Memories From My 'War' Days
During my last two years in the military I was a courier. That meant I could leave Offutt AFB with lots and lots of equipment, and or documents destined for many different locations around the Midwest... or, I could leave with as little as a single envelope destined for 'wherever'.
There were scheduled runs, for example I may leave for several bases in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa using a small contract airplane that would pick me up at Offutt and return me to Offutt upon completion of my run. I have many stories to tell about my experiences as a courier, but this particular day we were going to Minneapolis MN, and back. We'd land at a hangar off the main airport in Minneapolis.
On this day, I had a young lady as the pilot and an old grizzled retired Army warrant officer as the copilot. We always flew in a twin engine Piper Navajo, generally no higher than 10,000 feet.
It was an uneventful flight, me in the back, behind the pilots within the single passenger seat with the remainder of the area for my cargo. I'm reading a book which I did allot of... the drone of the two engines sometimes making me sleepy... my single seat was approximately 5-6 feet behind the pilots. I 'could' yak at them, but it was not quiet in there so one would have to raise their voice to talk.
I glanced at my watch and saw we had about 20 minutes till arrival in Minneapolis. I sensed the slow descent into the airport there and continued reading. I knew the landing routine by heart... at a certain height, generally by the 5,000 foot mark, the pilots would flip to the 'fullest' fuel tanks. Today, before that happened....., silence... a deafening silence enveloped the plane. I glanced out to the right (my side), and saw the prop was not moving...a quick pinch of my arse cheeks and my head jerked left.... arrgh, prop not moving. Head snapping to the pilot section saw looks of concern and quick mouth movements coming from both. The pilot looked calm but concerned, the old grizzled fellow looked like he'd messed his pants.
Switches were being flipped and I could see them trying to start the right engine. It finally caught and that caused the plane to lurch forward at an angle. When they got the left engine started, another lurch until they were able to correct / stabilize the situation. I let a few minutes pass (not many), moved around in my seat abit to see if I felt any wet spots, then snapped my seatbelt, crawled forward and asked if anyone had any toilet paper. That seemed to break the tension abit and we were all inwardly saying our prayers thanking whomever it was we each prayed to.
Turns out, the switching to the fullest tanks had not occurred yet, and the tanks we were running on showed almost 1/4 full but needed to be re-calibrated. We had 'literally' run out of gas in mid-air.
In our courier station we had a refrigerator kept full of beer. While never used while 'on duty' we had one rule. If a courier came in off a flight and headed straight for the refrigerator, nobody bothered him. We all knew 'stuff' happened on that airplane... that day, I visited the frige.
There were scheduled runs, for example I may leave for several bases in Missouri, Kansas and Iowa using a small contract airplane that would pick me up at Offutt and return me to Offutt upon completion of my run. I have many stories to tell about my experiences as a courier, but this particular day we were going to Minneapolis MN, and back. We'd land at a hangar off the main airport in Minneapolis.
On this day, I had a young lady as the pilot and an old grizzled retired Army warrant officer as the copilot. We always flew in a twin engine Piper Navajo, generally no higher than 10,000 feet.
It was an uneventful flight, me in the back, behind the pilots within the single passenger seat with the remainder of the area for my cargo. I'm reading a book which I did allot of... the drone of the two engines sometimes making me sleepy... my single seat was approximately 5-6 feet behind the pilots. I 'could' yak at them, but it was not quiet in there so one would have to raise their voice to talk.
I glanced at my watch and saw we had about 20 minutes till arrival in Minneapolis. I sensed the slow descent into the airport there and continued reading. I knew the landing routine by heart... at a certain height, generally by the 5,000 foot mark, the pilots would flip to the 'fullest' fuel tanks. Today, before that happened....., silence... a deafening silence enveloped the plane. I glanced out to the right (my side), and saw the prop was not moving...a quick pinch of my arse cheeks and my head jerked left.... arrgh, prop not moving. Head snapping to the pilot section saw looks of concern and quick mouth movements coming from both. The pilot looked calm but concerned, the old grizzled fellow looked like he'd messed his pants.
Switches were being flipped and I could see them trying to start the right engine. It finally caught and that caused the plane to lurch forward at an angle. When they got the left engine started, another lurch until they were able to correct / stabilize the situation. I let a few minutes pass (not many), moved around in my seat abit to see if I felt any wet spots, then snapped my seatbelt, crawled forward and asked if anyone had any toilet paper. That seemed to break the tension abit and we were all inwardly saying our prayers thanking whomever it was we each prayed to.
Turns out, the switching to the fullest tanks had not occurred yet, and the tanks we were running on showed almost 1/4 full but needed to be re-calibrated. We had 'literally' run out of gas in mid-air.
In our courier station we had a refrigerator kept full of beer. While never used while 'on duty' we had one rule. If a courier came in off a flight and headed straight for the refrigerator, nobody bothered him. We all knew 'stuff' happened on that airplane... that day, I visited the frige.
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posted by Smyzer at
12:29 PM
1 Comments:
Very interesting. You should write a book!
By
Anonymous, at 4:33 PM
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