Coast Guard C-130

[smartyiak]

When I was a kid, I was at the Gary Bailey Motocross School; it was a 3 day seminar at Byron racetrack in Rockfod, IL. His son, David (who would go on to MX champ, paralyzed, and Ironman fame), was showing us a cornering technique.

He then gets on his bike and gets ready to take the corner...we start to hear a loud buzz getting closer...Bailey is about 1/2 way through the corner...this C-130 buzzes us about 100' feet off the deck just over the trees...Bailey eats shit in the corner....he said he laid it down b/c he thought we were being bombed or something. I believe him.

I will also note: a C-130 is not very impressive when you fly in one from Okinawa to the Philippines. In fact, it sucks.

-Smarty

[itsnowjoke]

Great F-15 vid! My nephew is driving Eagles out of Lakenheath. Pretty awesome.

When I went to Montana State University in 1982, we used to get our early season turns on Hyalite Peak. The B-52's would come roaring by so close that you could see the pilot's heads in the cockpit. They were on a low-level practice bombing route, Cold-War style. Probably pulling 350 knots, they made quite a racket!

[Timberridge]

Since this has morphed into different aircraft--one of the most impressive things you'll ever see is a C-17 short field landing with thrust reverse. Landing at 0:40. C130 can do this too, but something about those jet engines.

[MMP]

a few years ago we were playing golf outside of Beaufort at Secession and there were war simulations taking place out of Parris Island. Fighters escorting bombers, bombers hauling ass. Pretty cool to watch. My caddy was a marine with a 2 handicap.

[The AD]

My bro in law got this shot today.

I hope you gave him shit for taking a video in vertical format.

[Tye 1on]

Living in Death Valley, we'd sometimes head west through the Panamint Valley, to Ridgecrest, which is home to China Lake NAS. Most all of DV is still designated military air space, although DV proper has worked it out to not have aircraft below 2000'agl. Panamint Valley is wide open, and i've been buzzed at 100' or so a dozen times by different fighters. Couple times freaked me out, i'm sure the pilots were laughing their asses off...

[cool thing about that is that because it's military airspace, there's no commercials flying over unless they're way the fuck up there. This contributes to some of the most intense 'natural quiet' i've ever experienced. No trees or bushes to even rustle with the wind. Not. A. Sound. /threaddrift]

[flyandski365]

Since this has morphed into different aircraft--one of the most impressive things you'll ever see is a C-17 short field landing with thrust reverse. Landing at 0:40. C130 can do this too, but something about those jet engines.

Hell yeah, one of the most impressive flight demos I've ever seen. Guy was slinging that thing around like it was a Pitts or something. Like watching an unexpectedly athletic fat guy doing gymnastics.

[Tye 1on]

Since this has morphed into different aircraft--one of the most impressive things you'll ever see is a C-17 short field landing with thrust reverse. Landing at 0:40. C130 can do this too, but something about those jet engines.

ok, aircraft jong here...how the fuck do they see behind them? Cameras?

[iceman]

Since this has morphed into different aircraft--one of the most impressive things you'll ever see is a C-17 short field landing with thrust reverse. Landing at 0:40. C130 can do this too, but something about those jet engines.

If the runway was so short that they had to land like that would it be long enough for them to take off again?

[smartyiak]

If the runway was so short that they had to land like that would it be long enough for them to take off again?

They use treadmill assist.

[iceman]

I was thinking they were the military so they just said "Fuckit, leave it there, we'll just buy another one."

but bringing in the treadmill was good

[Timberridge]

If the runway was so short that they had to land like that would it be long enough for them to take off again?

Apparently some tired USAF pilots mistakenly landed one at a small civilian airport in Tampa last year.

Here's a video of it taking off again. There's also a video of it landing at the airport on U-tube somewhere.

[warthog]

Apparently some tired USAF pilots mistakenly landed one at a small civilian airport in Tampa last year.

Here's a video of it taking off again. There's also a video of it landing at the airport on U-tube somewhere.

Yes, yes they did. It was a big fuckup.

[BmillsSkier]

I was thinking they were the military so they just said "Fuckit, leave it there, we'll just buy another one."

but bringing in the treadmill was good

Read an article in Men's Journal last year about these guys that do just that with the Soviet version of C-130s. They don't care about getting em back out so they just leave em there.

Crazy job, basically mercenaries that will fly anywhere deliver anything and laws, military, terrorists be damned - as long as they get paid enough.

Lots of ransom drops, arms and human smuggling, crazy.

[Yanos]

Just wasted 20 minutes on youtube and was impressed by the balls on this pilot.

[G]

Used to work real close to McClellan in Sac, stationed a few coastie C-130's there since they could reach the coast or Tahoe quickly. Things would go over on approach at 150'. We shared the lot with a car dealership and the damn thing would set off every fucking alarm on the lot. Always made for a hell ofa racket.

It always seems weird to me to see a coast guard aircraft flying around over Sacramento of all places. That plane comes in low right over my house every afternoon, shaking the shit out of everything. Fun to watch though.

[snapt]

It always seems weird to me to see a coast guard aircraft flying around over Sacramento of all places. That plane comes in low right over my house every afternoon, shaking the shit out of everything. Fun to watch though.

Yah I could never figure it out until I met a pilot and he said it's so they can get to Tahoe and assist with SAR, drop a liferaft etc and still get over to the ocean quickly.

I used to get buzzed by fighters in Eastern Sierra canyons all the time, never really figured out where those planes came from, Fallon or Nellis? Maybe something to do with the Naval depot or in coordination with the Marine base. Crazy how easily they can sneak up on you!

[present tense]

i love this thread, something so cool about being in the right spot at the right time to witness a random fly-by.

got to see some F18's at close range while i was fishing the gulf stream off the outer banks, nc two summers ago.

[splat]

Read an article in Men's Journal last year about these guys that do just that with the Soviet version of C-130s. They don't care about getting em back out so they just leave em there.

Crazy job, basically mercenaries that will fly anywhere deliver anything and laws, military, terrorists be damned - as long as they get paid enough.

Lots of ransom drops, arms and human smuggling, crazy.

When the US outlawed a number of commercial jets for noise pollution, the airlines were giving them away and they became the gun runner's wings du jour in other parts of the world. I had a friend who was a pilot running guns in Africa. Between the time he took off and would land, there was a regime change in Uganda and he was forced down because they had negotiated airspace with the former leader. Total of three jets ( I think they were MD 80s or 727s) were set down by fighter jet escort. My friend said they killed two other pilots on the tarmac bullet to the head style. He was held in prison for 20 days before his wife bribed him out.

[Jumper Bones]

ok, aircraft jong here...how the fuck do they see behind them? Cameras?

Normally the loadmaster (my old job, I was an LM on C-17s) is the eyes for the pilots - stand in the back of the aircraft and open up either the ramp/cargo door or one of the paratrooper drop doors on either side of the aicraft, and talk over the intercom system for which direction to turn. I usually opened the ramp, I'm guessing the aircraft's right troop door was used in the youtube vid, and you'd tell the pilots "tail to one" or "tail to four" - the aircraft's engines are numbered one to four from left to right so going with the engine references avoids confusion on whose left we're talking about. When it was time to stop I'd give a heads-up call followed by the countdown - "standby...five, four, three, two, one, STOP." If you just gave the stop right away they'd do it but it could result in a bit of a wheelie for the jet, and with the back door open you could fall out, which is embarrassing at the very least...

I didn't do airshow demos and since this was done on the runway (with lots of nice markings on it), it's possible the pilots in the vid used the runway centerline markings for alignment - pretty easy to follow and since you're on the runway nothing you can back into, right? But the ability to back the jet up was pretty useful, did it all the time, even parallel parked the aircraft (!) at Kuwait City International since the cargo ramp had some...interesting..parking. Especially when they'd park C-5s on either side of you and they'd break, which C-5s did, a lot...

As for getting up and going, the jet has a published ability to get airborne at max gross takeoff weight (585,000 lbs) with a 3,000ft strip. At lower payloads, especially empty, you could halve that depending on elevation and outside temperature. Pretty impressive!

[wicked_sick]

Where I live forest fires are a pretty common occurrence. You never get a sense of how huge the planes are till the fly right overhead. Rattles your bones.



(bonus points if anyone can name the location)

[Jumper Bones]

Not too many places you can see Lockheed Electras fly anymore

[Meadow Skipper]

Not too many places you can see Lockheed Electras fly anymore

[uselessanecdote]When I was fighting fire in Alaska during the 80s, the national fire center in Boise contracted an Electra during the summer to fly people around to high fire activity locations. We called the people that it brought up to AK Electralites.[/uselessanecdote]

Wildfire was a great way to see classic aircraft. When I first started there was at least one B-17 still on retardant contract. C-119Js blew my mind skipping down ridges into valleys in SoCal in the 70s. There was a KC-97 dropping around mud in the 80s, and the PB4Ys were pretty awesome. Catalinas, S-2s, CL-215s... Radial engines give me wood. I took this picture in the mid-80s in AK:

[splat]

Not too many places you can see Lockheed Electras fly anymore

I loved the Electras. They used to fly from John Wayne to SLT in the 70s. The tickets were $19!
Coolest thing about them was a round seating setup for like ten people in the tail for socializing.
And they were soooo quiet inside.

[BmillsSkier]

When the US outlawed a number of commercial jets for noise pollution, the airlines were giving them away and they became the gun runner's wings du jour in other parts of the world. I had a friend who was a pilot running guns in Africa. Between the time he took off and would land, there was a regime change in Uganda and he was forced down because they had negotiated airspace with the former leader. Total of three jets ( I think they were MD 80s or 727s) were set down by fighter jet escort. My friend said they killed two other pilots on the tarmac bullet to the head style. He was held in prison for 20 days before his wife bribed him out.

Ugh. That sounds awful. There's a whole bizarre world of aviation out there that seems very interesting to read about but would be terrifying to experience in person.