Maintenance vs Aircrew

[Guest ILikeBoobies]

Who has the most ridiculous storie of mx dudes trying to sell that their jet is good to fly when it obviously isn't?

[FreudianSlip]

Had an FE call out the crew chief that there was a crack in the skin (about 4 inches long if I recall) near the armpit (on a herk). Crew chief said they could just speed tape it, FE said no way, ain't gona take it. Pro Sup gets envoled and starts to over power the FE so the FE heads into the squadron and tells the DO. DO looks at it with the Crew Chief, Pro Sup, and the FE and then whips out his cellphone and hands it to the Pro Sup and says, if you're that confident it will fly, call your wife and kids and we'll give them an incentive flight, I'll sign the paperwork right now.

Well, I'm sure you can guess, the plane was tugged into the hanger and sheet metal got to play fixup with it for a few days.

Of course now, I'm guessing that plane is now on the restricted list but I'm not at that base no more.

[Champ Kind]

Originally posted by FreudianSlip:

DO looks at it with the Crew Chief, Pro Sup, and the FE and then whips out his cellphone and hands it to the Pro Sup and says, if you're that confident it will fly, call your wife and kids and we'll give them an incentive flight, I'll sign the paperwork right now.

Well, I'm sure you can guess, the plane was tugged into the hanger and sheet metal got to play fixup with it for a few days.

Well played....

[brabus]

what are the AoA's?

[GBock]

Couldn't you have just let him run the test, fail the BIT, then you recenter the AoA's and give him the old, "Try it now, sir"?

[Guest Hoser]

Originally posted by brabus:

what are the AoA's?

Angle of Attack. Two pointed probes (one on each side of the nose).

Hoser

[brabus]

Got it...that's what I thought, but couldn't visualize what physically on the aircraft would apply to AoA.

[Guest KoolKat]

Plus, I'm sure it was much funnier for you to hear that radio call...you should get to have fun too, especially if he didn't want to.

BENDY

EDIT: Boobie, I started a thread a while back about pilot-maintainers that had some interesting info in it...maybe you could try and find it...Hopefully it's buried deep...good luck.

[ 20. February 2006, 21:22: Message edited by: Bender ]

[pbar]

I was once told the jet (a B-1) was "crew-ready" and when we went out to the jet, it was missing an engine! It was the same tail number they had on the schedule for us to fly.

There was another time I was moving my ejection seat forward during the preflight and about half-way up, it started to shake and make grinding sounds. It hung up doing that for a second or two and then continued forward. I was told that was normal (which it's not). But then again, I was dumb enough to take it as it was...

On the other hand, I've seen some dumb things operators do (or don't do) to MX. For example, I use to take the defensive systems and offensive systems maintainers into the sim so that they could see the equipment they worked on actually on and in use. Some of them had worked on the equipment for ten plus years and had never seen it work except in ground tests. That's unsat! I couldn't believe it never occured to any operators to get them into the sim for at least a little bit of a look at how the stuff looks and works in flight. I made a DVD of the radar screen during a low level and most of the radar MX troops had never seen it working like that and loved the DVD.

PBAR

ex-Bone WSO

[Guest KoolKat]

It's a classic, "oh shit!" maneuver, they learn it pre-UPT.

BENDY

[GBock]

Little tanker drives might appreciate this:

Once I stepped to an "FMC" jet that had no crew entry hatch and no boom.

I've also had an ADCC tell me that the reason why the jet has a >1K lb fuel imbalance (upon arriving to the aircraft) is because the #1 tank is smaller than the #4 tank. :confused:

[Guest Viperfixer]

Originally posted by CrewDawg1:

But yes you should center them, I have crewed 16's for 5 years and have always been told to center them by everyone from tech school instructors at sheppard, luke and by all my trainers since I have been back. Now for them to fail one would need to be all the way up and the other all the way down (so i'm told)

I was never once told to center the AoA's, never at Sheppard, Luke, or at my unit....it obviously makes sense, I guess i've just never had them at opposite extremes and no pilot has ever pulled that on me

[Guest twinkle toes]

Okay, I am a seven level crew chief, and I dug into the FI. The bit test does infact go to the aoa. However when you follow the schematic in the aoa, the switch is not active until nw wow switch is deactivated. The bit check just runs through to check the circuitry of the system, not the current readings. This is for the block 32 plus's, I don't have TO's for 40's or 50's. As far as the crew chief that centered the aoa's and the bit check passed; as we all know sometimes just shutting down the engine and starting the jet can solve a problem.

p.s. panther is the worst crew chief ever!!!

[ 10. March 2006, 08:36: Message edited by: twinkle toes ]

[Clayton Bigsby]

Originally posted by twinkle toes:

...as we all know sometimes just shutting down the engine and starting the jet can solve a problem...

ahh yess, the old "control+alt+delete"

[Guest Hydro130]

Or the standard C-130 "Lockheed fix" = banging hard enough on it with fist/mag-light/hammer/broomstick/etc...

Works like magic!

Cheers to MX, you guys rock!

Hydro

[Clayton Bigsby]

Originally posted by Hydro130:

Or the standard "Lockheed fix" = banging hard enough on it with fist/mag-light/hammer/broomstick/etc...

Works like magic!

Funny; this approach didn't work out too well for old -141 people switching to the C-17!!!

[Mox]

We had an IFE into K2, because smoke filled the entire C-130. (The step in the EP for removing the forward escape hatch works like a charm). We sat in K2 for about a week, and then a mx guy signed the X off saying it was a lightbulb in the cargo compartment that was touching a piece of insulation. I'm sorry, but I did laugh in his face when he signed it off. I actually took a picture of what he said caused it as well as the write-up. We were going to run the engines to try and duplicate the problem, when the prop low oil light came on. Come to find out, we had blown the #2 and #4 seals in the prop and the oil was leaking into the compressor section, and into the Aircraft.

Mox

[Guest HercengTN]

"Come to find out, we had blown the #2 and #4 seals in the prop and the oil was leaking into the compressor section, and into the Aircraft."

Never heard of blown prop seals causing smoke to fill the cockpit....interesting. I guess you would know for sure that it was the culprit by shutting off the ac packs.

[ 10. March 2006, 20:51: Message edited by: HercengTN ]

[Mox]

Your right, we did not know until we were ready to take the aircraft again(after mx signed it off as a lightbulb problem). We were at FL240 when the aircraft filled with smoke, we all got on O2, and I went looking for the problem, but the smoke was so thick, I could not find the prob. To describe how thick it was, when I got to the bottom of the flight deck, I could not see the Utility res. system, could barely see the Nose emergnecy gear lever in the CC. I could not see so we opened the hatch, cleared all the smoke out, then we could not find the source. turning the AC pack off probably would have been the best decision to start with, but we were passing over the mtns. in Afghanistan, and did not want to wait for it to clear out, for us to be able to see outside.

Mox

[Beaver]

Panther: I know I'm a little late on this reply, but we were taught at Luke very specifically to rotate the probes to the 10/7 O'clock position. Apparently someone had them frozen or stuck full down and it cause a crash on take off (or something like that.)

[Beaver]

I also stepped to a jet for an OIF sortie that didn't have an engine in it. They said they'd have it done in a hurry. I said no rush, take your time.

[Champ Kind]

Originally posted by Beaver:

I also stepped to a jet for an OIF sortie that didn't have an engine in it. They said they'd have it done in a hurry. I said no rush, take your time.

I could just picture someone's face stepping to a jet that was lacking an engine. Hilarious!!

Thank goodness for thorough preflights, huh?

[Guest twinkle toes]

Crew Dawg 1:

TO 1F-16C-2-27FI-00-11

Schematic 12-27-53-02,12-27-56-01,12-27-56-03,and 12-27-53-06. Pwr goes from FLCP to ECA to AOA which recieves power from WOW and the self test goes on. As for eng run, we had 25 mph wind sending left aoa up and we left the right aoa where it was. (for the launch of a fcf). Flcs bit passed okay. If you ask someone questions and they don't refrence tech data, tell them to show you!

Oh yeah, and what did you do after you shut down the plane because it failed bit? Go and reset the aoa's and say sorry? I wouldn't like to see that as a pilot!