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.

The Necessities of Life
 

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.

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

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:

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....

Strange Frieght
 

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

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:

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!

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.

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

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.

strangest freight
 

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

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?

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!

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.

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

Odd cargo
 

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

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....

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

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.

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.

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:

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!

strangest freight
 

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

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

finally got it to work!.


Voila, the strangest one I've seen yet.

http://groups.msn.com/LatinFlyersAir...o&PhotoID=1505

Strangest freight
 

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.

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.

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!!.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Never seen anything like that before!

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)!

Strangest Freight
 

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

"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.

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.

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.