can't tell you about it or verify it for that matter.

As I previously posted we hauled Coca Cola "concentrate" on a DC-6 in the early 80's. I never saw so many cops (armed) and undercover etc. than any other flight Ive done including a plane full of prisoners, top secret military stuff, money, diamonds etc.

Things go better with Coke :E

[MD11Engineer]

Can anyone remember Ace Freighters flying 2 tons of Nitro Glycerine a time
(Frozen in CarDice packed containers) from Lyneham to Woomera
in 1966. Did three trips on one of these.
Apparently for the Snowy Mountain Dam scheme in Aus.
Lovely SMOOTH landings


This sounds like a fairy tale to me. First, nitroglycerine is in liquid form, very sensitive. In explosives or pharmaceutical factories (it is also used as a medication for heart conditions, e.g. nitrolingual), it is usually made in a remote bunker, away from other factory installations, and then transported in polyethylene cans of 10-20 liters at one time to the mixing building (where it is being mixed with other components, like wood pulp and ammonia nitrate for ammonia nitrate dynamites) to desensitise it.
Frozen nitroglycerine is extremely dangerous, much more than the liquid stuff, when frozen, it forms little cristalls, which can go off at the slightest touch.
Not for nothing is handling frozen dynamite considered one of the most dangerous operations in blasting. Many commercial dynamite type explosives use a mix of nitroglycerine and nitoglycol, which has a lower freezing point.

BTW, I did my national service in a heavy rescue engineering unit of the German civil defense and was trained in demolitions and blasting, so I have a bit of experience (theoretical as well as practical) with explosives.

[Storminnorm]

Wow I'm really impressed by all that info MD11engineer!
Had we known all that back in '66 I'm sure none of us
would've bothered to turn up!
I'll know better next time. Thanks.
But , Seriously , That's the way it was then.

[jetopa]

About once a month there is a flight from FRA to Libya with about 1 metric ton of brand new $$$, delivered from the Federal Reserve Bank in the US.

Worth just shy of 100 million, but dyed red, so no thief could speculate on spending it...:ugh:

[Storminnorm]

Why dyed red? Why was it being flown around like that?:{

[FCS Explorer]

:=ah, come on!
1. "brand-new"
2. 100 million
3. bucks dyed red
4. to Gaddafi (Lybia)?
5. monthly

very hard selling story

[OneGuy]

Box of advil from NBO to a lodge in Northern Kenya in a C310.
Total cost:$1200

[Bill Harzia]

2500Kg of Pork to the middle East