Welcome to The Flight Engineer's Story Line

GySgt. Cogswell - Powerplant Mechanic, Sends This For 149807

149807

 A/C 807 was assigned to VMGR-152 at the time it was stricken. After completing a phase inspection the A/C was taxied to the end of the runway at MCAS Futenma for the phase run. During the high power portion of the run the FE assigned to run the A/C noticed unusual fluctuations of the engine instruments. The fluctuations were caused by the rupture of the cross wing manifold bleed air duct. The crew had no way of knowing the manifold had ruptured and attempted to troubleshoot the fluctuations. By the time the overheat warning indicators illuminated and the crew shut down and egressed the A/C it was too late. No one on the crew was injured but the damage to the A/C was significant enough to cause the A/C too be stricken from the inventory. This incident resulted in the Technical Directive that called for the replacement of the cross wing manifold system with the new inconel bleed air duct system. All usuable parts were removed from the aircraft and sent off to be inspected and then possible placed into the supply system. The airframe from the 245 bulkhead forward was shipped stateside, I don't know if it made the journey intact or where it is or what it was used for. When I transfered from 152 in 2000 the wings were still in a crate at DRMO.

Tony Villa - KC130 Flight Engineer Sends This Story of Wake Island

When I was a roodipoo FET, I had the "opportunity" to fly to Osan
with Chuck Lee and Mike "Doc" Savage as my instructors. On the way
we naturally had to stop in Wake.

As this was a red eye from Hickam, we had arrived at 0700. Luckily for me, we had a down day and having never been there, Doc proceeded to give me a tour of the island. With Corona's in hand, we ventured out, visiting all the local points of interest (POW Rock, the lagoon, the bunkers, etc...) all the while listening to Doc's history lesson and making
sure not to disturb the "live ordnance" or "human remains".

 And of course since it was my first time I was instructed to make sure and wear a hat and tie to Drifter's Reef later that evening for cocktail hour (I didn't have a tie). The hat was ceremoniously stapled to the bar and I got to buy all my friends .50 cent beers the rest of the night. As you can imagine I was pretty plowed around closing time, and yes I did jump off the bridge "nekkid".

Earlier this year (Sep 06) I heard that Wake Island was hit by a category 5 "Super" Typhoon. I guess that means that all the ceiling tiles at Drifters are gone. That's too bad. There was a lot of history on that ceiling.

Tony Villa - KC130 Flight Engineer Sends This Story of Lithuania

We were on a two
week deployment in support of the USAF 56th Air Rescue Squadron in July 92.
On this day we were involved in the rescue of a Lithuanian sailor from a
fishing trawler about 250 miles off the coast. We tanked the H-60's 2-3
times and acted as radio relay as the trawler had only HF capabilities. Sgt
Keith Duggan (RO) was able to communicate with them despite not speaking
Russian (one of the sailors kind of understood English). We had to get them
to lash down various antennas in order to lower rescue personnel onboard.
One of the PJ's struck a mast on the way down and was hurt pretty bad. The
second guy made it and all went well after that. Turns out the sailor had an
infected pancreas.

Crew of 148891

A week later we did it again with another Russian
trawler. This time we brought an interpreter. It was a lot easier. The
bright side of this story was that after an actual mission you were off duty
for 24 hours. We got to drink a few beers. The crew: Capt Bernie Lavalley,
1stLt Mitch Bell, 1stLt Hugh "Huge" Worden, SSgt Tony Villa, Sgt Keith
Duggan, Sgt Mark "Buffy" Mattox, Sgt Mark "Peaches" Anliker.