T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
Acid Trip
David L Hawk
As the last flight of C-141s are scheduled for next
month I thought I pass
along a little personal story that includes C-141
Humor.
It was 1983 and Norton AFB was working on breaking
the consecutive on time
departure record. In MAC, then, promotions were a
direct result of on-time departures.
If I remember correctly we were very
close. So for every departure
was "extra" pressure for the crew.
We were at Anderson AFB, Guam. I was an FEFE in the
53rd MAS. Early morning
departure to Clark AB, Passengers on board ready to
run checklist.
Loadmaster: "Pilot - Load"
Aircraft Commander: "Go Ahead Load"
Loadmaster:" Sir - did you file the flight plan with
hazardous cargo?"
Aircraft Commander: "No - what's up?"
Loadmaster: "Sir, we have hazardous cargo on this
pallet here"
Now that news was not good. Of course that meant the
AC would need to go back
to Base Ops to re-file and add the Hazardous cargo
to the flight plan. As a result, we would go into delay.
Aircraft Commander:- "Command post - six zero one
five zero (really don't remember the tail#)
Command Post - "Go Ahead"
Aircraft Commander: "Sir, Air Freight has placed
hazardous cargo on one of the
pallets, do you have any information on this?"
Command Post - "negative"
Aircraft Commander: "Well, we have it on a pallet
and this is going to cause a
delay, one which you guys are going to take due to
the circumstances."
At that point we got all the help we needed, along
with the air freight commander and base ops commander.
They arrived immediately after we got the Pax into the bus.
When these two officers arrived at the aircraft the
AC and I went downstairs to
inspect the offending cargo with the loadmaster, the
loadmaster pointed to the
pallet and stated "see - citric acid".
We made the departure time.
Sure - Now you laugh.