Forum: Air Force Life

After installing a new engine I told one of my ground Amn that we need to do a few checks to ensure maxim engine efficacy. I told one that After shut down just when there is a low flow from the exhaust he needed to get have a trash bag ready to catch some exhaust samples so that we could get it over to NDI. The expeditor also helped out by driving him from NDI, and to environmental at C.E.

I had pictures of this guy all dressed up in face shield, maintenance suit with apron, gloves, and booties. I f i find it i will post it up.

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Elbows wrote:

I would have loved to see that LTs face. Sounds like the atomic situp that happened while I was at ALS

We did the atomic situp on my high school wrestling team - didnt think it still worked - its hilarious.

Every now and then we'd get a kid straight out of tech school and he would think he knew everything there was to know like quoting T.O. and the like.

Anyway, I'd alway ask them to tell me what P.E. psi was and once they were stumped I tell them it was
PepsiKinda put them in their place.
AZ

Quote:

Every now and then we'd get a kid straight out of tech school and he would think he knew everything there was to know like quoting T.O. and the like.

Or ask him what the voltage output of a Vortex Generator is?... Actually had one reply "Would that be ac, or dc?"
Doh

Some people kids?

Good one Tim! If I know the C/C on a bird, we'll ask him or her to point out one of the noobs going through upgrade, fresh out of Sheppard. Invariably, we'll come back from a sortie with a circuit breaker that popped on one of the vortex generators.

Ya I had the NDI bit pulled on me. Ow well but one that was funny is the crack in the intake. have a new guy go check the crack in the intack or the exhoust sample use a 55 gal bag and have them hold it in the exhoust and get the pilot to throttle up a little at a time. just make sure its the last bird to land and the last to shut down so it doesnt get loss and go down the tube or you will be the one looking for the crack in the intake.

Last edited by razamanaz on Feb 16, 2012 - 11:43 PM; edited 8 times in total

Some of the most memorable pranks I witnessed during my Air Force career were dreamed up by crew chiefs and maintenance techs...

Hand a newbie a box of 100 each fine thread 1/4" bolts that are about three inches long. Then hand him one 1/4" nut and tell him he needs to perform a thread check on each and every bolt by hand-tightening the nut all the way down until it bottoms out and then spinning it back off. The reasoning is it's far better to find bad threads now than to find them when you're working on a jet.

Tell a newbie you urgently need some .020" steel safety wire but nobody has any so he's going to help you with an "old school workaround". You grab a roll of .041" safety wire and cut off a piece about 10 feet long. Place one end of the wire securely in a vise or wrap it around something so it will not come loose (very important). Then attach a pair of large vise grips to the other end once again securing it in a manner so it will not come loose. Have the newbie use both hands on the vise grips to start pulling with everything he's got to stretch the .041" wire thinner and thinner until it becomes .020" wire. For full dramatic effect, you should use a micrometer to continuously measure the diameter of the wire as the newbie pulls and pulls and pulls to stretch the wire. "Keep pulling... keep pulling... there's .039... .038... .037... don't stop... .035... c'mon pull harder... .034... "

An F-4 crew chief was going to show his newbie E-1 how to replace his jet's battery. Damn! The brand new battery had the positive and negative terminals reversed which prevented him from installing it and base supply had no more in stock. No problem... he sent his newbie off in search of the K-28 Polarity Reverser.

An F-4 crew chief informed his newbie E-1 that it was base policy for new troops to wear their BDU's with the right sleeve rolled up and left sleeve rolled down during their first day at work so everyone would know they were newbies.

The same F-4 crew chief had another newbie E-1 stand at the base's main gate exit on a Friday afternoon so he could wave at everyone leaving the base on their way home from work. The crew chief had pre-arranged it with the gate guards and told the newbie that it was tradition for all newbies to do it.

Another F-4 crew chief had his newbie E-1 wax and polish the leading edge of his jet's wings so it could fly faster than other F-4's.

A B-52 weapons load crew had their newbie E-3 (early rank for college & ROTC experience) spend a week inspecting each aircraft's bomb bay for stray cats before weapons were loaded.

A T-38 crew chief working the graveyard shift handed his newbie E-1 a flashlight and a large yellow legal pad so he could write down tail numbers while performing the "nightly inventory" of almost 100 assigned aircraft to ensure they were all present and accounted for.

One evening in 1990, two F-16 crew chiefs, with the help of transient alert and aerospace ground equipment, conspired against a newbie crew chief who was from deep in the hills of West Virginia. They used orange road cones and caution tape to cordon off a 50-ft x 50-ft rarely used corner of the TA ramp and wedged several pencil-thin black metal rods into the rubbery sealant that's used between concrete slabs and to fill cracks. The rods were about 5 feet tall and the crew chiefs attached "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" streamers to the top ends to form the basic shape of an aircraft... nose, tail, and wingtips. AGE positioned a boarding stand on the left side of the "cockpit" and a power unit at the "tail"... another metal rod with the power cord attached to the top with black duct tape was used to create the illusion of being plugged into the "aircraft". As darkness approached, the crew chiefs told their newbie to come along with them in a cargo van to see something few people ever get to see. They cautioned the newbie to not tell anyone what he was about to see because nobody was supposed to know about it. The newbie eagerly agreed and they proceeded to drive towards the TA ramp. When they arrived, the driver stopped about 100 feet away from the cordoned area because "that was as close as he dared to get without attracting attention". The newbie gazed thru the windshield into the shadowy twilight to behold a miracle of modern technology... a fully cloaked Stealth Fighter.

I am truly humbled by the imagination and fun-loving spirit in these examples of coordinated ball-busting. It's a shame that if you try these same things today, you will probably standing in front of your First Shirt explaining why you are harrassing the new troops.

Best Regards,

Forum: Air Force Life

Pranks pulled on newbies in the squadron