Swing the lamp, pull up a sandbag.
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
Posts: 1,561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Good point, but ...
I found that a lot of what happened in Nigeria had to do with what had happened in Vietnam! It seemed as if pretty much every whacko I met in Escravos had started out as a Warrant Officer in Vietnam. The guy who thought that the IRS didn't legally exist; the guy whose wife ran off with his tax advisor, so that he married his girlfriend's mother; the Irishman who dodged the Irish draft by going to Vietnam, when it turned out later that Ireland didn't even have a draft .... You name it, there was one of each there, and they were all ex-Vietnam.
So then I ran away and joined a Dutch outfit, where all the whackos had served in Angola, or New Guinea, or Yemen, or Northern Ireland.
Then I went wizz ze Chermans. Ah, peace! Except that they were Chermans, who played company politics for keeps. Back-stabbing SOBs, the lot of them.
Finally, I ended up with the Brits. And then along came ze Chermans!
So then I ran away and joined a Dutch outfit, where all the whackos had served in Angola, or New Guinea, or Yemen, or Northern Ireland.
Then I went wizz ze Chermans. Ah, peace! Except that they were Chermans, who played company politics for keeps. Back-stabbing SOBs, the lot of them.
Finally, I ended up with the Brits. And then along came ze Chermans!
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Dubai
Posts: 348
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
On a moonless night over the western part of Africa (almost) the present day, A Disembodied Voice comes up on 121.5:
DV: "Wheere aaree yooo?"
a pause:
DV: "Heeloo, wheere aaree yooo?"
micro seconds later:
"Yer on Guaaaard Maaate"
a slightly longer pause:
DV: "Aah, theere yooo aare!"
DV: "Wheere aaree yooo?"
a pause:
DV: "Heeloo, wheere aaree yooo?"
micro seconds later:
"Yer on Guaaaard Maaate"
a slightly longer pause:
DV: "Aah, theere yooo aare!"
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
Posts: 1,561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
We went international with the Dorniers, all the way to Sao Tome and Principe, when we would have to talk to some francophone ATC unit. My Nigerian FO liked to rattle off a burst of Engiish that would be greeted by ... silence. So we would do a hand-over and then I would start again with, "Bon Jour ... " and so on, speaking s l o w l y and clearly. Suddenly, yes, there was someone there to answer our calls! English is not the official language of aviation and not a lot of people know that, actually.
The best one ever was one day at someplace or other in the middle of Nigeria when calls to the tower were going unanswered, so that things were getting a bit tense. Finally this tiny, tremulous voice came up on frequency, but with completely non-standard replies. When asked who was speaking the reply came "Dis is de tea-boy, Sah. De controller has gone to ease himself."
Then there was our resident Dornier expert, Captain Pants the Experimental Test Pilot, who decided that Friday afternoon would be a good time to show up at Gao, Mali on a ferry flight, tight on fuel and expecting a timely landing clearance. Of course the controller had gone to the mosque for Friday prayers!
The best one ever was one day at someplace or other in the middle of Nigeria when calls to the tower were going unanswered, so that things were getting a bit tense. Finally this tiny, tremulous voice came up on frequency, but with completely non-standard replies. When asked who was speaking the reply came "Dis is de tea-boy, Sah. De controller has gone to ease himself."
Then there was our resident Dornier expert, Captain Pants the Experimental Test Pilot, who decided that Friday afternoon would be a good time to show up at Gao, Mali on a ferry flight, tight on fuel and expecting a timely landing clearance. Of course the controller had gone to the mosque for Friday prayers!
Nigerian In Law
One day I was sitting on a rusty platform offshore Calabar, burning and turning in a 212 single pilot. I had a front row seat for the fight that was underway between two filthy, sweaty bears over the last remaining lifejacket.
Just as they managed to inflate it using the tug of war method (very unorthodox), a call came on 131.7. "Is anyone there ?".
I replied "Yes, I am. Who is this ?".
"Aah, Ho**rd, how are you ?".
"Who is this ?".
"It's Jim T**tt. Where are you ?"
"I'm sitting on a s**t platform in a s**t aircraft watching two s**ty people go at it. Where are you ?"
"I'm in the left hand seat of a 777 mate, 35,000 feet en route to Jo'burg. I've just finished a first class meal served by the hostess I'm going to share a bed with tonight. How's it going ?"
Coincidentally (and perhaps fortuitously ?), at that point the Production Supervisor came up on deck to see why we hadn't left yet, gave both bears a dirty slap upside the head and threw one in the back wearing the inflated lifejacket. He then pulled the unlucky one downstairs so I pulled pitch and got base bound.
I think I must have inadvertently re-tuned the radio as I'm sure I didn't hear that smug voice again.......... Mind you, he was a really good bloke when he was rotary.
NEO
Just as they managed to inflate it using the tug of war method (very unorthodox), a call came on 131.7. "Is anyone there ?".
I replied "Yes, I am. Who is this ?".
"Aah, Ho**rd, how are you ?".
"Who is this ?".
"It's Jim T**tt. Where are you ?"
"I'm sitting on a s**t platform in a s**t aircraft watching two s**ty people go at it. Where are you ?"
"I'm in the left hand seat of a 777 mate, 35,000 feet en route to Jo'burg. I've just finished a first class meal served by the hostess I'm going to share a bed with tonight. How's it going ?"
Coincidentally (and perhaps fortuitously ?), at that point the Production Supervisor came up on deck to see why we hadn't left yet, gave both bears a dirty slap upside the head and threw one in the back wearing the inflated lifejacket. He then pulled the unlucky one downstairs so I pulled pitch and got base bound.
I think I must have inadvertently re-tuned the radio as I'm sure I didn't hear that smug voice again.......... Mind you, he was a really good bloke when he was rotary.
NEO
Last edited by Nigerian Expat Outlaw; 15th Nov 2016 at 20:17. Reason: It's that lack of education again......
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
Posts: 1,561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
When we used to fly single-pilot back in the early Eighties I would usually have a passenger in the right front seat of my Cessna, and we would often chat.
One day we were headed back to Lagos from Escravos, with a fellow Yank next to me. He seemed a bit down in the dumps, so I asked him how it was going, once I had got the 402 settled into that groove we had worn in the sky, doing that 136º/316º back-and-forth run, Lagos-Escravos-Lagos, repeat as necessary.
He told me that he'd been in Vietnam and that somehow he just never caught on afterwards with anything better than working in the oil patch.
He said that he worked on a rig, looking after its big diesel engines. I think he was called a wiper and it sounded like a pretty grim job, down there in the engine room where it was hot, noisy and dirty.
I told him to cheer up, that there were a lot of other things he could do if he just put his mind to it, that I'd been working in garages for quite a few years until I got my pilot's license. Okay, it wasn't flying for Pan Am, but it wasn't exactly work either, being an air taxi pilot, so maybe he should try aviation instead? You got to see more than you would shut up in the engine room of an oil rig, anyway.
There was no cheering this guy up ... it was just moan, moan, moan. He was only making $7,000 per month on 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, and life was hard, very hard.
When I heard those numbers I thought, "Say what? I spent years getting qualified as a pilot, building enough hours to get this job, and I'm on $2,000 per month doing 2 months and 1 month!"
I asked him then, "So this 'wiper' thing ... how did you get this job?" Well, it turned out that he was from somewhere down in Louisiana and his uncle knew somebody and ....
Somehow, moving to Louisiana and trying to pass as a coon-ass did not seem to be on the cards, so I stayed in aviation, but if I had got an offer I might have wanted to become a wiper instead!
One day we were headed back to Lagos from Escravos, with a fellow Yank next to me. He seemed a bit down in the dumps, so I asked him how it was going, once I had got the 402 settled into that groove we had worn in the sky, doing that 136º/316º back-and-forth run, Lagos-Escravos-Lagos, repeat as necessary.
He told me that he'd been in Vietnam and that somehow he just never caught on afterwards with anything better than working in the oil patch.
He said that he worked on a rig, looking after its big diesel engines. I think he was called a wiper and it sounded like a pretty grim job, down there in the engine room where it was hot, noisy and dirty.
I told him to cheer up, that there were a lot of other things he could do if he just put his mind to it, that I'd been working in garages for quite a few years until I got my pilot's license. Okay, it wasn't flying for Pan Am, but it wasn't exactly work either, being an air taxi pilot, so maybe he should try aviation instead? You got to see more than you would shut up in the engine room of an oil rig, anyway.
There was no cheering this guy up ... it was just moan, moan, moan. He was only making $7,000 per month on 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, and life was hard, very hard.
When I heard those numbers I thought, "Say what? I spent years getting qualified as a pilot, building enough hours to get this job, and I'm on $2,000 per month doing 2 months and 1 month!"
I asked him then, "So this 'wiper' thing ... how did you get this job?" Well, it turned out that he was from somewhere down in Louisiana and his uncle knew somebody and ....
Somehow, moving to Louisiana and trying to pass as a coon-ass did not seem to be on the cards, so I stayed in aviation, but if I had got an offer I might have wanted to become a wiper instead!
Chuks,
We have all had that experience at some point.
Sat in a Dining Room on the Deadhorse end of the Alaska Pipeline one Morning enjoying a second Cup of Coffee having a bit of a chat with the Bull Cook (person who cleans and sweeps up.....and assists the Cooking Staff as needed) to discover the same 2/2 rotation....with her pay exactly One Dollar a Month MORE than mine as an ATPL Dual Rated Pilot working a One On/Stay On schedule.
We came to work at the start of the season and worked till there was no more work. My first "Summer Season" was first of April and ended December 15th with a whopping three days off in Anchorage in late September.
The recounting of that three days will have to be a different post.....as another Pilot and I very much enjoyed ourselves and managed to get bounced out of two Biker Bars for being much too rowdy. We made Drunken Sailors look like Altar Boys from what I was told later.
At one Bar....with Burlesque type entertainment I vaguely recall one act that wound up with the audience clapping and throwing money at the Gal on the Stage.....she was a very...very....very....large Woman....lots of Tattoo's and who weighed easily 400 Pounds.....whose act was encapsulated in the words...."Clap you SOB's and show me some Money or I will take my Clothes Off!".....she must have been a Fixed Winged Pilot's Wife working a part time gig.
We have all had that experience at some point.
Sat in a Dining Room on the Deadhorse end of the Alaska Pipeline one Morning enjoying a second Cup of Coffee having a bit of a chat with the Bull Cook (person who cleans and sweeps up.....and assists the Cooking Staff as needed) to discover the same 2/2 rotation....with her pay exactly One Dollar a Month MORE than mine as an ATPL Dual Rated Pilot working a One On/Stay On schedule.
We came to work at the start of the season and worked till there was no more work. My first "Summer Season" was first of April and ended December 15th with a whopping three days off in Anchorage in late September.
The recounting of that three days will have to be a different post.....as another Pilot and I very much enjoyed ourselves and managed to get bounced out of two Biker Bars for being much too rowdy. We made Drunken Sailors look like Altar Boys from what I was told later.
At one Bar....with Burlesque type entertainment I vaguely recall one act that wound up with the audience clapping and throwing money at the Gal on the Stage.....she was a very...very....very....large Woman....lots of Tattoo's and who weighed easily 400 Pounds.....whose act was encapsulated in the words...."Clap you SOB's and show me some Money or I will take my Clothes Off!".....she must have been a Fixed Winged Pilot's Wife working a part time gig.
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
Posts: 1,561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I met this former sailor at college, who told me that one time in the Philippines on liberty he ended up on stage as part of the show, when it was a sex show. With a woman. He claims to have upheld the honor of the US Navy then.
That was pretty funny. This very smart but somewhat rough guy had the students eating out of his hand because he was a master of BS. I kept telling it straight, so that I was a literal hate-object to many, while they all thought he was a fine fellow who was right in tune with their moonbeams and BS approach to reality.
You may remember Occupy Wall Street. Our school bused kids down there to take part, get arrested, show up on the news, and then be bused back, paid for by school funds. In connection with that some students wanted some trainers to come to the school to do a course on how to become a "street medic." Not like a proper paramedic, or even someone trained in First Aid, but like a combat medic, looking after those who had been savaged by cops during a demo such as Occupy Wall Street. "Man, sorry, person down! Medic!" that sort of thing, in the heat of combat.
Of course I got up to ask what formal qualifications these trainers had. None.
What kind of certification would you get from taking the course? None.
Did the course have a formal curriculum covering such things as CPR? No idea.
Why not go to the American Red Cross, just down the road in Brattleboro, to get proper training from a certified trainer that led to a proper certificate. No, we wanted these people to do this "street medic" thing, something special.
At that point I said that I did not want to see hippies teaching CPR, because if you got something wrong people could die. Then the motion passed to spend $600 on street medic training.
Afterwards my ex-Navy friend told me that he and one of the profs had been sat there not saying a thing, but trying not to bust out laughing over my zinger, absolutely correct. He said that mine was the wrong approach, though, that I should try to make friends with these people first to get them to do what I wanted them to. Thanks a lot, pal!
That was pretty funny. This very smart but somewhat rough guy had the students eating out of his hand because he was a master of BS. I kept telling it straight, so that I was a literal hate-object to many, while they all thought he was a fine fellow who was right in tune with their moonbeams and BS approach to reality.
You may remember Occupy Wall Street. Our school bused kids down there to take part, get arrested, show up on the news, and then be bused back, paid for by school funds. In connection with that some students wanted some trainers to come to the school to do a course on how to become a "street medic." Not like a proper paramedic, or even someone trained in First Aid, but like a combat medic, looking after those who had been savaged by cops during a demo such as Occupy Wall Street. "Man, sorry, person down! Medic!" that sort of thing, in the heat of combat.
Of course I got up to ask what formal qualifications these trainers had. None.
What kind of certification would you get from taking the course? None.
Did the course have a formal curriculum covering such things as CPR? No idea.
Why not go to the American Red Cross, just down the road in Brattleboro, to get proper training from a certified trainer that led to a proper certificate. No, we wanted these people to do this "street medic" thing, something special.
At that point I said that I did not want to see hippies teaching CPR, because if you got something wrong people could die. Then the motion passed to spend $600 on street medic training.
Afterwards my ex-Navy friend told me that he and one of the profs had been sat there not saying a thing, but trying not to bust out laughing over my zinger, absolutely correct. He said that mine was the wrong approach, though, that I should try to make friends with these people first to get them to do what I wanted them to. Thanks a lot, pal!
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: `
Posts: 309
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by chuks
Another time some young WO-nothing wanted to do a really snazzy take-off with the gear coming up just after rotation on his RU-8D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jysOYW13XJg
[Edit] Silly me, you did say the gear was a tad mangled and this one looks like it's fully retracted; unless of course it got forced back up.
Last edited by Biggles78; 18th Nov 2016 at 07:36. Reason: Forgot to add the Youtube link. DOH!
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
Posts: 1,561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Yes, I think that is it! (Holy Mackerel, a war story with photographic proof!)
I was there between early '67 and early '69, first working on RU-8Ds as a non-flying crewchief at Tan Son Nhut. I can't remember if it was "my" airplane, but I remember going out to the runway after the landing, when I was surprised by how bad that foam smelled. (I guess it's made of some sort of animal protein, and when the hot sun hit it that foam smelled like a ton of hamburger gone bad.)
I think the main gear on that machine retracts forward, using an electric motor driving chains, and that coming back down on the retracting gear broke a chain. You probably know the way that the Army works, when the official story was simply "gear failure," but everyone saw the machine orbiting for four hours burning off fuel before the landing. This story about the gear switch only came out later as the real explanation.
For us it was an insanely boring war for the most part. (Tet was interesting, of course.) It's easy to imagine a flight crew doing something as silly as that out of sheer boredom.
I saw another RU-8D with about 5º extra dihedral and the top wing skins all wrinkled, after the crew must have been screwing around doing some high-G pull-out, playing "Top Gun." Those planes did not have real strong wings, so that they were lucky not to pull the wings off, doing that.
From my point of view it did not matter much: we only did first echelon maintenance so that this complete mess was loaded onto a boat and sent back to the States for major repairs: not our problem!
At the time I knew very little about flying. Looking back it's clear that there were a lot of practices that were not very clever, and some that were downright dangerous. The most annoying thing was that we were running these machines on 115/145 Avgas, when they were designed for 100/130, I think, That meant that there was a hell of a lot of extra lead being deposited. The crews would taxi back after landing, when Tan Son Nhut was pretty big so that meant a long taxi, still on a full rich mixture at low revs. You could hear them coming with the engines going chug-chug-chug. Then they would stop just short of the ramp to do a full-power run-up and a mag check, and then taxi in to park, reporting fouled spark plugs before a quick turn-around. Of course the long taxi on full rich had let the lead accumulate, and then the sudden application of full power had let it land on the plugs, what we know as "splash-fouling," when you could see all the plugs with literal splashes of material.
That meant popping the cowlings and replacing 24 or 32 smoking-hot spark plugs, which was no fun at all. With hindsight, if they had just leaned the damned thing out and kept the revs up a bit during taxi, and not whacked it from low idle to full chat on that run-up then they would probably have avoided all that splash-fouling of the plugs.
Later I was working on Beavers, which were pretty oily beasts. We used those old fire extinguishers called "douche cans" loaded with Varsol to clean off the mess post-flight.
Some genius of a Spec-4 noticed that Varsol worked better on a warm engine than a cold one, and best on a hot engine. So there he was one day, happily going douche-douche-douche with white vapor coming off the R-985 when suddenly the darn thing burst into flames! Luckily we caught it with CO2 extinguishers before things went right out of control, but after that we all went back to waiting for the engine to cool off before douching it down.
I was there between early '67 and early '69, first working on RU-8Ds as a non-flying crewchief at Tan Son Nhut. I can't remember if it was "my" airplane, but I remember going out to the runway after the landing, when I was surprised by how bad that foam smelled. (I guess it's made of some sort of animal protein, and when the hot sun hit it that foam smelled like a ton of hamburger gone bad.)
I think the main gear on that machine retracts forward, using an electric motor driving chains, and that coming back down on the retracting gear broke a chain. You probably know the way that the Army works, when the official story was simply "gear failure," but everyone saw the machine orbiting for four hours burning off fuel before the landing. This story about the gear switch only came out later as the real explanation.
For us it was an insanely boring war for the most part. (Tet was interesting, of course.) It's easy to imagine a flight crew doing something as silly as that out of sheer boredom.
I saw another RU-8D with about 5º extra dihedral and the top wing skins all wrinkled, after the crew must have been screwing around doing some high-G pull-out, playing "Top Gun." Those planes did not have real strong wings, so that they were lucky not to pull the wings off, doing that.
From my point of view it did not matter much: we only did first echelon maintenance so that this complete mess was loaded onto a boat and sent back to the States for major repairs: not our problem!
At the time I knew very little about flying. Looking back it's clear that there were a lot of practices that were not very clever, and some that were downright dangerous. The most annoying thing was that we were running these machines on 115/145 Avgas, when they were designed for 100/130, I think, That meant that there was a hell of a lot of extra lead being deposited. The crews would taxi back after landing, when Tan Son Nhut was pretty big so that meant a long taxi, still on a full rich mixture at low revs. You could hear them coming with the engines going chug-chug-chug. Then they would stop just short of the ramp to do a full-power run-up and a mag check, and then taxi in to park, reporting fouled spark plugs before a quick turn-around. Of course the long taxi on full rich had let the lead accumulate, and then the sudden application of full power had let it land on the plugs, what we know as "splash-fouling," when you could see all the plugs with literal splashes of material.
That meant popping the cowlings and replacing 24 or 32 smoking-hot spark plugs, which was no fun at all. With hindsight, if they had just leaned the damned thing out and kept the revs up a bit during taxi, and not whacked it from low idle to full chat on that run-up then they would probably have avoided all that splash-fouling of the plugs.
Later I was working on Beavers, which were pretty oily beasts. We used those old fire extinguishers called "douche cans" loaded with Varsol to clean off the mess post-flight.
Some genius of a Spec-4 noticed that Varsol worked better on a warm engine than a cold one, and best on a hot engine. So there he was one day, happily going douche-douche-douche with white vapor coming off the R-985 when suddenly the darn thing burst into flames! Luckily we caught it with CO2 extinguishers before things went right out of control, but after that we all went back to waiting for the engine to cool off before douching it down.
Last edited by chuks; 18th Nov 2016 at 10:13.
At the time I knew very little about flying.
Some would argue not much as changed since those times!
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Germany
Age: 76
Posts: 1,561
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
At all!
I got a freebie Dornier Chief Commander baseball cap c/w scrambled eggs from a visit to Oberpfaffenhofen once, and then gave it to my young son, who promptly turned it around backwards. I turned it the right way around, and he turned it backwards again. Then I told him that he looked silly, wearing that hat with scrambled eggs on its bill backwards, that pilots did not wear their hats that way.
"But Jerome wears his hat this way!" (Jerome was this little toe-rag, the spawn of a village chavette and a black ex- GI, the terror of the Kindergarten in his time there.)
"Martin, Jerome is black! On him it looks cool! On you it looks like you don't know which way to wear your hat! Now wear your hat the right way around!"
"But Jerome wears his hat this way!" (Jerome was this little toe-rag, the spawn of a village chavette and a black ex- GI, the terror of the Kindergarten in his time there.)
"Martin, Jerome is black! On him it looks cool! On you it looks like you don't know which way to wear your hat! Now wear your hat the right way around!"
Nephew started the backwards ball cap thing....up and till I asked why....and suggested it was so the Bill would not rub up against his boyfriends tummy at an awkward time. Smoke almost emitted from the Cap as it was twisted right way too at a very high rate of movement. As I live amongst serious Rednecks...that was effective.