TBT…

Detachment flight schedules sometimes got interesting…

Det flight sked

Jeddah more so than most… Stuck off in the far right corner of the airport, you never knew who or what might show up in the middle of the night…

Jeddah

Dets tended, over the years, to be ‘interesting’ regardless of when/where one ended up. They ranged from one crew/one airplane, to 6-7 airplanes from multiple locations with minimal support, basically whatever could be scrounged at that particular location. Air Force C-130s were always a good source of parts for the P-3s, as we had the same engines… Just the 130s had theirs upside down! 🙂

h/t Frito

Comments

TBT… — 7 Comments

  1. The first time I was stationed in Athens, Greece, I lived close to Athens International Airport. I can recall not being able to sleep before an early flight (of course) and hearing either a C-130 or a P-3 land, so I just had to call the office to see if a P-3 had arrived from Rota for some reason. I later saw the C-130 on the ramp.

    On a related note, my Air Force counterparts, who flew in C-130s before they switched over to the RC-135, were told in ground school that if a C-130 ditches at sea, it will only sink up to the wings, and then float. Of course, the wings are on top of the fuselage…

  2. Ha! I’d always remark when I saw the ICE/CBP P-3’s down at Hurlburt that the engines are on upside down.
    Pop would always say that was because Lockheed like to prepare for anything.

    Sidenote: for what ever reason this reminds me of my Lewis to Hawaii to Japan to Korea to Japan to Hawaii to Benning to Kosovo trip.

  3. Fargo- Just stay away from the camel burgers… 🙂

    Body- LOL, we always went into Piraeus on our missions. And they were thinking crawling out on the wings after ditching and sitting there!!!

    SPE- I’ve made trips like that. They SUCK! And the 130’s motors are upside down, OURS are on correctly! 😛

  4. OK, fine. Yours were on right, mine were on upside down. But at least I wasn’t crazy enough to want to shut down engines in flight to save fuel. I had the sense to fly on one of the few C-130s that could tap a tanker to make for a long (14+ hour) day. And we had a real chemical commode in a closet in the back, rather than squat over a tin can in front of everyone.
    So there…

  5. Were you there long/often enough to get a wiff of the sheep boats coming over from Egypt for ramadhan? Around that time (92-93)I was part of a team doing upgrades on the Saudi navy PCC/PCG fleet and boy-howdee if the wind was right(and it usually was)you could small those things while they were still well out to sea