Forum: Air Force Life

Whoops...just noticed you're a 462. You guys have more traditions than us! I was an honorary AMMO troop.

Scream "AMMO!!" in any NCO club in the world and watch the fun.

"Without 462's the Air Force is just an expensive aero-club."

"Nothing beats live bombs on live people!"

As a matter of fact, have a look at <a href="http://www.weaponz.net" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">weaponz.net</a> and cowboy up!

'nuff said.

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MADDOG, it seems like you remember the good days and looks like a binjo ditch in Korea, that was the place to leave! I used to love being a crew dog in the actives, not so much in the guard, it started out being great but there's not so much comraderie. are you retired? you sound old school. that's a [Link pending approval]'s gotten ridiculous these days, the young guys have no idea what we used to get away with.

As far as traditions no one has mentioned the 'licsense to klep' meaning we are allowed to steal whatever we need as long as it isn't money, personal items from any individual, or anything that will harm anybody's business. Beerglasses, lighters, cool ashtrays and anything cool or unusual. IE I still have in my possesion the head AAFES taxicab driver's( in Korea) taxi light cover that says 'controller' thing's like that have priceless value. I'm not advocating theft by any means but how many beer lights are in your flightchiefs basements and how many reciepts does he have for them?

One for the Ammo guys... This was 'tentside' in Doha, Qatar during the Gulf War with the 401TFW(Dep) / 614TFS Lucky Devils. http://www.lucky-devils.net

Mike

Maddog, You are correct the things you brought up are traditions. We just don't get to do them much statestide anymore. The benjo ditch is classic. So is the traditional wet down on you last duty day. The biggest slap a person can get is NOT being wet down on the last duty day at the AMU. Well, I have never heard of the puppy pile. Good points, all. The thread got what I wanted to see, a resurgence of the traditions like these. Keep them up and have fun, just be safe.

The worst 'wash down' I ever saw was a guy just changing shifts - although he was only a month or two from PCS. They filled his BDU's with ice (and who knows what else) 'hog tied' him with duct tape, put him in the back of the truck and set him alone by the taxiway at EOR for an hour... at midnight.

We had a flight chief who didn't even come in on his last duty day. One of the guys called his wife to insure that he was home and his crew proceeded to RTV/seal the bed of the CTK pickup which they filled with all sorts of nasty stuff. They brought his wetdown straight to base housing.

Over in Spain we had a very unpopular EMS CO whose personal car was given a wetdown on his last day. Apparently it was done with acft paint stripper in patterns which spelled out exactly how much of his squadron felt about him.

Mike

"Old School", thank you very much. I was also "brown shoe in a black shoe Air Force".

BTW here we are in Spain putting the LT's car on the lawn (inside the hedge) for driving to the squadron party when everyone else walked.

FYI the picture of my last day wasn't a binjo ditch but a custom built swamp at Hahn AB ,Germany. It took them a week to fill it AND keep it a secret.

I thought about life in the "new" USAF, I retired a Msgt in 92. Here's some traditions that are safe:

Secret Nose Art- Nose art on your jet that only the crew chief and pilot know about.

Your Hat- Put the name of your jet on the inside of your hat. Try and get your pilot to put it on his (or her) skull cap. Our jet at Hahn was named "River Rat" for the Mosel River and a tribute to the "Red River Rats" (look it up). But... the REAL name of the jet was "F*** Communism". Mike had it embroidered on his skull cap and I had it in my hat.

The Parking Game- On a TDY we started to get wiggy about how close to the crack on the ramp we could marshall the jet in. A case of beer to the daily winner. The pilots got into it and suddenly there were secret hand signals and creeping into the spot. The winning margin got down to 1/8" measured with independent judges and everything.

I have seen a tradition when going TDY within the maintenance unit. As Maddog indicated there is a parking game. Though we use it for gambleing when at Nellis. Mark the nose wheel like a roulete, each person can buy a number. The number closest to straight down on each recovery wins the pot.

Oh yes, roulet with the tires, Yes I have played that many times while at Nellis. In fact we were talking about it yesterday here in the office. Only one pilot had ever heard of it and he said he loved it when his jet was chosen as the tire jet. I did not know folks still ed played it though.

maddog2840 wrote:

I thought about life in the "new" USAF, I retired a Msgt in 92. Here's some traditions that are safe:

Secret Nose Art- Nose art on your jet that only the crew chief and pilot know about.

Your Hat- Put the name of your jet on the inside of your hat. Try and get your pilot to put it on his (or her) skull cap. Our jet at Hahn was named "River Rat" for the Mosel River and a tribute to the "Red River Rats" (look it up). But... the REAL name of the jet was "F*** Communism". Mike had it embroidered on his skull cap and I had it in my hat.

The Parking Game- On a TDY we started to get wiggy about how close to the crack on the ramp we could marshall the jet in. A case of beer to the daily winner. The pilots got into it and suddenly there were secret hand signals and creeping into the spot. The winning margin got down to 1/8" measured with independent judges and everything.

Sadly the pilots don't wear skullcaps anymore...

The 72 TFTS from MacDill went TDY to CFB Goose Bay back in the late 80's. The squadron came home with a very large Canadian flag, thereafter known as their TDY flag. Whenever they deployed in the future, the flag was carefully hung from the tail of one of their F-16's whenever it was on the ramp. All the crew chiefs also came home with 'Newfoundland and Labrador' car license plates, which were, apperantly, liberated from base vehicles.

Mike

Last edited by maddog2840 on Nov 22, 2005 - 05:42 PM; edited 1 time in total

Typical. BTW Does anyong know where a four foot fiberglass chipmunk named "Chippy" might be?

on TDY's - We tend to take the crew chief that has f'ed up the most on trip and duct tape him to some kind of pole...the last guy that got taped was sitting the the passenger seat of the expediter truck(good A/C on a hot/humid day) as I grabbed the JFS pump handle to help a chief with a JFS that didn't start. We pumped it back up with him sitting in the nice A/C...fooker! Evil or Very Mad

It's great to rip off the tape and get a good chunk of hair!!

Drinking a is good crewchief tradition. Nothing can beat swing shift roll call at the bar on sunday night with 10 drunk crewchief singing on a TDY. any other crewchiefs have a pilot buy beer/sodas (if your under 21) for bringing a jet back with FOD in the cockpit?

Yeah, some traditions/jokes still went on with my short time too.

Aviano was a blast with the port-a-johns at our HAS's. the stupid SP's would get in them before our jets taxied in, we'd make sure the pilot was CLOSELY watching our marshaling, and pin the cop in with the exhaust and signal an engine run up to almost mil power. if you got lucky you blew the cop over, if ya didn't he just couldn't get out.

PCSing to another base from the flightline always got people messed up, if you had a tight unit your A flighters, B flighters, C shoppers, Engine pukes, and Weapons weenies all got along great. We had a particularly well loved C shopper leave us one time. We mummified his legs and arms with duct tape, tied him to a rolling office chair, our lovely ladies in the squadron painted him with make-up, we covered him with all the expired condiments from the snack-shack, took him to the arm end of EOR while our pilots were getting ready for DG missions, placed him directly in front of the aircraft with two signs, one on his neck said I hate pilots, and one on his crotch said warm up your weapons here.

TDY's were famous for them or if you were REALLY brave you could do it in your own NCO club.....combat coin checks

And yes you always named yer jets...my first was 89-2009...most called him "Balls Nine"...but to those who truly had to work that pig it was "Balls Swine"...88-0550 after repaint in 97 with that beautiful yet BRIGHT tail flash...we called it the "Neon Chicken" (when you could tell what aircraft was in the landing pattern over the mountain range north of the base you know its bright"), 89-2016 after repaint and the 16th AF commander let his 7 yr old daughter design the tail flash...it turned into the "Band Aid", 89-2039's ADCC was from Alabama and yes he sounded kinda like Forrest...so we named his jet "Jenny", we had a real clown crewing 90-0795...using the vinyl lettering we used for our names he had "This BUS don't stop for railroad crossings" put on the inside of the nose gear door, 89-2030's crew dawgs didn't believe in cleaner so we called it "Dirty Thirty", then my most beloved jet to date was 89-2018...when she landed in Avi-Nam from Eglin...it went straight to the fuel barn for hyd fluid leaking in the F1 cell...it sat there for a month...before and regrettably after re-paint it had numerous fuel leaks at the wingtips while the jet was pressurized, my best bro worked fuel shop..and would always be humming/singing Ice Cube's "Ghettobird" while driving his shop's van over to Nickel Loop...

Zapping jets...GOD... we sent Balls Nine to the Buzzards for a loaner during a deployment when one of theirs was broke d**k...they plastered every single access panel on the inside with buzzard stickers, we laughed because at the end of that month it was their pig anyhow so we never took them off. One of our guys got kinda sneaky on a TLP (tactical leadership program) TDY to Belgium and climbed up on the backbone of every -16 there from around the world and zapped the fat part on top of everyones tails....well they all ganged up on his bird 89-2137 (of triple kill over Bosnia fame) and his jet came home looking like a friggin loony tune with all the zaps across the top of the jet. Course also while I was in Cannon...some of the 523rd guys zapped some jets at Nellis..usual stuff..inside panels etc. well the Chiefs guys from Mountain Home (I think, I know they flew -15E's) decided to get revenge and actually PAINTED a stencil of their crossed tomahawk logo on everyone's tails, including the foreign ones visiting for Red Flag...that was funny...

good times, good times....too bad they end so fast

Forum: Air Force Life

Maint. traditions, what traditions?