Not strange but..
 

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 ..

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.

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

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:(

Stickied for a while. Keep it coming!

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

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.

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

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.

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

Just found this old pic...

27800KG ship's gearbox

Flew this one out to Madras..

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

'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!

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

Freight
 

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)

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

Sharks
 

Four live sharks from Amsterdam to Kerry.

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

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.

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

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.

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

How about Komodo Dragons
 

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

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

...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!'

No shuftiscope LRS then? :uhoh:

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?

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

:oh:

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

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

Cargo
 

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

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.

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.

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:

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!!!!!!!!

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

On topic gentlepeeps...

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

HOOKERS OUT OF L.A. to St. Marteen
 

:cool:

Six in a Learjet

Six in Six out

What a life

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.

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: