The prank with the train tickets must have been done by every NCO to every new 2ndLT that came to a unit .It is a classic. I'm sitting here laughing about it now. Our new Lt from west point got a little too much to drink one night at the officers dining in and came back into our barracks About one in the morning turning on all the lights and in the process waking all of NCO's up. We waited for him to get into his cot and pass out . then we took duct tape and taped him up and carried him bunk and all outside and leaned his cot against the building . He woke up screaming how the hell did I get out here.

Urban legend,maybe.
I was at Graf,and chinooks were lifting stuff nad looking impressive.An officer in our company mentioned that a person could hold the rotor blade still before the engine stsrted,and the rotor wouldn't be able to turn.; But if you let go,duck.I wonder if thaat was a possiblity.I never thought of experimenting...

I haven't heard of this, but I have read of guys trying to stop a rotor when it was in its final stages of winding down. Needless to say, he got some easy airtime.

Jeff

That's an interesting question, and you know what, there may be some truth to it. It's actually not too hard to answer with the right information. All you need is a torque curve on the engine and I could probably figure that one out!

If you have a transmission which engages the rotor after the engine is running, I seriously doubt that a person could stop the blade. But if the rotors are directly coupled to the engine, then it gets a bit more interesting.

Think of it this way. Anybody who has driven a manual transmission car, knows that if your engine is not running and you have the transmission in gear, most engines don't have enough torque to overcome that much resisitance until they develop some RPMs and they'll stall out first before they start running.

But if you're in neutral, they start right up, and once you get the engine going, it has plenty of torque to get the wheels turning.

If you figure a 200 lb person hanging on the end of a 30 foot blade (round numbers), that's 6000 ft-lb of additional torque the engine needs to have, and have it at effectively zero RPM.

If you don't have a transmission, it literally comes down to how "strong" the engine is or how "fast" it develops enough torque to move the extra 6000 ft-lb.

As Artie Johnson would say, "Veeeery interesting."


(That's the problem with being an engineer. Stuff like this just looks like "another problem" to solve.:-) )

Tom

Interesting question; in my Chinook passenger days all we ever worried about was:

1). How many passengers would get airsick from the vibration ? And of course the corallary; how many passengers would get sick from the airsick passengers ?

2). What proportion of passengers trying tpo get fresh air off the back ramp that slipped on the floor did so from the puke from air-sick passengers or the leaking hyraulic fuid ?

John

Speaking of passengers, I had the opportunity once in Korea, to take a Chinook from Taegu to Yongsan on a Friday afternoon. They had a second bird flying along with us as an airborne spare.

Because on board we had 2 MGs, 7 BGs and about 9 O-6s. I figure the only reason they let all of us get on the same aircraft was because we were all Reservists, and they probably figured we were expendable!

Tom

Remember, hazing will not be tolerated!!!....But...traditions WILL be upheld. Love the grid squares....old favorite. We like checking for weak spots in the HMMWV armor (hours of tapping), riser grease, canopy lights, chemlight batteries, gallon of prop wash....ahhhhh memories

Go get the keys for the HMMV from the Motor Sergeant and a can of flightline from the chowhall.

When I was a fresh Fire Support private, my cheif had me go to supply for a quart of magnetic fluid for our NSG (north seeking gyrocompass). Supply sent me back telling him they were out and all they had left was nonpolarized fluid.

We had a spate of new bods asking for "Skyhooks" till the RSWO (Regimental Signals Warrant Officer, a WO1) pointed out in no uncertain terms, over the phone, to a (very high up, very senior) person that such a thing actually existed (it was used to attach D10 cable over a road/river/anything) and these %$$%^^% stupid %$£$% requests were really beginning to "f&%^$£ p*ss him off"!

And if they really wanted their %$$£$% communications to $%£"$% ground to a &$%£$% halt then just carry on sending kids to me and wasting my £$%$£ time!

"I'll $%^%%$% supply them, screw up yer *&%%&* Comms and you can Kiss your %$%%^&&*$ Battalion and yer "£$%%^%$ promotion goodbye" was the eloquent phrase heard by us signallers.

Aye!

We were having a flight deck BBQ out in the Gulf, and of course had a couple of hand held fire extinguishers around, to be on the safe side.

And we also managed to persuade one of the blokes running said BBQ that he had to wear a Fearnought suit (very heavy RN firefighting suit) throughout the event just in case things got out of control. He was not best pleased later on when he discovered he was on a bite (after losing several pints of sweat I'd imagine)

My mate told me this story.

As duty WOG (Warrant Officer Guard, A WO2, e.g. Sgt Major) a subbie (Sub/2nd Lieutenant) asked him when the W.O./Sgt's mess should close?

He was instructed to present himself to the highest ranker in the place at 11pm and announce that the bar was now shut and all were to leave or else!

Seconds later he was dumped outside the guardroom b*llock naked and wrapped in clingfilm.

I just remembered another story. I belonged to the 2/325 Airborne Infantry Regiment. Plenty of attitude. Well we were known as the Falcons. One day we got a new cherry in the platoon and decided it was dinner time for the Regimental mascot. Now mind you, nobody in the 82d Airborne has an animal they can care for. So here is PVT Snuffy going to "feed the Falcon". Well, we told him the Falcon had a bit of an attitude, and we would provide him with the protective gear. To protect his arms, every good falconeer has heavy leather gloves and forearm protection. We substituted oven mitts. A catchers mask and helmet protected the noggin. Sleeping mats covered his legs, a flak jacket for his chest, and a bag of sunflower seeds for the falcon. We sent this hapless soul over to Brigade staff duty, which involved crossinbg a major road in the Division area, and happened to travel past the one PX in the entire Division area. Needles to say, the Sergeant Major was pretty bent about our little prank, but couldn't stop laughing long enough to Yell at us!!! :-) :-) :-)

After working on Challenger 1 for so many years QM(T) was happy to play alomg with the joke .
One lad got sent up with a matchbox what was full of cotton wool to get an MBS dot for the gunners main sight they checked their stock said that they had none and sent him down to the main LAD at the other end of camp.
The NIG officers are the best to get ,if you gave them a oil can and told them that you needed the tracks to be squeck free for exercise they wouldnt be seen for at leased a day.

Mhm! Cos they're probably tryin' to find all their "Chaps"... Who're busy avoiding the knob with the oil can.

Mhm! Cos they're probably tryin' to find all their "Chaps"... Who're busy avoiding the knob with the oil can.

Heres another one for you guys.
We now and then sent the newest Trooper in the troop upto the sargent majors office with either a shovel or a sleage hammer with a note in an enevlope saying "give me all of your money or i'll smash you over the head", the SSM always saw the funny side even though he had a phone call asking to play along with it and send the Trooper to the RSM's office.

:-) :-) :-)

when stripping an cleaning the GPMG after an exercise, give the new recruit the blank barrel to pull through

speak incomprehensible rubbish over the company net, only to resume normal voice procedure seconds later.

drop in you own phonetics eg A-aardvark, B-bulgaria etc

regards

Joe

Oh, man - this is bringing back all sorts of memories. I was in US Army MI over in Germany back in the 1980's. We had a great time sending nugs over to the Direction Finder (DF) shop for a 'box of lobs'. We also regularly put tails and spurs made of computer paper on folks uniforms and boots. Supposedly, a bird colonel came to inspect the shop next to ours one day and left his Class-A jacket on their coat rack while he was off meeting with various VIPs in the station. They took the coat and stripped it - left a bare green coat on the rack. Talk about smoke from the ears! Best thing I ever did personally was getting a nug to go to the Tech shop to get the key to reset the Zulu (GMT) clocks for Daylight Savings Time. They gave him this key they had and a ladder - he called me when he couldn't find the keyhole on the Zulu clock.

In the Air Force (US) I've had FNG's blowing through the pitot tube on the FB-111 (all gone now) for an "air speed indicator check." Also had one airman looking for the keys to an F-16. One guy had one of his new troops go to the Armament Backshop and ask the Female airman who worked in the tool crib for some falopian tubes. I had another one of my airmen go to the tool crib to get me 12 ounces of P-E-P-S-I. I had to spell it twice for him and he still didn't get it. The guy in charge of the tool room came out crying he was laughing so hard.

Back in 1985 I was a radioman stationed at NAS Cecil Field in Jacksonville, Florida. I had been in the Navy for a couple of years at that time, but hadn't been to sea yet. My chief decided that a couple of us needed to go TDY on a Perry Class Frigate out of Mayport for a week of "haze grey and underway"! Oh and this is a week when a hurricane is coming in and they sortie out the entire base. On our second day out , I was sicker than a dog and puked on the side of the Captains gig. The Bosun sees me and yells at me to get down to the Engineering spaces and get a bucket of steam to clean it! It didn't matter that the seas and rain had allready washed most of it off. Now, I got hit with these games a couple of years before and knew that he was jerking my chain, so on the way down I stopped by the Goat Locker (Chiefs Quarters) and asked the Radio chief for any ideas. He tells me to go to the Mess deck and get a piece of dry ice and stick it in a bucket of water. Man, you should of seen the "deer in the headlights" look I got when I got back to the Bosun and said "Here you go, but you better hurry because its escaping!"