11. May 2009 by Ponch.

Well time to stop procrastinating and post on the Bob blog.  Business at the bomber plant (AF plnt 42) is slow this week.  We delivered another jet back to Whiteman last week and we will not get a replacement until Friday.   One humorous story about the last delivery.  After landing, as part of the shutdown, the aircrew opened the bomb doors and out dropped an ink pen that hitched a ride to Whiteman AFB.  Probably a bad scene for any aircraft to have loose ink pens bobbing around inside,  even more so when the contract for Northrop to accomplish depot level maintenance is heavily weighted on customer satisfaction.   A few bad jokes were bantered about like this was a WESP for a new mini JDAM ect ect.  Needless to say there is allot of tight lipped managers and folks in charge out here looking to neuter the pens owner if they could only find him/her.  A collective head slap is coming for all soon…you remember those don’t’ you?

 Kind’a reminds me of a Bomb Comp mission way back when that turned out ugly and got uglier.  It all went bad when the weapon in the bay refused to extricate itself at the appropriate time over the Red Flag range.  The crew knew on the way back they had a “hanger” and took the appropriate precautions as well as calling back home with the bad news.  Needless to say there was quite a reception party waiting as they taxied back to the spot.  As the story goes the Radar-nav handed the weapon pin to the MMS dude shortly after engine shutdown.  Were-upon the young MMS troop scurried into the
bombay and purportedly inserted the pin back in it’s place to safe the weapon before opening the doors –per ops normal.  About this time the wing king and the MMS squadron commander drove up –did I mention that allot was ridding on this Bomb Comp in personnel bets and braggadocio by our illustrious wing king? Well as legend has it, the young AC hopped down the ladder to greet the wing king and offer his condolences were upon the doors were open and the MMS squadron commander peered into the bay to spy non other then the weapon – with pin installed.  Needless to say he made a rather loud report of his finding to all on the ramp.  The wing king upon hearing the news – at just about the same time the young AC was reporting and saluting smartly – wear-upon the wing king,, overcome by emotion, proceeded to “SLAP” the young AC across the head knocking his hat off before storming over to see for himself the offending “pin”..  Well it wasn’t long before the Radar –nav was locked in a battle with all around him as they cast fingers of blame on he and his side-kick the nav for failing to pull the pin.  The Radar naturally defended his preflight and post flight actions vehemently.  It got so bad that the ‘King” had the hospital commander out to try and measure the “pins” body temperature to determine if it made the flight in the weapons bay as the MMS SQ CC claimed, or in more comfortable steerage as the Radar-nav swore too.  I don’t remember the outcome of the ordeal as we were taxiing in from our own Bomb-Comp disaster (we were the “other” crew).  We had just returned from the STRC bomb competition run.  As we taxied in,  our tails were tucked about as far as they could get between our legs (more so if I had known head slaps were in order for screwing-up).  We didn’t have to do a bomb-bay check to know what sin we had committed.  We got almost instant feedback from the range as we made a wide slicing post release turn and ended a few miles out of corridor.  Nothing I can think of  is more ugly then hearing over the radio “aircraft we are tracking 2 miles north of corridor…blaa blaa blaa.  So we un-assed our three K selves from the jet and skulked back to the squadron to await our punishment.  That’s when we heard about the head slapping incident.  The next day we were back at work waiting to hear our fate when the whole world changed.  A tanker making a simple TACAN approach on a VFR day crashed in flames on the runway killing the crew.  Needless to say we didn’t get any feedback on our bomb-comp infidelity and we learned the hard way about life’s priorities.  So in retrospect an ink pen bouncing on terraferma probably is not as big a deal as most things in life.  I suppose age gives on a little perspective as well as arthritis.

As for the more personnel news…we finally can afford a house to purchase out here in the land of fruits and nuts.  We got a nice 5 bedroom single story in a fairly nice part of the desert…thus accomplishing two of my short term goals.  I think you remember them from past rants.  I did manage not to pay ½ million dollars for a house and I’m not stuck living in a trailer-park in the desert….at least not yet.  Hope this months BoB finds all of you in good health and happier times.

Peace-out

From the Ponch       

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11. May 2009 by The Chuck.

I like May. Not only do I celebrate another birthday, meaning I’m officially another year old–though not as old as Elwood or Ponch–but I also get to hear from Ed Miller. We share the same birthday, even though he is such a youngster.

Ed always calls me ever since I called him while he was SOF one birthday. After he was over being weirded-out, he commented it was the first time a colonel had called him to sing the happy birthday song. My froggy rendition of Happy Birthday garnered me the annual update from him–so it was more than worth the effort.

My Dad and step-Mom visited this week, which is great as we live so fare from our extended families. In addition, our oldest daughter drove down to see us–which is about as good as it gets. We miss her ever since she moved away with her career.

There are roads we don’t drive down in Shreveport anymore–unless we want to feel bad. And who would ever want that?

I’m still working with the company–80 hours each two-weeks. It’s nice to pay the bills. I’m writing as I can. And I’m looking forward to the ACFW conference in September.

Hopefully some of you guys will post here this month–I’m pretty sure the rest of us would appreciate an update.  I know I would.

I’ll post at you later.

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