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Clem Clement · 06-08-2012, 08:50 PM

Our KB's went thru Wake, But I joined the 421st after those missions were finished. The tanks were haulin the Thuds to west pac(Itazuke). I have forgotten the stories about old Mag check.

I do remember coming to the WB at Goose one chilly morning and gas is running out of everywhere. The ground crew put Herman -Nelson heaters on all the Whitaker sliding gate vales in the flap wells and the gas running stopped. They signed the aircraft off... I was not happy but the WB did not blow up.

Again at Eilson we were told to crank a parked WB that was outside with a foot of snow on it. I was a junior guy so the AC and FE took me with them. The AC told the rest of the crew to stay in the warm hanger. This was one of those dumb things we sometimes were told to do. If you remember the Starter CB's were huge and buried some where in the wing root. About 10 seconds on each starter and pow! The ground crew had hours of work in the icey aircraft to change all 4 of the CB's.

Cold weather ops was surely different. In the good side, we had a mx guy who got a terrible rash in Hawaii. The FS could do nothing with it. The fellow was missing trips and not getting good reports. Finally he begged to go and the sent him with us to Alaska. The cold cleared him up in a week!! And he got promoted the next cycle. Those were the good old days when mx was part of the Squadron.

06-08-2012, 08:50 PM	#27
Clem Clement Senior Member Join Date: May 2010 Location: Fairfax, VA Posts: 3,393	Re: Aviation gas in Model A Our KB's went thru Wake, But I joined the 421st after those missions were finished. The tanks were haulin the Thuds to west pac(Itazuke). I have forgotten the stories about old Mag check. I do remember coming to the WB at Goose one chilly morning and gas is running out of everywhere. The ground crew put Herman -Nelson heaters on all the Whitaker sliding gate vales in the flap wells and the gas running stopped. They signed the aircraft off... I was not happy but the WB did not blow up. Again at Eilson we were told to crank a parked WB that was outside with a foot of snow on it. I was a junior guy so the AC and FE took me with them. The AC told the rest of the crew to stay in the warm hanger. This was one of those dumb things we sometimes were told to do. If you remember the Starter CB's were huge and buried some where in the wing root. About 10 seconds on each starter and pow! The ground crew had hours of work in the icey aircraft to change all 4 of the CB's. Cold weather ops was surely different. In the good side, we had a mx guy who got a terrible rash in Hawaii. The FS could do nothing with it. The fellow was missing trips and not getting good reports. Finally he begged to go and the sent him with us to Alaska. The cold cleared him up in a week!! And he got promoted the next cycle. Those were the good old days when mx was part of the Squadron.