Towing Aircraft
 

Especially for all those engineers who want to tell us their war stories about towing aircraft!

Might keep them out of the WIWOL threads!

Harrier GR3, sheet ice Gutersloh, interesting slide across the dispersal pan. Brakes added to the fun. Towing suspended for a while...

What an interesting subject, well done! ;)

We don't use a brake man whilst towing because after rotor shutdown you can't steer and the brakes don't work due to the design of the system. So you need to chock the aircraft. Anyone inside the aircraft is just more weight to tow and would go straight to the scene of the accident....

Apparently I need to ask my engineering department and the insurers about this. ;)

These guys have got the answer ;)

Chocks Away SHELSLEY SPECIAL 1936

Navy always have a brakeman on helicopters.
 

True. And chockmen. Also always "push" the aircraft, rarely tow it. I once saw two Hunters recover into the overhead at Yeovilton. The duty runway (27) must have been invisible due to fog, which was thick up to about 40 odd feet. Strangely though you could see the tops of the church etc sticking out through it (from the air).
Incredibly the two hunters were allowed to attempt to land, simply by orienting themselves by landmarks sticking through the fog/ground mist. They then tried to land on non duty 22 and almost spanked into someone pushing a Harrier across it from the compass swing. Missed by inches, flew off to Chivenor, hopefully to change their pants.
Can still remember the pilots strangled scream on Channel1, what a ******.
I was in the caravan and saw nowt,Mlud.

Laar-parts, just before the wall came down.


Tasked to tow a Tornado out of ASF and back to Black Sector. This meant crossing the active, and in the heady cold war days that could mean quite a wait.


Anyway, get to the jet and find it has no battery, no hydraulics, but, still, we are ordered to tow it back anyway, and to make it look good, muggins has to sit pointlessly on brakes for the duration.


Canopy is closed for the tow, and we duly wait at the runway crossing for seemingly every Tornado in the world to burn up NATOs fuel stock doing circuits, needless to say the only day of baking hot sun was pouring in through the perspex, as I tried to figure out precisely what I was going to achieve if the towing pin had sheared.


I suppose ATCO would have been none the wiser as the towing team looked reasonably well complete.


Thinking about it though, not sure why we were bring such a crocked jet back to the squadron from ASF anyway.


All ended well though, and yours truly downed a few refreshing biers in the NAAFI after shift.

I remember climbing into a Harrier to do something or other when I was fresh onto them. It was raining so I slid the canopy shut without thinking. I finished the task, and then realised I didn't know how to open the canopy...this was on a dispersal where I may have been on my own for quite a while. I looked around for likely canopy opening switches and handles and eventually settled on a bit of black painted mild steel with a t handle on it. I knew where all the emergency stuff was (I had at least been briefed on that) so I squeezed my eyes shut and gave it a tug, fully expecting the wings to drop off. The canopy opened with a little click...lesson learned.

Bring the aircraft back from the dispersal at end-ex, we were informed that ATC were non too happy with the speed of the towing. Apparently as we were towing past the tower, the aircraft (Phantom) was seen snaking behind the tractor...

Crikey, that must have been fast. Call for a caravan stabiliser maybe? :)

We used to tow them out of the shed and onto the line (ah, glorious pre HAS days) at an alarming rate of knots, can't remember any snaking. They were good days, a whole pan full of F4's, I think the OCU had something like 22 a/c plus there was 29 and 41 there at the time.

Who'd have thought that this topic would produce so many replies!

So: TWCU at Honington in the winter. Lots of snow and ice and the forecast is that it will continue to snow. At about stupid o'clock in the morning we still towed twenty plus aircraft out to the flight line. It was not easy getting up the small incline. The wingtip men had chocks at the ready in case the shear pin went. Instead the tractor simply couldn't get enough traction and the whole tractor and aircraft rig starts to slide backwards towards another hangar that had closed doors. The brave wingtip guys slid and slipped their way to the mainwheels and popped in the chocks...to absolutely no effect! Everything just kept on sliding. I was either driving the tractor or I/C the tow, I can't remember but I just waited until we came to a stop or hit something solid. Luckily we came to a stop. I left the aircraft there and went to see if we would be able to stop this madness - I wasn't successful of course!

Eventually Operation Tow-Out was a complete success. Duty Auth arrives at about 08:00, looks at the weather and says 'No flying today'.
So an hour of downloading all the weapons in the snow and then Operation Tow-In could begin.

This time someone (not a liney) suggested that we should tow with a fuel bowser as they would have more traction on the snow and ice and would make it down the small incline and turn the corner into the hangar with no problem.

The trouble was that the bowser drivers were not trained to tow - they had no idea about how an aircraft behaves when it is so far behind you, nor did they appreciate how wide you had to make your turns to allow for the aircraft to always be in the centre of the taxiway.

It took just one, heartstopping, attempt for it all to be called off!

We left the aircraft on the line until we had all calmed down and later, with the aid of snow ploughs and gritters managed to get them all to bed again.

I would like to say that management learned from that experience but what do you, dear reader, think?

Being as the management were rarely out there freezing their nads off I think there is only one conclusion to be drawn. We often used to wonder what difference it would make if you took everyone out of the chain from Sengo upwards. Jets would still fly, the world would still turn.

Yep, thing you are probably correct. I often used to think that. We would be left with: people who loved (most of the time) to fix aircraft and people who loved (most of the time) to fly aircraft!

Sod's Law or Murphy's?? Whichever, Nicosia in the 50s, multi Hastings and Beverleys littered around the field and Bev on tow with nobody on the brakes. You KNOW what happened ... attempt to retrieve situation by throwing large chock under wheels just proved fragility of chocks!! Rampant Bev eventually found static version and demonstrated affection by burying nose deeply in tail of soulmate!! IIRC this was during the abortive Amman detachment so no harm done!!:rolleyes::E:E

RAF Bruggen new style tug arrived to replace the old wartime style items, these were the ones with the cab on them with seats in the back for handlers and a stowage outside behind that for chocks etc, worked a treat, but eventually needed maintainence, so MT lent us another new one, this had a larger full cab and could seat four behind the driver but no external stowage, off we go with Jag hooked on the back, go to turn a corner and bang, the pitot tube that on the shorter cab that would normally miss comes straight through the rear window..... Oops


RAF Bruggen TACEVAL winching a Jag into a HAS into the front location, doors shut and pilot doing verbal handover when the winch starts up dragging it into the wall, smashing the tip and dragging it along doing more damage, pilot and HAS chief hanging on steps trying to stop it as it hops the nose chocks, everyone runs to help, winch stopped and enquiry starts, winch stripped nothing found, Jag repaired, years later a guy who was in the HAS with me says, "it was me, I knocked the start button" when it happened everyone looked at Jag and rushed to it, then looked at winch buttons that were now unmanned so assumed a fault and he got away with it.

Brize, line office has just got the end of the financial year save fuel signal. looking out window boss says, there is an example, why is that Ten being towed with the APU running?. (me on brakes) Arrive back inside to be asked why I'm running the APU during towing, " so I can power the ovens to cook our Dulles burgers and hotdogs" I replied... Nothing else said :)

Back in the days when the VGS at Benson flew conventional gliders I was tasked to act as ballast in a Mk 3 Cadet being retrieved by Landrover and trailer.
For those who don't know the Air Cadets had a trailer on which a just landed glider could be mounted upon and returned to the launch point. As fixing it in place relied on a pin passed over the nose skid, ballast, ie a cadet, was required to sit in the front cockpit to offload the pin and not rip the skid off the fuselage.
On this occasion the retrieval had the combination driving down the length of the pan past all the hangars, at some speed it must be admitted.
Retrive over ops recommenced until the Boss came out wanting to know who had been involved with the retrieve as he'd just had a low flying complaint from the Deputy Captain of the Queens Flight, who had just looked out of his office window and whitnessed a glider chasing a Landrover at extreme low level.

Not towing as such, but just as funny,

Disaster relief in a quarry in Norfokk, it's winter and full of mud, we need the dumper truck we are using so some aircrew go to start it, 3 of them on the cranking handle trying to turn it over with no success, several of them take an interest and try to bump start the thing in about 3 inches of mud...
Much mirth from us, engine JT walks over, naunchantly leans on the engine and unseen by the aircrew pushes down the decompressor, then single handedly swings the thing over and off it goes... Walks off as stunned aircrew mouths wide open look on.

Towing Aircraft
 

Are fast jets susceptible to snaking when being towed then, sounds a tad strange. The nearest I've towed to one is an EMB145, but they never did it. I've towed jumbo's too.......now THAT would make an interesting snake

I hope Newt is keeping an eye on this thread !

Canberras with full tip tanks used to snake a little :)

Wiggins Aerodyne, RAF Little Snoring c.1922. Had to cast the anchor overboard from the underslung Observation Basket when the brakes on the Stutz Bearcat towing vehicle faded. Frightful calamity; CO's dog, which was chasing the Aerodyne & biting through the tail surfaces, was killed by well-aimed lob of anchor. No tea/coffee/biscuits interview with CO. Career limiting episode.

HB

Actually the Snaking thing just reminded me how I got cleared to tow a/c...
For some random reason we had no qualified tow - ers in one day.
One of our canberras aborts take off and ends up at the wrong end of Cottysnore...we were right at t'other end :ok:
Flight Sgt says to me - If you can tow it back here without damaging it I will sign you up for towing - ok says I (thinking 'towers do not do station duties' ! LOL) - anyway I managed to get that one back ok...the 'Crunch' - 'Brakes' moment happened a few months later putting a cab in the hangar :)

RAF Upavon had a families day, the OCU was there with our aircraft that had to be hangared out of the way, during the show a casevac came in so a Puma was pulled out and down the taxiway, it was then cancelled so was towed back, just as we got to the hangar it was on again, so we turned round and set off again, over the radio it was announced it was cancelled so we turned around yet again and finally pulled it back into the Hangar. Closing the doors the RAFP who had been clearing the crowd came over and asked why we tow it back and forth across the aprons. "To wind up the starter motors" we replied... " Oh thanks" he said as he wandered off.... I do still wonder if anyone has finally told him the truth.

spekesoftly, (the link in your #4)

Wasn't there a character who shoehorned a war surplus Merlin into his Shelsey "special" (the "freikaiserwagen" ?). Went fine, by all accounts, so long as he could keep it on the road !

( a bit off-Thread, sorry).

Watch what you say about Little Snoring - I used to live there, and my papers were delivered by Mrs Gotobed - honest!

Not strictly military !!!!

I was lucky to be allocated to a Joint services gliding course at Bicester, RAFGSA Centre, early 80s as I remember. As an Airframe SNCO, I was welcomed as they needed some servicing and polishing doing. Having spent the morning of a fairly damp day doing a bit of work, with the met beginning to improve, I asked the CFI if I could tow out the ASK18 and give it a bit of a go. Permission granted and the duty car is towing the glider out. About 100 yards out on to the newly mown airfield I noticed that the one and only main wheel had stopped rotating, and was merely skidding over the surface. When we stopped and looked the wheel was jammed by a compacted mass of grass clippings. It took over an hour to remove the grass, it would have been quicker to remove the wheel to clear it. But then, I was only an A Fitt A ! But, had that happened before ? At the time nobody said it had, but you have to wonder. I note a 2.5 hour soaring trip from the eventual launch in my log book, a bit of work always paid off eventually.

Smudge:ok:

Aah, Mrs Gotobed; what a delightful popsie........

HB

During the 1980s, drinking beer in the 8 Squadron crew room at Lossie on a Friday evening (30 seconds after QRA end at 1700 on Friday) when an enormous crash was heard in the Hangar to which the crew room was attached. A quick sprint into the hangar gave us the view of the towing tragedy that had just happened.


The ground crew were towing a Shackleton out of the hangar onto the flight line. A tractor was attached by the towing arm to the tail wheel and the aircraft was to be reversed out into position. Unfortunately on this occasion, the chap in the cockpit had forgotten to take off the parking break: the tractor had pulled on the tail wheel which had collapsed and the aircraft had fallen onto its rear fins and bomb doors.


A cheer for the ground crew was quickly cut short when OC 8 arrived very quickly on the scene from his office in the hangar - death was on his face and we quickly slipped back to the beer call while the Boss debriefed the ground crew. (Before he came into the crew room and debriefed us about standards of behaviour).


The aircraft was fixed by salvaging parts from gate guards and fire dumps around the country (from memory, the Shack at Manston was pillaged for its bomb doors but I stand to be corrected).

One and only prang...
 

was dragging a SHAR FA2 off the high power tie down at Yeovilton. The air brake had fully lowered and it caught the hold back chain T bar as it slowly moved forward, thus ripping both layers of skin on said AB. I wasn't driving but directing the move and the buck stopped fairly with me. Optically it looked safe to clear but wasn't and didn't.
Thankfully the Deputy AEO was a really decent guy and arranged a swop with a resident Hangar Queen, and nothing further was done or said.
Other than that one blot, in many years of both moving ashore, afloat and foreign and unusual I never ever pranged one. Insert smiley face here...

Not RAF, but some other air force...


A guy over confident on the tractor, fast moves with style, but it went wrong one day when he missed the brake, fast reversing in the hanger.


It bent the prop of a PC9, knocked it clean over the chocks & almost into the tail section of another aircraft.


I was a few yards away, but thankfully not part of the moving team. I can still remember as clear as day, my friend who was in charge at the time, turning to me with his hand on his forehead & saying to me "I think we have an incident"


I remember the 'Cracked eggshell" look of the front PC9 canopy after a student somehow managed to eject, then the instructor landing it safely, but that was not towing related.


Someone else ripped a landing gear off a Strikemaster, after towing it across a dug out hole temporarily covered with wood.


Be careful when towing.

Too soon for some people.
 

Some prangs are far too recent and I can imagine many people on here dying to put something up, but daren't. Theres nothing like hearing a thundering great shuddering bang of aircraft metal upon another solid object to get people running to a scene....! Generally there's always some pale faced bloke gone into semi shock....

Whilst not aircraft towing, someone I knew well towed a gliding club winch back the hanger, the trouble was, the cable was still fully out.


It took out various airfield equipment, but he was a civilian about to join the RAF.


He didn't join as a 'Techie' but the actual incident taught me an early lesson.


That lesson was that it's the people on the ground who have an important role in making things safe & administration from senior officers, just can't plug the gap.

There is a story about a B2, a fuel load and a towbar that some of my fellow RIATeers are far better qualified to tell than me!

Flight_Idle (Steph), I never did it honest :ok:

My one and only visit to OC Eng, with my hat on.

A couple of years after leaving my job as a Ground Eng on Albert and I'm SNCO i/c a second line servicing team. There was never any way that my lads on the team were doing overtime unless I was there, so, having helped with the pre air test engine ground runs, after in my case a 14 hour day, I supervised the aircrafts move back into the hangar, before cease work. At the time we had the practice of leaving the main aircraft jacks in position in the hangar (big, heavy and awkward as long as you left them where they were they were no problem) and reversing the aircraft into position over them. As I had spent around 4 hours out with the ground running team, I was not aware that in our absence our new Flight Commander had ordered a "proper" clean up of the hangar by the rest of the team, including moving the main jacks to sweep underneath them. You all know what's coming. My wing safety man on the RH wingtip (left as we pushed the aircraft backwards into the hangar, and from my viewpoint) was a tired young chap who had spent most of the evening out in the cold as safety man for the ground runs. His state of alertness was indicated by the still affirmative "clear" (thumb up) signal as I convinced the tug driver to ram the out of position main Jack with the RH external tank. No excuses, I was in charge, my fault.

The team to a man insisted we could recover the situation, and with luck in having a spare tank, and a steady diet of coffee breaks we managed to change the tank before the day shift came in the next morning to prep the aircraft for the flight test. It was duly flown and returned to the line, serviceable. I had no answer for OC Eng when he expressed his surprise at an "experienced" SNCO making such a basic mistake. Of course, there were many excuses available for it, but only my failure to spot the main jack had been moved was the cause. I was grateful that OC Eng did have some understanding of the hours we had all put in to meet a target that day.

Smudge :ok:

Laarparts again, early 80's, II ac Sqn Jags. Got dragged out of the crewroom to do brakes from hangar to HAS. Young and blasé, took my mug of coffee into the cockpit. Sheer-pin broke as we took the tight turn to the entrance to the pan. I hit the brakes....... nothing!! I hadn't checked the brake pressure before jumping in. The aircraft rolls gently onto the (thankfully firm) grass. I quickly throw the coffee mug into the bushes and give a quick burst of the Electro-Hydraulic Pump. "Yes Sarge.....got plently of pressure.... don't know what happened". Pushed the aircraft off the grass and into the HAS. No damage but not my proudest moment :uhoh:

Another Shack towing snafu, Mk.3 this time at St. Mawgan early 60s.
Returning to pan from compass base and stopped right on the money.

The towmaster was unhitched before anybody thought to shove some chocks in. As the towmaster moves away the beast follows it and a quick look shows the air guage as low as it goes. A very loud scream from the cockpit alerts the guys below who stop the towmaster, grab the towing arm and re-attach with some difficulty and not a little risk to themselves.

No damage, no injuries, no witnesses and very little conversation on return to crew room.:\

I've taxied an aircraft with only one brake working. That was interesting at the brake check as it did a quick change of direction to the right. Of course to stop and shut down you have to put more brake onto the one side that's working...thus lurching around like a drunkard hoping that no one of consequence is watching.

Crikey, my old next door neighbour Bill Hey used to fly Mk3 Shacks. Anybody remember him? Got one up to 27,000' once.

And to get back to the raison d etre for this thread - hope you are keeping an eye on it Newt :)
After a bit of a pi55 up the night before (feeling like death cooled down) - towing a Hawk out at a Pembrokeshire airfield,me driving with a dodgy greenie (leccy) as nco i/c - as we trundled round the peri track - we remarked on how friendly 2 guys were standing outside the ground training school (they were waving to us :ok:).
Then realisation dawned - nobody was that friendly LOL and looking back we saw the Hawk about three quarters of a mile away with the brakeman waving at us (gee what a nice guy :))

The SHEAR PIN had ...well.... sheared... good job we had a mug on brakes eh :ok:

In the 50's sitting in a glider winch which was being towed back
for the day. Tractor driver decided it would pass under the wing
of a Valient. It didn't. Winch roof ended up a inch or two lower,
no problem. Valient wing - big problem

Cracking collection!


Valient = Valiant
break = brake
whitnessed = witnessed
role = roll


Airey
SOP (Society Of Pedants) http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ilies/evil.gif