Getting down low…
It was part of our job, especially during rigging operations- That was getting the upright sequences of the ships, the names off them, and anything ‘strange’ that the crew might notice.
This wasn’t us, he’s probably right at 100 feet… We were ‘supposed’ to stay at least 200 feet…
But occasionally the weather wasn’t real good, and you had a mission to do… It did usually get real quiet when you got down low, as you didn’t want to distract the pilots… 🙂
But these guys,,,
Gave a whole new meaning to the word low… I got one flight with them out of Hachinohe, Japan back in the day. and they got down in the WEEDS…
There is a seat in the nose, which was the magnetic anomaly detector was, along with being the camera station. You can slide that seat forward until you’re looking straight out and dang near straight up or down. They were rigging some ships north of Hokkaido, and asked if I’l like to go up to the nose. I’d been sitting in the back with the operators, and ‘thought’ we were low on a couple of passes…
So I climb over the wing, weave my way down into the seat, and grabbed the camera as I saw we were inbound to another “Rust Maru”… It was probably a coastal freighter, so not real big…
Normal rig was down one side, 270 turn, stern pass, 270 turn and up the other side. I thought we were pretty low on the first pass, as I got a good shot of the name plate on the bridge wing, but when we did the 270 and came by the stern, I KNEW we were low, because I was looking straight out at the name on the stern…
Probably 50 feet off the water… Sigh… and we rolled into a 270 turn to the right.
At about 40 degrees angle of bank…
And I’m trying to remember what the wingspan is (it is 103 feet)…
And hoping we didn’t get a big wave…
Sigh… Fun times…
And the hair on the back of my neck just stood up remembering that flight…
What do you think of their lovely new seaplane? Well, amphibian, technically? They always were good at the big water birds…
Must be cool to fly like that…on the good days . I bet there were days when you bored sitting in a chair thinking “Man, I wish I was in the air , this sucks” . Also there were probably days when it felt so good to take off and leave all the bullshit on the ground and just go zooming through the sky . I know there was work involved , but there must have been fun too !
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it Fred….
Ed B @0747:
Um, why does a chicken, super or not, need a parachute?
Why does Goofy have a dog?
Goofy and Pluto have a “special” relationship. It is not spoken of in polite company. The authorities turn a blind eye as Mickey is a major donor to the Police Benevolent and Protective Association. That, and the salacious pictures he has of the Police Chief with Minnie.
Hey Old NFO;
Yeah the things “We” did back in the day…Scary as crap….but miss it we do now….
Cool beans. And you got paid for it.
I like flying in indian country. Except worrying about birdstrikes.
Even at sea there are the birds.
Back in the 90’s I was an Engineer working on the program replacing the ROK Navy S2 Trackers with new built P-3C’s. I was over there in Pohang sorting out a problem with the first ship and got to listen to them run up all the S2’s on the flight line. I guess I’ll never hear that many radial engines running on active military aircraft ever again.
And yet they tell us that we were once at an age when we thought we were indestructible.
Of course that definition changes depending on if we are at the controls or not. Heh.
Any chance the pilots wanted to give the barbarian a special memory?