Global Aviation Magazine : 60 Years of the Hercules

[ancientaviator62]

Coff,
we are still tanking but will be off to warmer climes soon.
Pics from my log book, showing the internals and externals of a tanking op. You can see how large an edifice was the HDU frame.

[CoffmanStarter]

Many thanks AA62 ... We might need to give a little bit of encouragement to our new Thread Member Ksimboy to share some of his pics

[ancientaviator62]

kimsboy,
glad our posts have rekindled memories of your time on the 'K'. We would all love to see your pics and hear your stories. (and anyone else's too) I too was a reluctant poster at first but with Coffman's help I got started. Just look where it has led !

[chickenlover]

Some more from the collection,
First up - flying off the grass at a strip near Shawbury I believe...


Daylight route prover for an NVG low level on 'Winter Deployment' in Norway.
I was very glad when I stopped doing that, especially in minimum starlight....


Boats and troops - anyone ID the coastline ? could be studsplash / medsplash /chansplash / the Gulf ! wish I'd kept better records....


Not my pic- approach to Sarajevo. I have access to a good pic of one of the crews being engaged on short finals but its too big for the scanner -anyone had success at scanning in half and stitching ?



Budget cuts Port Stanley....


Meeting with the enemy..... they all turned out to be jolly nice chaps - Minsk



Not mine-but a nice pic at the Gib Airshow


A secret airbase somewhere in the desert... A certain captain used to announce his arrival back from a mission by flying past the cookhouse as a cue to get the scoff on to be ready for them on taxi in. I climbed up a floodlight tower to get this shot. This practise was halted when he flew so low over the dining room that the styrene ceiling tiles lifted and dumped cr@p and dead bugs in everyones lunch. Ruined my lasagne I can tell you.......



There will now be a short break while I disappear on holiday for a while - keep up the good work everyone !

[CoffmanStarter]

Many thanks Chickenlover, splendid pics ... Enjoy your R&R

[smujsmith]

Great shots Chickenlover,

That Norway one brings back some memories. I spent a month out there and was lucky to be loaned a spare set of old type NVG goggles. It was most impressive to say the least I'm sure we must have had a beer somewhere, at least once. Have a good break.

Smudge

[dragartist]

AA62 You are absolutely right about the probe and pipe on the Nimrod. perhaps this is what Denge Dude was getting at. The feet on this rack had to be high enough to go over the pipe running along the floor on the Nimrod Mk2. They were stressed to take the crash loads laterally on the K and axially on the Nimrod. Quite a challenge for a young Dragartist. I made a Noddy guide label to instruct the fitters how to rotate the feet though 90 if the rack was swapped between types. I have the artwork and a few unclassified drawings somewhere in my garage loft or study but turned things upside down last night looking. I wanted to confirm task numbers and dates as they would tally with visits to MA.


I just love that HDU frame. In the circumstances they would have looked in the metal rack to see what they had that was suitable. Surprised they had time to paint it. Most of the parts we made went south with just a coat of etch primmer.


Chickenlover,
The MIB airdrop would have been quite a while back. before we had PUB and able to have the engines mounted on the transom for a quick get away. Enjoy your leave.

[Dengue_Dude]

Yep, re: Nimrod AAR entering the aircraft and running across the floor!

At least the Hercules one had the good manners to be routed on the outside to the centre dry bay en-route Refuel gallery.

[DCThumb]

went on a US SF Herc once - the refuelling receptacle was on top of the cockpit and a piece of what looked like standard bowser hose came vertically down through the flight deck

[smujsmith]

Just a quick divert from tanking chaps, if you don't mind. Following my interest in Albert in "situations", does anyone have info on the in flight life raft deployment over the St Lawrence seaway some years ago ? I knew the GE on the aircraft, who is rumoured to have still been in his hammock after landing, while the crew were inspecting the damage. Perhaps they should have alerted him to the diversion to Sept Isles? Does anyone know what happened for real ?

Smudge

[Yamagata ken]

chickenlover

Not my pic- approach to Sarajevo. I have access to a good pic of one of the crews being engaged on short finals but its too big for the scanner -anyone had success at scanning in half and stitching ?

Sorry to drop in, but.......... You should re-photograph the print with your camera. Re-photographing often gives better results than scanning anyway.

[GreenKnight121]

Despite having a fancy slide-scanner, my brother found that the best way to digitize our parents' old color slides was to use the old slide projector - and then take a photograph of the screen with the picture displayed thereon!

A little adjustment of color balance/brightness/tint in an image-editing program and great results were achieved.

[Saint Jack]

With regard to the last picture in Post #865 showing a C-130 with attachments under each wingtip, I also notice these same/similar attachments on the RNethAF C-130 that recently brought back the bodies of the MH17 victims - what are they?

[ancientaviator62]

Chickenlover,
the Norway pic brings back memories, but thankfully day only not NVG ! My recent holiday was a cruise down the fjords to look up at them as opposed to looking down/sideways. The ship just scraped under that well known trap for the unwary, the HT cables. Even with their orange marker balls attached
they were very difficult to see at sea level. This should be a cue for 'there but' tale or two !.

[ancientaviator62]

Back in a warmer place, Changi. Should bring back fond memories for upgently. Despite 205 with Shacks being just across from us 48 Sqn had an SAR commitment. To this end we carried airdrop ASRA kit which was either two liferafts and a stores container or two stores and one liferaft. They were linked together with buoyant rope which was stored in a dispenser box and despatched in a timed sequence. You can see the containers in their transit position before they were moved into the para door aperture.
First of course we had to find the survivors and lay out a smoke float and marine marker pattern. But this will do for now.

[Mal Drop]

ASRA brings back happy memories of fun in the Sim completing Creeping-line Ahead and Clover-leaf searches followed by the ASRA drop pattern. The highlight was the sim instructor gleefully handing the crew the computer-generated plot which in my case generally resembled a spider drawn by a three-year old with attention deficit disorder and non-trivial Class A drug issues.

[Dengue_Dude]

Whilst on 30, we won the Lord Trophy by dropping Lindholme Gear (ASRA) in the right place.

I believe it was originally a TS exercise trophy but when 24/30 went Route only, it morphed into an ASR exercise.

Enjoyable flying all the same. Fortunately, we didn't fly long enough sorties to get bored with endless expanses of water with nothing on/in it.

Deep respect to those whose living is inextricably tied up with that pastime, it's not easy.

[semmern]

Originally Posted by smujsmith

Time for some "home photographs" and a request for help first. XV205 on ex Winter Express and I still struggle to remember if this is Fagernes, Trondheim or wherever. I do know that had Santa in a sled pulled by Reindeer crossed the pan that day, it would have been fitting. Anyone know where we were ?

A bit late, but that is Fagernes (aka "The Square of Heavenly Peace," due to very little traffic) indeed. A nice place for a $100 hamburger.

This thread is a treasure trove of good stories and pictures for a Herky fan. Keep it up, chaps!

[semmern]

Originally Posted by CoffmanStarter

70° 4′ N (Lakselv Airport, Banak Finland)

Have they really moved Banak from Norway to Finland?

[ExAscoteer]

He probably meant Finnmark.