Forum: F-16 Procedures

Third day on the job at Tyndall we were doing JSF start motor bleeds with an NCO. He told my buddy to get in the seat and do what he says. Starts up mule and everything then tells freind to pull JFS handle. Doesn't mention to make sure the switch is off just says pull it. Well he pulled it and the JFS started up right there in the hangar outside the Chiefs office. NCO GOT HAMMERED for that one.

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Ran a jet with no hydraulic fluid in the B system reservoir. It was sucked out by the mule when the weekend duty guys came in. They never wrote in the forms that the system requires servicing. The gauge on ground read good before start up. Once crancked, my ground guy said he saw smoke and sparks under the wheel well so I shut done. Ground man looks at the gauge again and it was at 0. Damn, burnt up the pump. Luckily there was one in supply so we changed it before days came in.

I'll try and make a long story short. New Years eve 1984, 429th AMU Nellis AFB. We had a jet that had a NWS failure every time we did a EPU check. After 2 days of TS we found we could reset it by taking main power off. Well by 3 in the afternoon, after 5 different engine runs, I was to say the least a little tired and impatient. The spark chasers changed a K-2 relay and told me they knew this would fix the problem. So we start up one more time only to have the same NWS failure. My ground man said lets reset one more time......so I did.....only problem was he still was holding the EPU pin, and I still had the EPU in normal when I placed the Main Power switch to off. Much to my surprise everything kept working.....any smelling funny. After the fire dept left and my ground team and I returned from the hospital, I was sitting on the curb just holding my head when someone sat down beside me. It was our DCM Lt Col George. He asked me what I did and I told him. All he said to me was "Gary, go home and have a few beers and forget about it. I know you will never do it again" I was a very lucky person to have a great leader like that!!!!!!

Purplehaze

Purplehaze wrote:

I'll try and make a long story short. New Years eve 1984, 429th AMU Nellis AFB. We had a jet that had a NWS failure every time we did a EPU check. After 2 days of TS we found we could reset it by taking main power off. Well by 3 in the afternoon, after 5 different engine runs, I was to say the least a little tired and impatient. The spark chasers changed a K-2 relay and told me they knew this would fix the problem. So we start up one more time only to have the same NWS failure. My ground man said lets reset one more time......so I did.....only problem was he still was holding the EPU pin, and I still had the EPU in normal when I placed the Main Power switch to off. Much to my surprise everything kept working.....any smelling funny. After the fire dept left and my ground team and I returned from the hospital, I was sitting on the curb just holding my head when someone sat down beside me. It was our DCM Lt Col George. He asked me what I did and I told him. All he said to me was "Gary, go home and have a few beers and forget about it. I know you will never do it again" I was a very lucky person to have a great leader like that!!!!!!

Purplehaze

I can guarantee you that type of leadership hasn't existed in my 9 years in so far. At least nothing like I have experienced. Good for him.

At my first base (Kunsan) I launched my squadron commander, sitting in the 7th AF Vice Commander's jet, out of an "arch" with the blast shield doors closed. I didn't know those things could close Whistle

!

At Luke I caught a bird whose ADCC was an ambitious newby. Every night he topped off his block 52 engine with oil. EVERY night Doh

. So, naturally, when I caught it, it was smoking. Like a forest fire. The best part was that the pro sup was off the line in a meeting with the expiditers at the time and the guy who was filling in for the expiditer didn't know what to do Bang Head

!

I was conned into calling for jacking clearance. Everyone went along with it!!! First I asked the expiditer to call for clearance and he told me I needed to get hold of the Specialists' Expediter, so I flagged him down. He told me I had to call MOCC on the radio myself. MOCC told me I needed to call on the other MOCC on the phone. When I called he played along for a while then burst out laughing. Finally I got. (no smilie can depict this)

When I was on Guam TDY, my buddy launched out the 5th AF commander with the canopy strut (f-15) laying in bay 5 and the canopy initiator pin still in. Thank god his wingman saw the streamer sticking out of the canopy rail as soon as they took off. General landed, asked my buddy if he had ever done that before and he replied that he hadn't. General said "sh*t happens" and coined him. So I take back my above post.

Had an ECS-failure on the jet I was assigned to while on live-fire deployment to Banak AB in northern Norway back in September 2000 (served as a CrewChief Assistant with then-331/334sqd). The hangar-boys came down to the flightline, strapped the jet down to do a few full AB-runs while having the jet in the testing-rig. The problem with this was that at Banak, the strapdown-point was about 10 to 12 meters away from one of the blast-walls around the line. This wall, made out of very fine sand that predominates the area, was about 12feet tall. Picture the dustcloud that rose when the -220 roared to life, not to mention when full burner was applied.

The laws of gravity specify that what goes up, must sooner or later come down. And all that sand and dust did come down, and it did so on top of all the other jets on the flightline. Most of them had their canopies open, and several had access-hatches open for maint'. There were a lot of very angry CC's/CCA's on the line that day, and we had three cannon-failures during the next day's fun&games. One of the weapons-guys, a captain, looked and sounded like he was about to blow the whole fusebox. Nice to only be a private at that time Very Happy

So during Allied Force at Aviano, Purplehaze was the night-shift pro super. I was the Specs section chief, but was assigned to ride around with him as there wasn't really much section-chiefing to be done. We'd "gang bang" ERs, both looking a jet over and taking turns signing off the forms.

We'd gotten an 8-ship ready, and were just sitting in the truck monitoring red-balls. We got a call from ops that there was an HTS (Harm Targeting System Pod) redball on one of the jets. By the time we got there, the specs had already responded, and diagnosed the problem to there being no HTS pod hanging on the jet.

Oops.

I'm pretty sure Purple's name was in the forms, but I'm equally as sure I was looking at the right side of the jets that night.

We had a spare jet, so the mission launched as scheduled, and we had a good laugh.

At Torrejon, I was the Boresight geek for my AMU (as well as the Gunsmoke team, a different story). About two months before I PCSed out, we did a boresight confidence check on a jet, and I had about six folks with me who had never done one. Everything went well, and the team of newbies was pulling fixtures off the jet, closing panels, etc.

I was sitting nearby with the forms in my lap signing everything off.

As it turns out, the two-striper who removed the nose boresight fixture (called the boomerang) removed the fixture and the knurled nuts, but left two machined bolts installed through the bulkhead.

The equipment didn't get checked back into support, but was left in the hangar with a 40' lanyard snaked through all the handles of the boxes to keep someone from walking off with it. No one noticed the missing bolts.

I signed off the red X for "forward fixture removed" and the next day the jet flew (dropping some kick-a$$ bombs, I might add). When the nose gear retracted, the retract actuator mashed into the two bolts, damaging the actuator as well as the bulkhead.

It was entirely my fault. Thankfully, that was in a different era, because I got a "talking to" and told to devise a "remove before flight" flag which could be affixed to the bolts preventing a reoccurance.

Enthusiast Joined: Dec 08, 2003 - 08:04 PM Posts: 35

JoeSambor wrote:

I lowered a D-model canopy on the HUD camera (pulled the HUD and had the camera hanging off on the side of the glareshield). Oops. Biiiigggg long scratch on the side.

Best Regards,

Hey there Joe, i had the exact same thing happen to me with a B model ... my scratch was not very long but rather deep Embarassed

I've got a jet in the hush-house,completed the walk around and some crap happens and we have to leave the jet for a few,come back everything supposed to be the same cuz nobody else has been here...right.
I get into the jet and crank up, nozzle closes and stuff just aint right, I'm checking the cockpit making sure my sh*t is right, the ECS tester is hooked up and things just aint right with it either so I'm thinking shut down and all of a sudden I look at the gear handle with lights on, imagine that it's in the up position..crap, I put the handle into up and all is good..everything.
I tell the guys i've got it under control, they ask what happened but I was embarrassed and couldn't say. Later during the ECS review process I had to come clean and tell all the handle was up.
Turns out a pointy head had come to the hush house while we were away and he had to check PN on the lndg gear panel and didn't put the handle back down. Yup I was thoroughly embarrassed

meant to say down position in previous post oops did it again

this isn't a screw up but a good dumb airmen story. About 6 months ago one of my SSgt's comes in from the flight line laughing. Apparently one of the new guys had grabbed an oil servicing cart and was headed out to the jet. The SSgt asked Airmen Special what he was doing which he replied "I am going to service the oil on the jet" the SSgt replied "you know the jet needs to be hot to service the oil" the airmen replied "I know I am going to wait for the sun to come up and heat the jet up". This very Special Airmen is heading to Spang in a few [Link pending approval] wish his next supervisor the best of luck.
My own screw up not too long ago i had to service hydraulics during a launch. I had my b man pull the cart up and start pumping. I wasn't getting any movement on the gauge so I moved a lever around on the cart (I moved the lever the wrong way) and by the time I had gotten back to the jet my hydraulics were nearly depleted. I ran back around and fixed my mistake just time. i was 10 sec away from shelling a pump and becoming an SrA.

I couldn't tell you how many times the hydro cart screwup has been done in front of me. Good stuff.

I had a new troop that was servicing the engine on our 15. He was doing a great job, had the cart all hooked up the way he thought it was supposed to be and had the book out and everything. Came up and asked what he was doing to which he replied "servicing #1 sir". He was looking up at the engine sight gauge with the cart pressure hose attached to the IDG and the return resting on the AMAD.

You know brothers and sisters, if you have to hook up a hydro cart after engine start, something isn’t “jiving” … normally air in the system. The FI speaks of this.

Put a mule on the Bitch and run her in “Stand” and watch the air through the flow meter.

If problem persists, check your accumulators for bypassing

Furthermore, anytime I put a Mule on my jet I will dump the trumpet valves and check my JFS pre-charge ... easy money

Forum: F-16 Procedures

Viper maintenance screw-ups