Hi, doing some research

[J4CKO99]

Hi, might seem like a strange approach this but its the best I could think of, I do a bit of writing in my spare time and have been asked to produce a couple of chapters with a view to getting something published following good reactions to some of the stuff I have done, I just need to string it together into coherent chapters.

I have been wracking my brains for a suitable area to use as a basis and I used to work in air cargo (in an office) and have a friend that still does so I can get some detail from him but I don't fancy it being office based, way too boring so I was thinking of setting it in and around a cargo carrier, the pilots and crew actually doing the flying, mainly its going to be comedy, a lot of the dialog is already written and can be adapted easily to a different situation.

So I was hoping if you would humour me and tolerate me being around whilst I do my research and check my facts, it isnt going to be 100% factual and may stretch reality somewhat but I dont want to do anyone a dissservice, so if its ok can I ask some questions and also I would love to hear some of your anecdotes about the cargo flying world, perhaps some legends that would stand being used as the basis for a character.

I think cargo is probably not an area that has been done to death, unlike the passenger side and I expect there is plenty of material to keep me going, things going wrong, all the different destinations, the aircraft etc etc.

I am aiming to get this done during 2009, I keep putting it off and getting older !

Thanks for your time and any help would be gratefully appreciated.

[G&T ice n slice]

I am not sure what sort of research you are conducting but, if you're after humour in air cargo...

Once upon a time there was an airfreight warehouse at ###. ((insert appropriate IATA airport code here)), Said w/house was just a nissen hut ((broken down old hangar, converted cowshed, use your imagination)).

One day the Great Big Bank of E**land had to send some dusty gold bars to the Gnomes of Z*r*ch. So they load the glod bars into a "Blinks-Splat" truck & have them delivered to the Sw*ss**r airfreight w/house at ### airport.

Then up comes a bright shiny DCx aeroplane to fly the gold bars to the Gnomes. All the bars are carefully counted out from the warehouse and onto the aeroplane.

Great Balls of Fire !!!! there's a bar of glod missing. Hue & Cry, panic & trouser-dirtying ensues, and Mr Plod is called in to investigate.


The missing bar is never found, but no-one present ever turns up to work in a Rolls Canardly so no-one is ever arrested and the matter is closed as a complete unsolved mystery.

After many years of stirling service Sw*ss**r get a nice bright shiny new warehouse. They clear out the old warehouse and there is a final inspection. Bossman goes around with the keys shutting & locking all the doors. Finally he goes out of the airside pedestrian access door. It is a slightly emotional moment.

With a sigh he kicks the brick that has been holding the door open for so many years & falls to the ground screaming... He’s broken his toe !!!

And yes - the old brick turns out to be the missing gold bar from all those years ago....

This has been recounted to me, in various forms, where the prime candidates are SR at ZRH, PA & TW at Idlewild, AF at Orly, KLM at SPL etc etc always set in the mid 1950’s

AHHHH you don't mean that sort of research....

[CR2]

Take a look at the sticky "strangest freight", may be of some use to you.

[J4CKO99]

Cheers for the replies, just what I am looking for, I am thinking that this would be better set in, say the 1970's when things were less regulated and air travel (though perhaps not cargo) was still a little glamourous.

The idea at the moment is to set this in a small cargo firm with a couple of smaller planes and a rather well used 747 freighter (ok, can only be so old in the seventies, but can be well used), I am currently planning out a kind of storyboard and putting the characters together so I suppose thats where you chaps (and ladies, though I dont imagine there are that many in cargo ?), for instance, on a 747 freighter, how many people would be on a flight, I am thinking Captain, First officer, Engineer and somebody to supervise loading and unloading, I suppose plus various authorised (and unauthorised) stowaways. I will add in parts about the smaller aircraft as well

Real life descriptions of some of the Sh1t holes areound the world, Lagos sounds fun fromt he posts I have read on here !

Characters, what is the average Cargo Captain like, are they frustrated and what to fly passengers or do they do it out of choice to avoid carting holidaymakers around.


I suppose part of this is getting approval from yourselves, I dont want to nick someones story, obviously names changed and whatever without some kind of recognition.

It may well be crap but, but I will run excerpts past you. I have been looking for a "vehicle" for a while but have not come up with something that hasnt been done to death or not had that much scope for humour, this isnt going to be heavy going, probably 250/300 pages of light hearted easy reading with as many laughs as possible, without turning the characters into clowns, the situations and places should provide much of the material, plus the scrapes and situatiosn the crews get into in these far flung and sometimes dangerous places.

So, feel free to jump in and tell me how it should be, things like, would small cargo firm have three planes, one being a 747 ?

[Ex Cargo Clown]

The Formula 1 car found in the BA warehouse that was stuck on a PMC for twenty years until they knocked it down is a good one :eek:

And the gold bar one is definitely true for JFK :D

[MMEMatty]

There was a story told to me where someone chartered a large prop - jet aircraft (Capacity approx 15 tonnes) and managed to get the units wrong, so that 8,000grammes of freight were presented to the aircraft, instead of 8,000 Kilogrammes...

Or the DG that was gingerly, carefully loaded onto an aircraft in the UK, with secure vans, police escort, that sort of thing, bringing the airport to a standstill, then at its destination on the fringes of europe being thrown off the aircraft by hand onto a flatbed lorry...

I've heard other stories, but couldnt possibly go into them...

[CargoOne]

That happened to us too... Client booked a charter with us to fly 50 tones from LUX to Mombasa. Turned to be just 50 kilos, but still flown as scheduled :}

I also recall a story happened to AN124 operator who was flying a load of Rolls Royce cars to Brunei and forgot (or wasn't instructed) to pressurise the cabin. Many windows blown out :)

[Daysleeper]

MME matty

We may know each other....

The charter was for a ten ton (10,000 kgs) crane motor... so priced and dispatched on 4 engine tprop capacity 15,000 kgs.

On arrival - having booked forklifts, hi loader etc etc. man in small van turns up with a smallish wooden box weighing about 500 kgs..... yep its a motor FOR a ten ton crane. Oh well.

Or the time a major cargo company chartered the same machine to fly an empty envelope 300 miles..... they needed a crew moved , no pax aircraft available at such short notice but we could take their staff as jumpseaters on a cargo flight, problem solved.

[MMEMatty]

Perhaps... Did you have dealings with the Budgie and Kipper line too?

If so, i may have driven you around at some point...

[scottpe]

One of my Ukrainian Crew Members when asked by a waitress in US how he would like his steak replied: BIG!

[acmi48]

i know a case not so long ago when a load of mobile phones disappeared
to the c.i.s much to the embarassment of the airport.:oh:

[scottpe]

I bet they sent them straight back with a hand written apology.........but then again!!!!!

[Minorite invisible]

I heard this story a couple years ago. Cant remember who told it to me. If someone recognizes his story, he can claim it.

A freighter crew (maybe DC-8) always had a cooler full of ice installed for them in the galley behind the cockpit, and a case of soft drinks next to the cooler. Often there would be too much ice in the cooler, leaving no room to put the drinks, so the routine was to rip one or two of the ice bags open and poor the ice down the chemical toilet.

One day though, the new crew member who was tasked with making room in the cooler did not notice that on that particular day, the bags did not contain ice but dry ice.

It seems that dry ice and chemical toilets don't get along very well and that some sort of foaming/sputtering/smoke quickly filled the toilet compartment and came gushing out the door as the frightened crew member retreated to the cockpit.

It came close to an emergency descent.......

[turbocharged]

In the late 1980s Montserrat, in the Caribbean, was flattened by a hurricane. So, an RAF C-130 was dispatched to Antigua to start delivering aid. On one of the first trips a guy turns up at the aircraft with several bags. He says he's the manager of a bank, which is now matchwood, and he needs to get deposits and valuables to a branch in Antigua for safe keeping. 'Hop aboard' say the ever-helpful Alberteers.

Next day a shiny bizjet arrives in Antigua and is parked alongside the Herc. Needless to say, the crew chat. Seems that the bizjet is waiting for the runway in Montserrat to be cleared sufficiently so they can go and pick up the bank manager ....

I don't know how much the guy got away with but I'm sure he has a pic of a C-130 over his fireplace.

[RampTramp]

Minorite invisible is correct regarding the DC8 & exploding toilet. I do have the whole story amusingly told by, I assume, one of those involved but, unfortunately, it's 4 pages so too long to post here.

RT

[charter man]

There was a series of BBC programmes back in the early 80's called "Buccaneer" which was based on a cargo airline, in fact they used the Redcoat Britannia (and a load of their staff as extras) and made Luton look like somewhere in deepest, darkest.

My true story is of the 95 foot long mast from Europe for a yacht in Antigua, which was too long for the CL44. A good friend of mine came up with the idea of removing a windscreen in a (Cargoman) DC8, loading said piece through the cockpit and then performing the reverse in Antigua for the offload. Took a few days mind, waiting for the glue to dry twice but the job was done!