Scariest Ride?
Yeah, but it doesn't give you that "smoking deep hole in the ground" rush that an aircraft will.
6th Gear
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 3,748
Likes: 1
From: In my secret lair of justice somewhere among the sewers of Jacksonville Florida.
What afford a jet. I just fixed the damn things on rolling flight decks.
My maintenance officer offered the ride I jumped and went through the
whole ball of wax just to take the training flight with him. Had to go
through ejection simulators, 4 parachute jumps (static), pass the dilbert
dunker (an underwater simulator to prove you can get out of an upside
down submerged plane without suck up half the ocean, much harder than
you think let me tell ya) and other assorted stuff that he thought necessary
and oh yea sign my life away absolving Uncle of blame, yada yada yada.
The really dangerous place is working on the flight deck during flight ops.
40-50 planes fueled, armed and running all being manuvered to 4 catapults
by literally hundreds of men (and women now) each with a specific task. One
wrong move on anyones part and someone is hurt, maimed or dead. Oh and
the flight deck (steel coated with "no" grip) is smeared with fuel and hydraulic
fluid - ya don't need no stinkin skates to slide around (planes or men). And
sometimes the whole thing goes wrong like on the USS Forrestal (7/29/67) when
men and machines perished in the tragic flight deck chain reaction fires. I still get
nightmares. Top Gun just makes it look so damn clean and heroic.
Since I worked maintenance lead for my squadron on the flight deck my maintenance
officer wanted me to see the operation from his side. I wasn't the only flight deck
maintenance person from my squadron that he took for this little ride, and not the only
one to throw up when I got back to dry land either - maintenance officer was a hot
shot pilot. We were all the better for it and it makes one hell of a story on the NAM forum
don't it?
And you did say most dangerous ride - after 40 years it's still the most
dangerous thing I have ever done bar none. Would I do it again now? HELL YES -
where's the plane, can we use a TFA18 Hornet this time, can we huh? Pleeeeezeeee.
My maintenance officer offered the ride I jumped and went through the
whole ball of wax just to take the training flight with him. Had to go
through ejection simulators, 4 parachute jumps (static), pass the dilbert
dunker (an underwater simulator to prove you can get out of an upside
down submerged plane without suck up half the ocean, much harder than
you think let me tell ya) and other assorted stuff that he thought necessary
and oh yea sign my life away absolving Uncle of blame, yada yada yada.
The really dangerous place is working on the flight deck during flight ops.
40-50 planes fueled, armed and running all being manuvered to 4 catapults
by literally hundreds of men (and women now) each with a specific task. One
wrong move on anyones part and someone is hurt, maimed or dead. Oh and
the flight deck (steel coated with "no" grip) is smeared with fuel and hydraulic
fluid - ya don't need no stinkin skates to slide around (planes or men). And
sometimes the whole thing goes wrong like on the USS Forrestal (7/29/67) when
men and machines perished in the tragic flight deck chain reaction fires. I still get
nightmares. Top Gun just makes it look so damn clean and heroic.
Since I worked maintenance lead for my squadron on the flight deck my maintenance
officer wanted me to see the operation from his side. I wasn't the only flight deck
maintenance person from my squadron that he took for this little ride, and not the only
one to throw up when I got back to dry land either - maintenance officer was a hot
shot pilot. We were all the better for it and it makes one hell of a story on the NAM forum
don't it?
And you did say most dangerous ride - after 40 years it's still the mostdangerous thing I have ever done bar none. Would I do it again now? HELL YES -
where's the plane, can we use a TFA18 Hornet this time, can we huh? Pleeeeezeeee.
Amen to that! I didn't have to pay money for my ride, but I sure had a lot of prep to deal with. At least the Vark had an ejection capsule, but it still required some classes.
Some of the things that happen around A/C makes your skin crawl from the plane fixer point of view. Egress systems going off while some poor schmuck is working the the cockpit, getting sucked into intakes, or blown twenty yards by being too close to the hot end of the airplane. Oh, I could go on.
Some of the things that happen around A/C makes your skin crawl from the plane fixer point of view. Egress systems going off while some poor schmuck is working the the cockpit, getting sucked into intakes, or blown twenty yards by being too close to the hot end of the airplane. Oh, I could go on.
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Sep 29, 2015 07:37 AM