Flyin' around the sandbox.

[adrianspeeder]

...

[adrianspeeder]

Trip 107, Fall 2015, Aurora CO

001 – Pilot Hero Shot



002/003 – Loadmaster hero shots.





004 – Coplot hero shot.



005 – Buckley AFB



276 Headin’ to Colorado on a beautiful fall day.



277 Heavy chooch!



278 – Fly over states.



279 Traffic in sight, no factor.



280 Beautiful flying in Colorado.



281 Forecast of mostly sunny with a chance of aluminum overcast.



282 After being at Dover for so long now 42 ft above sea level, it is a mind trick to be all the way up at 7500 feet, but only 1600 feet above the ground.



283 Fast mover F-18 on the roll. It’s the C-17s MickeyD/Boeing little brother!



284 Great looking day down on Denver.



285 Sports Authority Field at Mile High



286 Snow fallin’ already!?!



287 Again amazed how pretty all this is.



288 Headin’ out to California, we saw a lot of wildfires. Reminded me of being in Africa with the amount of ground burnin’.



289 California cold start sunrise over a sleepy jet.



290 “Yesterday I couldn’t spell FCC, and now I are one…”

[adrianspeeder]

This was something I saw on Facebook, not sure if it will work here. States I've been to in the C-17.

<a href="http://m.maploco.com/visited-states/min ... I-WV"><img src="http://map1.maploco.com/visited-states/ ... -WI-WV.png" border=0><br>Create Your Own Visited States Map</a>

Adrianspeeder

[adrianspeeder]

Trip 108, Fall 2015, Tampa FL

291 Looking down on a DelMarValous fall day over AMC’s collection of ole piles of aluminum. Shiny new paint on the derelict C-5.



292 Headed down to Florida flying around Tampa. Here’s a shot of the difference in two runways where a Jersey C17 landed on the little Peter O. Knight by mistake. The "mishap" crew were at the end of a 24 hour duty day, with an in-flight oceanic divert, as the general on board had plans changed requiring going to Macdill. As seen by the famous video they bit off on the wrong strip. Well within the capabilities of the C-17, however Peter O. Knight's runway isn't stressed for our triple tandem truck weight bearing factor. After the dust settled, conveniently there was a Dover jet across the water sitting with a crew ready to go. Since the crew was not needed 'till the next day, they were alerted to move it across the water. The aircraft commander, a great guy, backed it up into the overrun as the load was due to log a backing. Since everyone and their brother was watching, they did a max thrust static start for a good show. TOLD data for fuel and cargo onboard only required a derated thrust standing takeoff. No defuel or cargo download required and was airborne with strip to spare. I heard afterword the Air Force cut the airfield manager of Peter O. Knight a big check for a repaving.



293 Fancy new bridge next to one that looks not so good.



294 Tropicana Field with its whompus out of plumb roof.



295 Checking out Tampa on short final.



296 Classing this land of tankers up down here with a sexy piece of Dover airlift.



297 We got some beautiful Florida weather to cruise around through. Fire ‘em up and let’s get to work!



298 Loaded up a group of Aeromedics on a training mission. These are the most talented people that I never want to have to use, but if I need them, there isn’t a different group of medics, doctors, nurses, and surgeons I’d want working on me. Anytime anywhere for anything they have bandaids and lots lots more.



299 Oh look it’s that Scarebus joker of a C-130 and C-17 contraption that I wouldn’t ever take a ride in.



300 Got a fancy waterfront hotel breakfasts.



301 Normally I’d wander around the local area with the crew, but I won’t be on my own this stop.



302 Cousin bugabug came by to pick me up! “Wait you can drive?” Last time I saw you 10 years ago you were like 13, and not with tattoos…



303 “Hey you’re not my mom!” But you look like her. Dang identical twins confusing me since I was little.



304 Family reunion after 5 years, and they even had Coors Lite for me.



305 Nice living room décor with cousin Dave.

[adrianspeeder]

...

[adrianspeeder]

Trip 109, Fall 2015, Jordan Fail

306 “Hurray!” Our squadron got some money, so that means the ye ole boots got swapped out for a fresh pair of steel toes. I’m superstitious though, I hope nothing goes wrong not having my lucky old ones on.



307 Range of patches showing the vintageness and experience of this crew. Wait, mine is the oldest. When did I turn into the old guy?



308 So cruising across the ocean, I was kicking back relaxing with a nap. Suddenly woken with a, “BANG BANG BANG BOOM BOOM!” WTF is that? As I’m pulling my glasses on looking between the pilots, I’m seeing and hearing a Master Warning light, and “THRUST LOSS” alarm. Now I know this jet will fly all day just fine with three motors, but it’s a disheartening feeling watching the number 2 engine roll back to sub idle while the throttle is still up at its set power. “CHIEF!!!” “Well let’s run the compressor stall checklist friends. Pilot keep us shiny side up, copilot what’s your book say?”

1. Pull affected engine throttle to idle.
2. If compressor stall stops, slowly advance throttle to as needed setting.
3. If compressor stalls continue, shut down engine.

Well, here we go boys, and he slowly pushed up the power back to a normal running engine. This isn’t something we should take into the desert, so we made the call to divert to Spain, and take a look at things. Biggest risk with a compressor stall is bending blades in the core of the motor, or even the fan forward as the shockwave of air is going the wrong way.

The engines used on the C-17 are Pratt and Whitney F-117-100s, and are normally very reliable. The core and fan is identical to the P2000 series of engines on 757’s that had a million flight hours in the air at 1991 before the first C-17 even flew. Airlines don’t mess around with less than reliable since they have to make money. Only minor differences we have include a bit more horsepower with tuning, and different thrust reverser system that allows in flight use, and ground use by blocking the core exhaust to walk behind the motor during engine running offloads and refuels. We get ‘er on the ground at Rota and crack the doors open. Well there is the problem…



309 Ha! Not really. This also was the very first high bypass turbo fan motor that is completely digital and throttle by wire instead of control cables. The computer is something like a million bucks in itself to run the bitch. One of the features is recorded data burned to a disk that P&W can usually pretty quickly tell what’s wrong. Unfortunately, the 14th stage bleed air control valve called out by the engineer who deciphered the data wasn’t going to be changed in time to get the cargo shipped on time. A backup C-17 was launched to come pick up and get the goods to continue on. C5’s pull this stunt all the time, but this is my 109th mission, and the first I’ve not delivered. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten new boots!



310 Next day had the part changed, engine bore scoped, power run, and all signed off to fly. We’ll be now heading empty to chase after our original cargo to bring it home when the customer is done.



311 If you all wonder what I do on these periods of disconnection from the wired world, I usually am sitting behind the copilot reading with the Kindle app. Normally nonfiction or history, but got pulled into this series about a group of people trying to survive after a nuclear holocaust.



312 Almost at our downrange sandbox vacation destination kickin’ back and then a, “BANG BANG BANG BOOM BOOM!”

“You son of a &$&$& mother $&$&*& motor that doesn’t want to run right for @#$%. I hate you, and your stupid compressor stalling fits.”

Well let’s not land this where we don’t want to be stuck if the engine needs major repair. Not enough gas to get back to Spain, so closest friendly airfield is in Italy.



313 Pointed to divert to Italy.



314 Mount Etna is snow covered and lightly erupting, so we got that goin' for us.



315 If I wasn’t so annoyed at our motor, I’d find this funnier.



316 Never even knew the Netherlands had an Air Force. Converted KDC-10 tanker airliner.



317 Oh 169. You’ve been good to me every time before, but really on my worst days this is still the best job I’ve ever had.



318 So now what to do? Forget the cry to Pratt and Whitney and beg for help. Book says it could be a fuel pump delivery problem, fuel control valve scheduling problem, or an engine replacement. Screw it, I’ll order both a fuel pump and fuel controller. Gotta take the fuel control off to get to the fuel pump anyway. Made the appropriate calls to have it shipped in, so we wait. Normally would be a short process but a drone crashed on the runway and closed the airfield for a few days. Launch another backup jet to go take our cargo home. Oh well, I guess we’ll go occupy a bar. This is what the C5s must feel like all the time.



319 Three days later finally got my parts and two helpers to knock out the replacement. Pretty much the same idea of a fuel pump and carb replacement of a small block Chevy, except it’s an 8 million dollar motor instead. The two Mission Recovery Team members were top notch like how I used to do it back before flying. Knocked out the pump change as quick as safely possible, along with finding a few other things that could have caused the compressor stall. Book said our variable stater vane controller linkage could have a maximum force limit of 300 inch pounds to close, and mine would bind around 500 inch lbs and finally snap shut above the 600 of my wrench. Never had seen that before. Crisis management team of P&W, Boeing, myself, and 10 other people I didn't know were on a conference call all arguing. I asked everyone to stop, and said, "1. Can I run this engine, and 2. Can we safely fly it home for an engine change?" *crickets* Finally a P&W engineer said if I power ran it for an hour straight on the limits, and it passed the snap accell/decell checks, he'd wright our ED to get us home. At 0200 AM in the morning, I woke the island up with power run on the runway with engines 2 and 3 screaming at MAX for 1 hour at 1.42 EPR. Our limit is 625 degrees Celsius for the exhaust temp continuously, and 20mins at 20deg more. Every time she’d hit the red line, just pull it back a bit to reset the clock, then right back on ‘er! Now it’s time for the real fun of power reverse runs. There is a technique of pausing at reverse idle from power reverse before going back to forward thrust to just help the core and fan blocker doors out, but not today friends. 10 times we sat at max reverse, then pushing to max forward to time the acceleration. The rocking up and down of the airframe we had even with a ramp weight of 480k full of fuel surprised me. Never have run motors that hard before, but no stalls so let’s get the hell out of here before this turns into having to change the motor.



320 All the way home she behaved herself, but our bossman back at Dover was going to have none of it anymore. Turns out this is a factory engine to this airplane with over 9000 flight hours, and due for a change to get rebuilt back at P&W. Oh well, win some and lose some.



016 Crashed drone that ran off the end of the runway and dicked over the whole week closing the airfield



017 Looks expensive



018 Copilot hero shot



019 Pilot hero shot

[adrianspeeder]

Eurotrip 2015-12-10 to 2016-03-08.

004/005 – Night one, third flying stage: Starting it off right.





006 - I've created a scale model to explain why you shouldn't go to the 'Deid.



010 – All loaded up with Christmas cheer. 2015-12-25



018 – Iraqi Christmas dawn. 2015-12-25



024 - "Reach 435, expedite climb at best rate for traffic heading 230."
"Copy, searching for Santa, Reach 435." 2015-12-25



031/034 – Santa’s USAF delivery subcontractors. 2015-12-25





042 – Day after Christmas. Didn’t get what I wanted, but it’s still a cool trip.



044 – P&W power to the Moon!



046 – Ready to ride!



047 – ‘Murica.



049 – Sexy Dover tail.



054 – Who am I?



055 – All is well today.



056 – Heavy chooch.



058/059 - Baghdad bob!





062 – The load of maple syrup arrived eh?



063 – An old friend from McChord.

[shipwrecked]

Just the other day-sometime last week I heard a big boy flying over the Cape May region. You normally don't see or hear anything from Dover, just the huge aircraft like you fly in. I figured it was you making a trip to the barn. Keep up the good work. Love reading what real work gets done these days.

[grump]

After reading all the technical jargon for the engine I suddenly understood why I ended up in the infantry. Thanks Adrian, keep it coming.

[adrianspeeder]

064 – A nice Iraqi sunset.



067 – I still forget who I am.



068/069 – 3292: A vintage girl from the first run of C17s made back in ’94. She’s quirky.





070 – “Uhh chief, the left outboard flap looks droopy.” “Well LT, when you get that old, you’ll be droopy too.”



071 - Moose ops.



072-076 - Use enough water in the desert, and things can grow. You easily can tell the farmers with OCD vs low giveafucks.











077/078 – Tonight’s ride all the way from California.





080 – I see you!



082 – Get your shit off my jet!



084 – I see you!



085/086 - "Hi friend!" All around the world in every corner, always be runnin' into Team Dover.





087 – Second newest in the USAF fleet!



089 – What’s in the box?

[adrianspeeder]

After reading all the technical jargon for the engine I suddenly understood why I ended up in the infantry. Thanks Adrian, keep it coming.

No worries friend! I'm glad for you guys absolutely. Take out as many of the derps that shoot at us trying to land. Did just remind me of this though at 1min 28sec whenever I hear the word infantry.

https://youtu.be/bu0juhFBbjA?t=1m28s



Adrianspeeder

[adrianspeeder]

090 – Few days off and it’s nice not to shave.



091-093 - Next trip with an old friend, cool pilot, and an overnight in Turkey.







094 - Went on a BX shelf check, and bought the official GoPro selfie stick.



095 – Ze Germans!



096 – Next trip with an old friend, cool pilot, and an overnight in Turkey.



098 – Turkey.



100 – Turkey.



101 – Turkey.



104 – Turkey.



106 – Launch crew.



107 – Turkey.



108 – Turkey.



109 – Always a great pilot to fly for.



110 – Copilot hero shot.



111/114 – 4 – Heading into the land of Afghan.

[adrianspeeder]

115 – Pilot Hero shot.



116/119 - 4 – Heading into the land of Afghan.









122 – ‘Murica.



123 – Workin’ on the night shift baby!



125 - Stepping to this jet for a ride I was like, "Oh dick, I remember you!" Once years ago had a longer than normal TCVM change with sheared mounts. But it was another great trip alpha one no problems.



127 – That’s not where that panel goes.



128 – New nifty50 lens testing.



129/132 – Campfire ole son!









133/137 - 3 – New trip to Iraq. Weather was trash so not many pictures.







139 – Team Dover friend stopping through. Never hitchhike in Germany.



141 – Green countryside.



143 – Beautiful day to fly.

[adrianspeeder]

145 – Fighting down in the mud.



149 - Remember, if you stop breathing, the burn pit wins.



150/152 – Garfield asked me to drop off Nermal in a box with cut in holes at Abu Dhabi.







155/161 - 3 – Take off out of Abu Dhabi.







164 - Overfly of our favorite place to pit stop back in the day at Al Maktoum International Airport.



168 – Dubai International. Third busiest airport in the world. Crazy amount of jets.
“Emirates 34; Dubai Tower; Fly runway heading, to 3000, contact departure. Break. Reach 657; Dubai Tower; Wind 230 calm, clear to land runway three zero left.”
“Dubai tower; Reach 657; Traffic in sight, gear down, clear to land runway three zero left.”
“Reach 657; Tower; expedite landing roll, vacate left on kilo 2. Break. Emirates 82; Dubai Tower; Line up and wait in sequence runway three zero left, caution wake turbulence heavy charlie one seven on landing roll.”
“Damn, they don’t fuck around here at all on timing.”



171 – Dubai tower.



172 – Burj Khalifa – The tallest manmade structure in the world.



176 – Airbus A380



184 – Boeing 777-300



186 – “Overhead panel. Checked. B-loop Off."



189 – “Hey, where is the hold short line?” No missing this one.



193 – Desert sunset



196 – “Reach 657; Line up and wait behind landing traffic short final.”



198 – “Clear for takeoff.” “Good safety LACM.” “Punch it!”



201 – “Power coming in.”

[shipwrecked]

rolling suit cases? Wow....

just busting your stones.

Keep on flying.

[adrianspeeder]

202 – Headin’ out of Dubai.



203 – Burj Khalifa – The tallest manmade structure in the world.



206 – Headin’ out of Dubai.



207 – Desert sunset.



209 – Somethin’ going on down there.



211/212 – Pimpin’ out the headset to listen to the Walkman.





214 - Baghdad Bob!



216 – “In Soviet Russia, C-5ski flys YOU!” These guys were pretty cool actually. Their AC, nav, radio operator, and FE came over and were friendly for a tour. I went back over with a copilot, and chatted with their flight mechanic. Impressive size wise as a C5, but with some interesting differences. Like a KC-135, no air conditioning on the ground, so the whole flight deck is equipped with 8” trucker style fans. No safety cage though, just bare blades turning. I said that our copilots would hurt themselves with that, and the AC just started laughing.



217 – Barcode showed up behind us, and the gremlins jumped off giving me a TAWS fail.



219 – Leaving Iraq.



226 - The new 28-300mm 3.5-5.6 chunk of glass is now my favorite. Along with a rock solid new Manfrotto tripod made even this Chucktown bird look good on this Iraqi night. ISO-200, f/10, 30 seconds.



229/232 – Back to Germany and switched the rental car for something classy. I wish they sold these in diesel in the states. Loved it.





233 – Winter sucks.



238 – Foggy mountain breakdown.



244 - EuroAtlantic was known for operating the last Lockheed L-1011 TriStar in passenger service in Europe. It was phased out in March 2010 and is since stored at Amman Civil Airport in Jordan.



246/248 – Let’s have an epic crew rest in Jordan!







250 – Nice hotel.



256/260 – Jordan taxi ride.











263/278 – 11 – Petra: Lost City of Stone























282 – No safety rail.



283 – Epic crew shot.



284 – Dead Sea.

[adrianspeeder]

rolling suit cases? Wow....

just busting your stones.

Keep on flying.

Work smarter not harder!

Thanks!

Adrianspeeder

[adrianspeeder]

So sorry for lack of updates, this has been the busiest year of flying I've ever done. Barely have enough time between trips to mow foot high grass at the house. Recently passed 2000 hours, and last Thursday found out I was promoted to Technical Sgt.

Adrianspeeder

285/286 – I don’t know what was goin’ on out there, but dude was gettin’ it.





287 – Boots in the salty water.



289 - Still early, but gotta head to bed for an early alert on a flight home the next morning after 100+ days in the land of sand.



290 - Trying to sleep and this asshole is honking a loud ass horn.



293/298 – High speed hauling west across the Atlantic, but this guy was above us hammer down big time.





300 – Mission complete!

[grump]

Congrats on your promotion Adrian. Good to hear from you again. Hope things slow down a little bit for you.

[shipwrecked]

Where in the world is Adrianspeeder? Was thinking about where he's been since July. Haven't seen any new posts.