Sheik_Yer_Booty
Ruler of Kingdom Come!!!
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2002
- Posts
- 30
Lets talk a little bit about past flying jobs we’ve all had to endure.
The good with the bad, the normal to the odd, the criminal to outright insane…
I have found talking to other aviators that most of us, nonmilitary type have had some rather interesting experiences time building.
In my last traditional box hauling job which I held for only 3 months before landing my first jet job we had a co worker who grew up in Africa, came to the states to train then returned to Africa and fly for a relief organization into and out of such places as Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. He has the scars and pictures to prove his baptism by fire. He actually had a Piper Chieftain shot to pieces around him and he landed it on a roadway only to have to run for his life from an angry crowd.
He returned to the states to pursue a degree and ended up marrying a beautiful woman and ultimately acquired legal US citizenship. He now flies for a regional carrier.
Myself… well I towed banners, ferried planes, flew boxes, fire patrol, runner and then one season as a slurry pilot. While it’s not quite the same as making the midnight run over Baghdad looking for a bunker to bust amongst all the flak. Ridge running in the west and southwest can definitely reach a level of danger all its own.
The most excitement I had was, as a runner about 10 years ago near San Bernardino in a Baron. My job was to fly into the area and choose the best path for the slurries and tankers to enter and exit from. We would then coordinate with the guys on the ground so I would drop 7,500 gallons of fire retardant on them.
You usually had a spotter in the backseat moving from one side of the plane to the other constantly looking through binoculars and yelling into a two-way radio.
Once I agreed upon the track to take we would hookup with the tankers, usually DC-6’s, L-188’s or C-130’s orbiting above the fray and in we would go.
The trick is to get them low enough to make a solid cluster drop, not letting it spread out all over the place, while maintaining a safe altitude. Sometimes you are trying to hit a slope on a mountain that is literally at a 50-degree incline. It’s a hell of a rush to put a Baron on its wing tips at 500 feet AGL scream thru a canyon pass, but its unnerving to catch a quick glance over your left shoulder and see an L-188 just 300 yards behind you in that same 50 to 60 degree bank. Believe me brother… you make your peace with God real fast.
These slurry drivers put their fate and their very lives in our hands as runners. They would follow us into the smoke and haze starting at a distance of about ½ to ¾ a mile. You would dive in throttles to the firewall, continentals screaming and pray you could clear the smoke before the slurry ate up the ground between you and him.
80% of the actual run was IMC due to the smoke but you couldn’t look at the gauges at all, you were so low that the only change you had to pull it off was to hope you saw tree tops in time. Most of the time on climb out, the slurry is now several thousand pounds lighter than it was a second or two ago and they would almost overrun you. I’ve got a kick ass video taken from news chopper of me disappearing into a smoke bank with my slurry in tow, a few second s pass, you can barely see the outline of the tanker, then read cloud of retardant and all goes white and gray. The camera man follows us on through and you see on the other side of the canyon me come out of the smoke and roll immediately hard right and less than two seconds later the slurry come out and roll hard left.
Man I tell ya I was beautiful!!!
I sure do miss those days, especially the hours after RTB, clean up and de briefing. We’d all camp out in the hanger, grilling burgers and dogs, sucking down brews just **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** happy to be alive.
And exactly why did we do it? That’s simple, because we could.
Folks outside of the fraternity we call aviation sometimes believe that our military brethren are the only ones who go into harms way while airborne.
What’s your story?
Sheik
The good with the bad, the normal to the odd, the criminal to outright insane…
I have found talking to other aviators that most of us, nonmilitary type have had some rather interesting experiences time building.
In my last traditional box hauling job which I held for only 3 months before landing my first jet job we had a co worker who grew up in Africa, came to the states to train then returned to Africa and fly for a relief organization into and out of such places as Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia. He has the scars and pictures to prove his baptism by fire. He actually had a Piper Chieftain shot to pieces around him and he landed it on a roadway only to have to run for his life from an angry crowd.
He returned to the states to pursue a degree and ended up marrying a beautiful woman and ultimately acquired legal US citizenship. He now flies for a regional carrier.
Myself… well I towed banners, ferried planes, flew boxes, fire patrol, runner and then one season as a slurry pilot. While it’s not quite the same as making the midnight run over Baghdad looking for a bunker to bust amongst all the flak. Ridge running in the west and southwest can definitely reach a level of danger all its own.
The most excitement I had was, as a runner about 10 years ago near San Bernardino in a Baron. My job was to fly into the area and choose the best path for the slurries and tankers to enter and exit from. We would then coordinate with the guys on the ground so I would drop 7,500 gallons of fire retardant on them.
You usually had a spotter in the backseat moving from one side of the plane to the other constantly looking through binoculars and yelling into a two-way radio.
Once I agreed upon the track to take we would hookup with the tankers, usually DC-6’s, L-188’s or C-130’s orbiting above the fray and in we would go.
The trick is to get them low enough to make a solid cluster drop, not letting it spread out all over the place, while maintaining a safe altitude. Sometimes you are trying to hit a slope on a mountain that is literally at a 50-degree incline. It’s a hell of a rush to put a Baron on its wing tips at 500 feet AGL scream thru a canyon pass, but its unnerving to catch a quick glance over your left shoulder and see an L-188 just 300 yards behind you in that same 50 to 60 degree bank. Believe me brother… you make your peace with God real fast.
These slurry drivers put their fate and their very lives in our hands as runners. They would follow us into the smoke and haze starting at a distance of about ½ to ¾ a mile. You would dive in throttles to the firewall, continentals screaming and pray you could clear the smoke before the slurry ate up the ground between you and him.
80% of the actual run was IMC due to the smoke but you couldn’t look at the gauges at all, you were so low that the only change you had to pull it off was to hope you saw tree tops in time. Most of the time on climb out, the slurry is now several thousand pounds lighter than it was a second or two ago and they would almost overrun you. I’ve got a kick ass video taken from news chopper of me disappearing into a smoke bank with my slurry in tow, a few second s pass, you can barely see the outline of the tanker, then read cloud of retardant and all goes white and gray. The camera man follows us on through and you see on the other side of the canyon me come out of the smoke and roll immediately hard right and less than two seconds later the slurry come out and roll hard left.
Man I tell ya I was beautiful!!!
I sure do miss those days, especially the hours after RTB, clean up and de briefing. We’d all camp out in the hanger, grilling burgers and dogs, sucking down brews just **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** happy to be alive.
And exactly why did we do it? That’s simple, because we could.
Folks outside of the fraternity we call aviation sometimes believe that our military brethren are the only ones who go into harms way while airborne.
What’s your story?
Sheik