1970s Dock Strikes
 

I was ground handling at Leeds during the 1970s when we had at different times a strike by seamen and by dockworkers which led to some interesting loads. An Icelandic outfit (Frachtflug if I remember correctly) based 2 x DC7s for the duration of hostilities and kept them going almost 24 hours a day.

Ships were discharging in Antwerp so we got aircraft loads of shirts, slippers household stuff (pretty much everything we still import today). Memorably 649 cases of Australian Granny Smith Apples, when the man from the market came to collect he would only take 600 as that was his order, the balance were there for wastage. We were eating beautiful apples for weeks.

A ships prop shaft on a Sterling DC6 swing tail (do I remember that correctly? - long time ago) with no means of offloading it, so we came up with some sort of device with slings and pullys and a mobile crane, one end suspended from the crane (which could only lift half the weight) the other resting on a pallet dolly on 10 ton forklift that had to be weighed down with as many people as possible that climb on the back, all synchronised to move at the same time. Modern Health & Safety men would have loved it.

An Alaska Hercy to load Polo Mints, and late one Saturday afternoon a Constellation with horrible squeally brakes with a load of Refractory Bricks. The only one I ever saw flying and no camera!!.

Happy days.........

Goats
 

:ok:seeing those goats reminds me of a trip where the humans looked the same.In fact all the flights i have done they look like that...... is it my flying ......

Moldava's ER-BAM shipping Lama's Ostend to Libya
 

Rumours have it "Lamas" are been shipped with B747s (Moldava's ER-BAM or Pakistans AP-BIO/BKS) time to time from Ostend to Misrata &Tripoli for the local pet shops. Anyone with pictures? BTW were is AP-BIO?

37 tons of Saudi Rials over and over...LHR-JED No serial No,s tho:ugh

:D:D:D:D
Fantastic threat!

450 kilograms of frogs to a remote ranch, with even some swamp to keep them happy during flight, in half open frames in a Caravan. Guess what, Bose A20 ANR does not work against croaking ... controller almost wet his pants, because he got such a laughing fit on that permanent disturbance from the little beasties.

Got my assignment for Monday and it says "honeypots and horse semen", so I expect the recipient be Winnie the Pooh on a mare in heat. ;-).

Some of you will shortly have an interesting load, see here

Just keep the crew meals in a secure place :E

KAR-AIR Finland had a swing tail DC6 and I think Aviaco Spain had one for a spell. As far as I recall all Sterlings DC-6Bs were pax configuration.
SABENA did a couple of swing tail conversions to DC-4/C-54s but I think they finished up in The Congo shortly after completion.
Be lucky
David

Sabena converted 2 DC-6's to Swing Tail. One was for KAR AIR and the other for Spantax. They both were operated by other operators before ending up at Northern Air Cargo in Alaska. One was wrecked in the North Slope Oil fields and the other eventually withdrawn from service. I have heard rumours that the remaining swing-tail was acquired by Buffalo Airways in Yellowknife and is operating again.

-2 X 40ft boats on a 747-400F
-1 X 32ft boat on a 747-8F
-YPC connected 20foot pallets that carried a crate containing airplane wings for embraer
-26ton generator on the SCD of a 747-400

Hilarious!

Had a couple of tons of silicone breasts the other day

She must have been a big lass! ;)

8 Q7 pallets of Miller highlife to Bogota Colombia, from Miami

Bet there were a few cases missing when you arrived!

:D

Anil

Live dolphin from LHR to Santago in Spain in a Beech 18. It was in a sling with an attendant looking after it. I think it did most of the navigating!!

Live Kangaroos to Erbil, Iraq.

The Kurds have a zoo there, looks like it's becoming a tourist spot, even with isis just some mile away.

Like many, I've read a FEW of these posts over the years. Last evening, bored to tears and facing a home task that I did NOT want to do, I plowed my way through all of them. Now, nearly 24 hours later, I'm still LMAO about many of them.
In the end, cargo does not argue, as is common with SLF. The odors may be strange and potent at times and as anyone, foo or not will realize, in some world regions the cost of air freight is insignificant to the customers, especially if their goods are shipped NOW. I think I'm missing something important about such people.
IMO, Freight Dogs is one of the most hilarious sub-sections on this site, or at lease has that potential. This driver is now retired for some years and it would be untrue to consider myself a Freight Dog, I do not. I may have stayed too long at the fair, but the logs reflect only TWO all-freight flights over the decades. (Sure, I know the basics of Wt., Ba and C.G., but I'd have begged, borrowed or stolen to get a good Load Master if I could. "Oh, you don't need one! The Dispatch computer does ALL of that for you." And if it breaks down?
If there are one or two or three components missing from so many of these replies, they might be 1) Some sense of date, 1945 - or 2015 makes a BIG difference, 3) Aircraft type, and even 4) Origin/destination/routing. Flesh it out a little guys & gals as it would make for far more amusing reading.
I know that this section was not really intended to be humorous, but it darn sure it! My sincere thanks for all 418 replies. This is FUN, if often silly reading on a dull evening. I've also noticed that the replies tend to arrive in spurts; almost nothing for weeks on end, followed by a flood of new entries... NFZ

After a spate of potentially disastrous FUBAR's, the mob l work for has employed a heap of load masters to mitigate the problems of automation, that you quite accurately point out.
Wouldn't say they are all good, but it reassuring that someone is overseeing whats going on "back there".

15 amphibious Jeeps ($100,000ea) LAX - CPH - DXB. Did the second sector.

halas

Wood you believe........
 

Palm trees from California, for a golf course under construction.:) The trees were transhipped in FCO, destination..........DXB.:confused: Evidently the local palms were the "wrong type." :ouch:
IIRC there were three separate flights of 40t. each.:eek:

Flew a DC-3 charter from Dallas to Houston to carry a 727 radome from Houston to New Orleans. In that day the -3 was the only airplane available with a cargo door large enough to take it. It weighed maybe 10 kilos.

Had a similar one. Front section of an airbus engine cowl from Atlanta to Minneapolis. If I recall correctly, it was only 1500 lb, including the crate, which isn't much of a load for a Herc.

Unusual cargo
 

:eek: When I was flying light twins around East Africa, we would have dead bodies often. Sometimes they were in coffins, sometimes in body bags. One of my colleagues was flying a body down to Mombasa from Nairobi. The front right seat of the Cessna 402 had been removed and the body bag was lying beside the pilot. In the descent the body sat up, let out a long sigh and slowly lay down again. It was only expanding gasses being released but it really freaked him out.:ooh:

Exit stage left

Load instruction a couple of years ago placing the following items in the forward compartment of a B712...

Radioactive Goods
Live Horse Semen
HUM

All you'd need is some solid turbulence, a frayed tiedown or two, and voila - mutant zombie centaurs!

Sounds like most of my flights with Virgin Atlantic.

A four engine jet to fly one computer chip.
2 live white tigers (very sedated - I stroked one!)
A drill shaft for the oil industry. It fitted in a 747 with an inch to spare. (The loader mentioned it had been designed to fit the 747).
Llamas and deer from AMS to DXB.
5 tonnes of used banknotes - which went straight into an incinerator on arrival at destination.
A prisoner who was wrapped from neck to feet in gaffer tape. (They were taking no chances with him).
2.5 tonnes of gold in hold 5 of a 747 which didn't appear on the manifest for security reasons. (Made the rotate very quick).
110 tonnes of Hong Kong 10 dollar coins. The aircraft looked mostly empty as the pallets were loaded to about 4 ft high.
110 tonnes of Beaujolais Nouveau to Japan.
Crates of live crabs from Dhaka to Shanghai. The crates were plastic, the crabs escaped by snipping the crates with their pincers. There were crabs running all over holds and the ramp.
The Ferrari F1 team.
Armoured cars - listed as luxury cars!

Two spring to mind:

1) 'A' Mango to a remote bush camp to improve a russian oligarchs breakfast experience

2) an old fella turned up for a flight with a goat and we informed him that we were not authorised to carry live animals....by the time we had dealt with the other freight and came back, the goat had duly been slaughtered and was lying in a pool of its own blood and the old guy asked 'can I take it now bwana' :uhoh: - well we put a plastic sheet on the floor of the cargo pod and off we went

Being a former freight animal I am amused by many of the previous listings, some of which I have also moved around the world. The one flight I never got my head around was a flight when I/we moved an oversized septic tank from the United Sates to Nigeria of all places! Most odd.

Still it paid my salary...

Was the tank new or well used?

dynamite !
 

Flew 30 ton of dynamite into iraq around 2010 ?....was for mining in the northeast of the country....the detonators were in the lower hold. Dolphins,camels,horses,cattle,goats,bees, cash..lots of it !

hi
 

Yes we all know what MOONSHINE Is the answer is who had it

Guess we all need Moonshine in Saudi and other dry places to quench the thirst

Chartered a AN124 from EMA to ARN with 500kg only - Air intake Cowl Assy 345x345x202cm

Few flights of day old chicks SOB-ASM

coffin, twice

4kg of AOG material.
Equipment? B744F..

Not exactly strange freight as such and no, I wasn't flying, but how about using a corporate jet to get a dozen car windscreen wiper blades from Germany to Detroit?

Totally true story and I will name neither party for obvious reasons, but ...

.... for once Teutonic efficiency hadn't been in operation when their new car models were shipped out there for the 20?? motor show....Err, just sans windscreen wipers = last minute panic and a very happy charter broker, who paid for our business lunch, after gleefully explaining the details!

A DC-3 load of empty new coffins from Brisbane to Sydney due to coffin makers strike in Sydney.

Carrying Mili equipment into a Middle Eastern desert, we would purchase various bottles of thirst quenching liquid and stow it under the cargo floor. The soldiers assisting with the unloading were good at solving puzzles and oddly it had all gone after unloading and all without a direct word being spoken. An especially welcome game at Xmas

A load of water/acid fire extinguishers to FI. Very heavy as they were shipped full of water. Doh!