T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
The C-141 A and B Starlifter Airplane
Fred Garrison
After working on bombers and tankers for seven years,
I was sent to McGuire
Air Force Base New Jersey, McGoo Air Plane Patch. I
was moved from the
Strategic Air Command, SAC, to the Military Airlift
Command, MAC.
The airplane there at the time was the C-141A.
Actually it was just the
C-141. The A wasn't added until they started
stretching them. Then the A became
the B.
My first night on the flight line, I was sent to
parking location N2, or
Nancy Two, to do a preflight on aircraft 183. On
approach to the plane I
noticed a drop of fluid fall from number three
engine. Pulled out my 3/16th rag
wrench and proceeded to find another drop of fluid.
Opened up the accessory
doors and a half inch nut hit me on my forehead. Got
to looking and saw the
hydraulic pump had a missing nut. Went to bench
stock, got a half inch locking
nut and replaced it. The fluid was just residual
from the engine shut down. But
was my first impression of the plane. Which supports
the belief that after it
flies one time, it's broke until it hits the bone
yard or the trash can. You
let me look long enough at an airplane, any of them,
and I'll find something
wrong.
MAC had a you call we haul policy.
With SAC, other than training missions, there had to
be some sort
justification to start dropping bombs.
There within and between these two major United
States Air Force Major
Commands there were two cultures of mechanics; there
were two cultures between
the flight crews too. And it was the mission that
dictated how these people
operated, as teams. In SAC Crew Chiefs stayed with
their plane and it was not
uncommon for a Crew Chief to come out to his
airplane on one of his days off
and polish his engines, or replace a floor board or
something. MAC's Crew
Chiefs seldom ever saw their planes. Operations and
Maintenance had fewer
issues in SAC than in MAC. The Mission dictated that
too. In SAC unless we were
dropping bombs, it was pretty much like US post
office hours. In MAC it was
24-7.
My tenure with the C-141 lasted for about 14 years
and two bases, McGuire
New Jersey and Rhein Main Germany. The positions I
held were: Ramp Rat, Crew
Chief, Expediter, Assistant Shift Chief, Shift
Chief, Task Oriented Training
Instructor, Engine Run Instructor, Assistant NCOIC
of the Tool Room, NCOIC of
the Tool Room, Safety NCO, Enroute Expediter,
Enroute Team Chief, Enroute
Controller, Senior controller, Line Chief, and I
know there's more.
In the early days of working on a USAF flight line
there were three
Squadrons which actually did the maintaining on all
airplanes. AMS, FMS, and
OMS.
AMS or The Avionics Maintenance Squadron is where you
could find shops like
the Instrument shop, Radar Shop, Doppler Shop, INS
Shop, and the Radio Shop.
They had folks they could dispatch out to the flight
line and they had folks
that worked in the shop, fixing black boxes mostly.
FMS or The Field Maintenance Squadron is where you
could find shops like the
Machine Shop, Hydraulic Shop, Sheet Metal Shop,
Pneumatic Shop, Ground Support
Equipment Shop and the Aero Repair Shop. They had
folks they could dispatch out
to the flight line and they had folks that worked in
the shop, fixing black
boxes or other parts.
OMS or the Organizational Maintenance Squadron is
where you could find the
people who performed all of the inspections and
servicing of fuel, liquid
oxygen, oil, hydraulic fluid, systems testing,
towing, jacking and the 780
equipment: seats, stanchions, oxygen bottles,
wenches, etc.
Job Control was the place that coordinated with
Operations and the brass to
bring the orchestra together that got the airplane
off of the ground. This is
where the 'you call we haul policy' met the ground.
During the daily life of an airplane with 4 or more
engines in the Air
Force: After landing OMS would marshal the plane
onto a designated parking
spot, the crew and passengers would depart the
plane. Then OMS would refuel the
plane for it's next mission, inspect it, then top
off the liquid oxygen, while
the write ups from the inspection are called into
job control. From there the
different shops within AMS and FMS would be
dispatched to the flight line to
clear the write ups. About 8 hours before take off
OMS would inspect the plane
complete the paperwork and sign over the plane to
Operations.
On paper, theoretically, it sounds good, and it
worked for SAC beautify. But
MAC had some flaws with it. The whole thing revolved
around the Crew Chief
System.
In SAC a person who was called the Crew Chief stayed
with his plane.
Anywhere the plane went the Crew Chief went too.
MAC was a different story. If the regular crew chief
was to be sent with
their airplane, it could be a very long time before
they saw home. So, as a
general rule, even if your name was on the side of an
airplane, it was very seldom
you would even see your airplane much less work on
it.
Configuration changes were nonexistent in SAC. Their
mission stays the same:
Take bombs to a designated target and drop them.
In MAC configuration changes were the norm. The
incoming mission could be
setup for passengers and the next mission out would
be for patients. That's a
lot of work to remove the triple passenger seats and
install the stanchions
with litters and red side seats. To make a long
story short, when ever a
mission came down there would be a lot of work by a
bunch of people to make it
happen. There was always something that could be
done to help things or speed
up the process.
This photo of 66-0183 was taken by Bob Dolittle
There are a lot of tail numbers that I remember. But
66-0183 sticks out the
most. One night at Rhein Main AB, we were notified
of a 141 coming in with an
in-flight emergency. The emergency was the landing
gear would not lower.
There was an operation sky hook established. This is
where a party line is
established with everyone on the phone listening in;
Maintenance, Operations,
Fire Department, and Security. He was patched into
my hand held radio. I ask if
he could pull some negative G's to see if the gear
would drop out of the wheel
wells, but that didn't work.
After the plane landed it stopped and shut down
engines at the end of the
runway. Being we shared the runway with the
Frankfort Airport we had to
expedite the removal of the aircraft from the end of
the runway.
When we got the aircraft to the parking spot we saw
where the flight crew
had actually poked a hole in the left side of the
fuselage to pry the gear
down. We also found the step one cable for the
emergency extension of the
landing gear which appeared to have been diked or
purposely cut by someone.
This is about all we did that night as it was about
time for our shift to end
and we were about to take our three day break.
When we came back from our break I noticed 183 still
there. My turn over
said that there was an interconnect valve on order
and it would be in tomorrow
morning. They had replaces the step one emergency
gear extension cable. I went
on with my routine task as 183 was not much of a
priority for the moment as
other aircraft needed more attention. At about
0300hrs, that's 3 AM for you
civilians, our work, was caught up and I decided to
go ahead and remove the old
interconnect valve and have everything ready for the
next shift to install it
as soon as it came in. This was an attempt to help
things along so another
mission could be accomplished by the airplane in as
short of time as
possible.
Just so you know, the interconnect valve ties the
number 3 hydraulic system
to the number 2 hydraulic system. The number 2
hydraulic system, runs off of
number one and two engine hydraulic pumps, and
operated the primary flight
controls and landing gear, while the number 3
hydraulic system was designed to
operate systems on the ground.
After disconnecting the hydraulic supply line and
looking at the inside of
the manually operated valve, I couldn't find
anything wrong with it. My trouble
shooting instincts had my curiosity meter pegged
out.
This is not rocket science, its Lockheed science.
About a 10 gallon tank
with red fluid a couple of feet from a good valve
that we were about to change
because no fluid is coming out of a 2 inch diameter
line connecting the
two.
I opened the cap on the tank and there was red fluid.
So I proceeded to take
off the 2 foot by 2 inch diameter line. After
getting the lock nut off, as I
started to pull the line away from the tank there
looked like a brown paper
filter in the line, looked just like the fuel filter
on Papa's tractor. Then I
got to thinking: Why would there be a paper filter
in a 2 inch supply line that
is pressurized to 2000 psi? So I pulled the line out
a little more, then the
obvious wad of paper towels flopped onto the tank of
the hydraulic reservoir.
It took me a minute to realize what I had just
discovered. Someone was trying
to crash this girl.
Went back to the office and got on the telephone,
this was the days before
cell phones and the internet. Discussed the
situation over with the Senior
Controller in Maintenance Control and he notified
security who call the OSI,
Office of Special Investigations.
The aircraft was quarantined and every person going
in or near the plane had
to sign in and out. When we took off the engine
hydraulic filters, the filters
were stuck in their cups with soap, and there were
pieces ear plugs and paper
towels on the filters. When we checked the aileron,
flap, elevator, and rudder
pack filters we found the same thing.
Before this plane could fly again the whole entire
hydraulic system had to
be flushed. This had never been done. We got
together with a Lockheed rep and
devised a plan which included fabricating some
special hoses and got it done.
Did a full systems ring out on everything and sent
her on her way.
I sat for two full days in a sound proof room being
questioned by an OSI
agent. I heard later that they thought someone back
at McGuire had put soap
packets, ear plugs, paper towels, and packets of
handy wipes in the number two
hydraulic system, and then diked the step one
emergency gear extension
cable.
They say that flying is hours upon hours of boredom
interrupted by moments
of shear terror. I do hope they caught the person
who helped to bring shear
terror to all of those folks that night.