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"There I was" the story thread

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Flyin6:
All great stories told by aviators, Army Aviators to be specific begin something like, There I was, almost out of fuel, attitude indicator all junked up, I was inverted, air medals dangling in my face... Like that!

Flying can create circumstances for some darned funny stuff to happen. Military flying can be stressful, dangerous, and really push your limits now and then. So when something unexpected happens, everyone blows off some steam and gets a good laugh.

We had been talking about telling stories on the "Chinook" picture thread, and I thought I'd just start a thread right here designed for nothing more than good stories. I hardly know where to start, so I guess I'll tell you about a crew chief who always seemed to get himself into trouble.

Following a long field training exercise the Chinooks were air lifting everything from PZ's (Pickup zones) and taking them to their destinations, LZ's (Landing Zones) The place was Korea, where I spent two one year tours, one in 87-88. You may recall that the olympics were held in Seoul that year and I guess I got to participate in the preparation for that event. So at the time I was flying CUWTF (Combined unconventional warfare task force) flying both US and South Korean Special Forces. Without getting into any detail, lets just say we were part of a 911 police force in the event anything bad happened.

The Chinooks were leaned on heavily to move construction stuff and folks around to the various venues, and guys like me were practicing responding to various emergencies. One of our Chinooks actually jumped the opening ceremony sky divers who jumped the five olympic rings which were done in smoke. If you look at the tape you will see one of our birds at 10,000 feet with the jumpers exiting.

So one day my crew and I were working with the "bubbas", jumping them into a stadium downtown Seoul from high altitude. Thing was, I picked the jumpers up from a LZ miles away and then climbed up and over the drop zone before releasing them. This time we had, let us say, some highly sensitive people on board and they called for extraction from the stadium.

I circled that thing a couple of times noting there was no good place to land. The crewchief said he thought I could land next to a building like thing that was erected to seat the judges for whatever event was going to happen there. I didn't like it, but a Korean police guy on the ground kept waving me in to land. So I did, started my approach to a point maybe a hundred feet from that structure. Everything was going OK until I flared a bit at the bottom and added a little power and all at once the grandstand plywood thing started to shake. I had nowhere to go, knowing if I added any power to go around I'd probably do some damage. Well as we came to a hover, the thing shook violently and then just like that broke up into a million pieces!

It was amazing, the thing turned into confetti and all that was left to show that anything had ever been there other than the debris raining down all over was this single pigtail of electrical cable sticking up out of the ground. As I lowered the thrust to the ground position and the big bird settled down on its struts, I looked out to see that cop standing in front of me with a classic WTF just happened look on his face. Poor guy, looked like he was just sentenced to life imprisionment.

So as the rotor blades coasted to a stop, the customers came walking up to climb onboard and this cop came over, note pad in hand and was writing something while cussing in Korean. My Korean customers were chuckling so I called over one that I knew well, Sergeant Kim. I asked him, "What's he saying, Sgt Kim?

HE said, "He say nothing good, Say you in big trouble, say you under arrest." So I thought I'd have a little fun with the guy before leaving, so I instructed sergeant Kim to have the guys come over, and they did. I asked Kim to tell him that he has angered me and I am considering having both his legs broken by you guys. Kim did and as he motioned the circular motion I watched the cops eyes scan around him, noting he was surrounded by special forces guys. The cop stopped talking then backed up until his back was resting on the aircraft fuel tank. He then slid down the length of the tank until he was clear of the last soldier, then turned and took off like a jack rabbit.

We cranked back up and went along our merry way, never to see that cop again.

TexasRedNeck:
Since this was started with the idea that this could be Mil or civilian. I’ll take the first stab at the civilian part.

I had just bought the hide and was there one weekend doing some work. Real manly stuff like installing a washer and dryer.

Beautiful fall day. 70 degree and sunshine. Had three beers after I finished work and was about to head home. Decided that I’d have a small roadie of jack black since I was out of beer.

Piled into the LB7 and loaded the weapons I’d been playing with the day before. 5.56SBR with a can and NV. 22 ruger with a can and a glock or two.

Tooling down a 2 lane blacktop in the middle of nowhere through the woods, windows down and a little country music on the radio. Minding my own business at the speed limit with in my rear view Morrow I see a Tahoe roll up on me hot. Real hot. Must have been 90. Broke hard to my bumper at 55.

I’m thinking to myself “self. This guys an idiot and needs a sign”. So in the rear view I indicate that he is in the #1 position. At which point he decides he’s going to pass me in a double yellow.

I’m not having. Any of that. So I drop the hammer on the ol LB7 and begin to roll epic coal and pull away from him


He then slides back in behind me and......hits the red and blues. Oops.

This could go very badly.

I pull over. (Mind you at this time I had the 12 inch lift and 37s on it)

He exits the vehicle and that’s when my heart sank a little further. It was a black Sherrif and you all know my license plate.

So he come up to the window, which the top of his head comes to about the bottom of the window. He asks if I know why he pulled me over. I literally laugh out loud and say “yessir I have a pretty good idea” He then proceeds to tell me that he was special investigator Simpson and that he was on the way to a major call and i was interfering with police business. 

I told him that he rolled up on me hot and then tried to pass in a no passing zone and I wasn’t going to have any of that. He was not amused.

After some more exchanges I told him I didn’t see any lights.  He asked if I was on the job ( I have a decal on the back that very few people in Houston get). I told him “ no but I support a lot of LEOs. Sometimes through contributions from roadside encounters “

He took my license and went back to the car and I waited for the hammer to fall

He came back and said that he could arrest me for interfering but was going to let me off with a warning.

He knew I knew he wasn’t going anywhere except to the donut shop.

Rollin hot, no lights and had time to hang out on the side of the road. There was no major call.

Dodged a bullet.


Fast forward 2 years. I’m coming up after hours and he pulls me over for a blinking license plate light at 1 am.

We had a good laugh. He didn’t remember me at first but I reminded him.   Didn’t tell him about the weapons or booze....





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

oklawall:
Oh this could be fun! Back in the days of the cold war and I flew on the Airborne Command Post (basically Cheyenne Mountain in the air) just finished deployed alert (cold war days crew members got put in a semi underground building for 7 days so they could run out to the plane and take off with in so many minutes to go do bad things to the other team) and flying home on a KC 135 when a string of events proved to everyone on board the skill of our pilot. This aircraft had been having autopilot problem and maintenance hadn't been able to find the problem before flight. The problem was that the crazy thing would start doing a Dutch roll and the autopilot wouldn't disengage unless someone pulled circuit breaker. We get to 32,000 feet sit back for the 2 hour flight, well the front end crew missed the write up in the forms to not engage the autopilot so we start this slow rocking back and forth. The crew starts fighting the autopilot from left to right of straight and level. The pilot would correct and the autopilot would correct back to what it wanted to do with over correction each time. The roll got to around 85 degree and everyone putting their seat belts on except the boom operator who was going to put on his parachute but got pinned to the floor, side and roof of the aircraft but he ends up crawling back to his seat and buckles in. This is where it gets fun, one of the flight control cables breaks (at a splice that shouldn't  be there) the aircraft goes to 180 degrees  (or inverted ) and starts falling like a rock. The pilot was able to get the plane back to normal straight and level with 5,000 feet above the ground. Our base got the best pilots in the Air Force and Boeing on the radio and he was able to land that thing using engine thrust and the remaining flight controls.

cruizng:
Holy Cow...  :popcorn:

Flyin6:
...And for those of you unfamiliar with a "Dutch Roll" in a swept wing jet you normally only get a couple of oscillations before the thing flips over on its back then starts to point the nose down toward sudden stoppage.

Lucky to have survived that one!

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