Airplane P0rn and a Fox for Wines

As promised, I am delivering on my promise of airplane porn. Airplane p0rn is much, much safer than the other kind, wives and bosses don't mind nearly as much. It is, however, a gateway drug as it can lead to pursuing a pilot's license which in turn can cause all sorts of marital discord.

I digress. As posted Friday night, I have been gone for a few days. I am sure some of your saw the photo of the big city skyline and thought the Saint and I were headed off to a romantic getaway. As much fun as that might be, this was more of a business trip.

 

 The business end of an Air Force C-17. The huge cargo door, and the aircraft's ability to carry what fits in it, is the reason the aircraft exists. Not my favorite aircraft, but an amazing one none the less.

Old time jet pilots used to have a saying "Kick the tires, then light the fire". That was a catchy phrase referring to the pre-flight walk around. Well, this was the "kick the tires" phase of our flight.

The C-17 can take off at a weight of nearly 300 tons. Moving that kind of weight around calls for power and lots of it. Each of the four engines on this beast produce 40,000 pounds of thrust.

This tractor-trailer was no challenge for this C-17. It was only part of the cargo, yet the whole load came nowhere close to matching the capacity of the aircraft. I thought backing a pick-up truck into one of these was a lot of responsibility, think of how the driver of this truck must feel.

Climbing out of our departure airfield in a right hand turn. Both pilots looking for other traffic, as was I.  I was involved in a near miss back in the day, it was not a pleasant experience.

Right at touchdown. We are traveling at 130 knots and are slightly nose up. The center-line of the runway is pointing between our knees. My favorite part of any landing.

One on the ground, the aircraft are directed where to park by marshallers,  who also assist the pilot in making sure the aircraft is clear of obstacles. This marshaller is guiding a C-130, which is much smaller than a C-17 but is equally amazing. The C-130 has been in production since the late '50s and will be in service for many years to come.

 

A C-17 departing our destination. I flew home on this aircraft the following day, it was a bit newer than our departure aircraft.

My buddy Capt. Wines over at Iron Firemen, got all exited when I promised p0rn in my last post. I am betting he thought it was the "other" kind, not the airplane kind. I thought I would bait him further by promising a photo of a fox in this post.

For those of you born after 1970 or so, the term fox used to denote an attractive young woman. There were very few women at our location, those that were there were all very busy and were all business. This fox apparently had nothing going on and consented to having her photo taken. She was napping next to the mess hall and couldn't care less that I was there taking her picture.

A great trip, but now I have to go through hundreds of photos and process the good ones. That should keep me busy for a while.

Thanks for reading,
Schmoe