• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Random Griz Aviation Musings

@Griz882 what is your AOG status? Will you be flying on beautiful spring days?
Sadly, the Griz-O-Copter is no more. First, the T/R blade issue went unsolved right to the point where a tug accidentally hit it in the hangar this winter. I sold it to a fellow who says he’s going to fix it and put it on the market. I’m currently looking for something new (not a “new” helicopter, just new to me). But trust me, there will be a Griz-O-Copter II.
 
Sadly, the Griz-O-Copter is no more. First, the T/R blade issue went unsolved right to the point where a tug accidentally hit it in the hangar this winter. I sold it to a fellow who says he’s going to fix it and put it on the market. I’m currently looking for something new (not a “new” helicopter, just new to me). But trust me, there will be a Griz-O-Copter II.
Major bummer. Sorry to hear. Watch for DM.
 
Maybe I’ll grab this one and get you to school me up!

The irony is that when these E's were retired, these aircraft were in the best material condition in their service life.

Getting the respective paperwork and authorization even to operate under the experimental and exhibition category would take a lot of work.

In practice to get this thing flying would at most take a quick change of fluids and a fresh battery. I bet the Apu and motors would crank up on the first try.
 
The irony is that when these E's were retired, these aircraft were in the best material condition in their service life.

Getting the respective paperwork and authorization even to operate under the experimental and exhibition category would take a lot of work.

In practice to get this thing flying would at most take a quick change of fluids and a fresh battery. I bet the Apu and motors would crank up on the first try.
I hear pumping the apu up to start was a great workout. 😳
 
I hear pumping the apu up to start was a great workout. 😳

While on the way to DM to drop off our well-worn steed we made a fuel stop in Austin. Unbeknownst to us, the APU ESU died on us sometime after shutdown and before start up. I think we manually dumped the accumulator 5 times trying to trouble-shoot it until we gave up and called home. Our crewman, our PC, and my co-pilot would take turns pumping while my MMCO "supervised." Good times...mostly for me, since I just had to repeatedly flip a switch during that whole evolution.
 
While on the way to DM to drop off our well-worn steed we made a fuel stop in Austin. Unbeknownst to us, the APU ESU died on us sometime after shutdown and before start up. I think we manually dumped the accumulator 5 times trying to trouble-shoot it until we gave up and called home. Our crewman, our PC, and my co-pilot would take turns pumping while my MMCO "supervised." Good times...mostly for me, since I just had to repeatedly flip a switch during that whole evolution.

Sounds like the time we watched 2 Master Chiefs and a Senior Chief try and fix a cargo door on a C-9 with a Leatherman, we ended up spending 5 days in Honolulu on Waikiki Beach.
 
One of my collateral duties as a DAF CIV is teaching the AF Instrument Refresher Course to AF pilots - both AD and Reservists. Very similar structure to Navy IGS (which I found myself teaching at TRAWING 5 and HELTACWING as a young LT). The 'hot topic' of the day:

1776299191859.png
 
The title of the brief has me intrigued. What’s so hot about it?
Nothing hot per se, call it "subject of emphasis" - among many in a rotating list. Air Force Flight Standards Agency promulgates the current topic of emphasis to be reviewed during recurrent instrument refresher course for the entire Air Force globally.

An example of the central standardization culture of the Air Force.
 
Probably not terribly different than the Navy Marine corps or Army, a good majority of aircraft in the Air Force have a rather limited terminal capability. With regards to RNP/RNAV.

That is changing of course. And there are "Combat TERPsters" that can survey and design expeditionary approaches with LPV type minima and vertical guidance.

And of course there are "Combat Flight Check" specialized Crews and aircraft that can flightcheck new approaches as they are put in service. Some of these aircraft are specialized Challenger biz jets with armor plating in critical areas.
 
I wouldn't have fixed it quickly, either.

They were actually trying to fix it, IIRC the CMC and MMCPO were on their way out for a det visit to Japan and actually wanted to get there but alas their maintenance expertise did not save the day. Between that and stopping in Wake, where they still had beer vending machines, for 6 hours so the XO of the VR squadron flying us to Japan wanted to swim in the lagoon my C-9 trips across the Pacific didn't completely suck.
 
A couple years ago my company contracted to have all of our Special Use approaches in the region to be updated by a new company and I had to go fly a couple of them with the guy who was validating them. It wasn't a complicated process, but kind of interesting to watch. Since the approach wasn't valid, it wasn't in the data base so I had to build the approaches manually in the GPS (a laborious process on the legacy Garmins). Then we'd fly an approach with his laptop out that validated our actual position. He would also look for obstacles that may have been missed (which happened) and then notate them in his software.

The end product was light years ahead of what we previously had, to include having actual weather mins and not having to do the mental math of subtracting nearby field elevation from the pad elevation and then carrying the one and then...inevitably screwing it up. Basically it was a much more professional end product.
 
Back
Top