40 years ago...I was taking my Naval Aircrew checkride on the
P-3B Orion. It was a typical humid, hot and unpleasant day at Naval Air Station Belle Chase (metro New Orleans), and I helped the Flight Engineer with preflight chores, with getting the A/C cranking a top priority. I'd been coached in great detail, and made absolute sure the preflight checks at my station were thorough. For the past week, I'd crammed on equipment names and circuit breaker locations. Things went quite smooth, and about an hour into the flight, I was feeling confident, and could tell my evaluator sensed it;
time to trip him up, he undoubtedly thought. "Okay Coats, where is the
apsco giant?" he queried, with a stone-cold face usually reserved for a table of Texas Hold-Em'.
I was flummoxed. The
apsco giant WTF? The words jostled a few brain cells; there was flicker of familiarity, but that was it: just a faint awareness, but it wasn't filed under Aircraft. A mild panic formed. How could I not know this? I knew the names of almost everything on the aircraft aft of the cockpit. Finally, he got a smirk on his face, grabbed the D-ring on my harness and yanked me up to the front and there it was, anchored on the wall about chest level:
The elusive apsco giant.
