Pictures while using frequent flyer miles

[adrianspeeder]

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[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

[popeyes71]

Great pictures as usual, thanks for sharing!

[DuckRyder]

I can't seem to get the above map image to display inline, but this link should show it...

http://map1.maploco.com/visited-states/ ... -WI-WV.png

[jzjames]

Did you ever fly over your hometown? See it?

[adrianspeeder]

We've sent Dover jets up to Harrisburg International a few times now where they go up on training runs, but since they don't stop it isn't required to have a Flying Crew Chief onboard.

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]

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[jzjames]

Lookin good. Make sure you take pictures of those breakfasts!

[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.

[JbTech]

I'm not on this site often, but your stories and pictures are striking!

It's not likely, but you may have helped me fly on several of those birds in/out of the 'Stan in 2010/2011. Awesome birds.

Keep the pictures coming!
Thanks again!

[adrianspeeder]

Thanks friend. Never know!

Also thanks for doing what you did. No point to my job without customers to haul!

Adrianspeeder

[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 **** 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?