Had a nice C5 ride from the PI to Diego Garcia.
Next leg was a noisy C141 from Diego Garcia to Mombasa Africa sitting facing the tail loaded with pallets of bombs.

When 25th Infantry Division (Schofield Barracks Hawaii) turned out the lights and left Iraq in 2011 or thereabouts, the Commanding General decided it would be cool to return to Oahu on a Hawaii National Guard aircraft. He and some of the staff flew all the way on a C130. It was well more than 8 hours and multiple stops. I know a couple of guys that were unlucky enough to be on that flight. One of them is a bit of a 'Richard' so serves him right...

A friend of mine was a Navy C-130 pilot at VXE-6, which in those days flew folks to Antarctica from Point Mugu, California. They had aircraft in Christchurch, NZ as well.

After my first cruise I had two week of "basket leave" and my buddy asked if I wanted to fly to the ice.

I should have, but couldn't resist the opportunity.

It was the longest four aviation days of my life just to get to NZ. I honestly don't know which is worse, being a passenger in a C-130 flying over the Pacific Ocean at just over 300kts or crossing it on a Frigate.

Coin toss.

Happily, the base in Antarctica was weathered in and I flew home on a big ol' jet liner. Never got to the ice.:cool:

Got a round trip ride on Fat Albert the blue angel c130.
From San Diego to Pensacola.
Long, loud and no soft seats.
Best c130 ride was with the British parachute team.
At 10,000 feet they strapped me into the last seat before the rear door.
I watched as the big rear door opened and 40 skydivers ran out of the big rear door.

Ha! I’ll take the C130 for $500, Alex! Give me the Frigate any day!

I almost forgot my worst C130 flight. Iraq 'winter' 2006, just cool enough for a polar fleece. I was going from one place to the next and got a ride with the Aussies on a 130 medevac bird. I had no idea how they flew...

Take off relatively normal, maybe a little steep. Then we flew very low altitude, which kept the aircraft warm inside so I immediately regretted the fleece. A couple of pax knew the deal and just smiled as we had a very bumpy ride.

We get close to destination and ascended quite a bit in altitude. Then joy of joys, an overhead approach on landing. Essentially a death spiral over the airfield to avoid enemy fire (even though there wasn't any). Blood rushing to extremities and sweating even more. Finally and mercifully landed.

Oh I forgot to mention the medical patients on the aircraft.... they suffered more than me on that roller coaster ride.

When i worked for McDonnell Douglas, I wrote a report for contingency operations where the Space Shuttle couldn't make it to orbit. Which airport it could land at based on when it had a main engine failure, etc. Most of that was already figured out, but the hard part is that the SCA (Shuttle Carrier Aircraft - the 747 that carried the shuttle) required that the Shuttle be empty. Well, I worked on the Spacelab program and we had to figure out how to get the Spacelab equipment out of the shuttle (likely at some middle-of-nowhere air base in Africa or something) and back to the US.

The solution? A C-5! The entire payload of the shuttle fit into a thing called the Canister and the Canister would fit into a C-5. So...that was my plan...

Also, I worked on a project to modify a C-130 to mount a laser turret in it. It was my job to design the turret retraction system. The bad thing was that the turret extended farther down than the landing gear. Made the pilots nervous... :)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1745928492.jpg

A C5 flew over my house yesterday. Tremendous beautiful beast.

One of my earliest memories was flying from California to the terrirory of Hawaii on a C-54 (DC-4) in 1959. We were seated, facing the tail. It was unpressurized, so we stayed under 10,000 feet, poking along at 190 mph for what seemed forever. Mom was dressed up like she was going to a wedding, and dad was in uniform. At one point I remember asking my mom if this is where we live now.

It is 2555 miles and a 13.5 hour flight. Nothing to look at but endless waves.