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:

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.

Jellybeans...

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

It was a happy cargo, anyway...

TT

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.

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

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.........

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.

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

Opps, sorry, wrong thread! :O

Strangest Freight
 

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.

Funny
 

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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:

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.

Re: strangest freight
 

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:

Re: strangest freight
 

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:

Re: strangest freight
 

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

Re: strangest freight
 

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

Go Figure
 

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.:{

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.

How about a real hiss
 

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.

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

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:

try 200 ostrich in a Piper Chieftain
 

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

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 .

2 L-7 pallets of multi lambed pregnant morino ewes..
 

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:

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.

Kinda Weird
 

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.

Human genitals.

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

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

strangest freight
 

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

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..

olympic flame
 

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

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%20OL%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

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