rotorwash
08-08-07, 03:46
We had about five guys in the armaments section who were responsible for rebuilding the gun systems when we tore them up, or dropped rocket pods, stuff like that. Sometimes these guys were cool, sometimes they weren’t. They were entitled to flight pay, but that meant they would have to occasionally, actually – well, you know – go fly. When we got a guy that was afraid to fly we were merciless. Sometimes they would just try and sneak their name in the logbook, but we would erase it.
One such individual sauntered out to the aircraft with all of his God given authority and talent, opened the pilot’s door, stepped up onto the skid, switched on the master switch and the intervalometer that activated the rockets. From this point on, his day went decidedly sour. His hand slipped off the back of the pilot’s seat and he lost his balance causing his other hand to flail uncontrollably until it hit the pilot’s cyclic stick, the one that stands up between the pilot’s knees. Only his hand hit a certain little red button on the cyclic that shoots the rockets. At this point fate took over.
As it was supposed to do, a rocket promptly ignited and shot forward out of the tube. When a rocket fires, the stabilizing fins are hinged together at the back of the rocket and when it fires, the fins spring out and start the rocket spinning. It just so happened that the rocket passed mere inches behind our hero’s legs, one of the fins, however, smacked him, leaving serious bruises to accompany the burn marks on his pants. The rocket continued, passing just under the pilot’s door and then the ten or so feet until it hit the revetment wall.
The rocket had not armed yet, it had not completed the required number of revolutions, so it just plowed into the revetment, penetrated the PSP plank, four feet of sandbags, and another layer of PSP before it exited. Unfortunately, it lost one of the fins, so control at this point was dubious at best.
By now the commotion had gotten everyone’s attention, and we were all enthralled as the rocket did a really cool barrel roll, rolling up to about fifty feet before it rolled back to almost ground level. Fortunately, the next revetment was empty and the rocket plowed into the revetment wall, where it stuck and flamed out in a disappointing finale. For the next couple of minutes you could have heard a pin drop on a mattress. Then, as we realized we had just witnessed something extraordinary and were still alive, the whooping and hollering started. Needless to say, the guy never lived it down.
One such individual sauntered out to the aircraft with all of his God given authority and talent, opened the pilot’s door, stepped up onto the skid, switched on the master switch and the intervalometer that activated the rockets. From this point on, his day went decidedly sour. His hand slipped off the back of the pilot’s seat and he lost his balance causing his other hand to flail uncontrollably until it hit the pilot’s cyclic stick, the one that stands up between the pilot’s knees. Only his hand hit a certain little red button on the cyclic that shoots the rockets. At this point fate took over.
As it was supposed to do, a rocket promptly ignited and shot forward out of the tube. When a rocket fires, the stabilizing fins are hinged together at the back of the rocket and when it fires, the fins spring out and start the rocket spinning. It just so happened that the rocket passed mere inches behind our hero’s legs, one of the fins, however, smacked him, leaving serious bruises to accompany the burn marks on his pants. The rocket continued, passing just under the pilot’s door and then the ten or so feet until it hit the revetment wall.
The rocket had not armed yet, it had not completed the required number of revolutions, so it just plowed into the revetment, penetrated the PSP plank, four feet of sandbags, and another layer of PSP before it exited. Unfortunately, it lost one of the fins, so control at this point was dubious at best.
By now the commotion had gotten everyone’s attention, and we were all enthralled as the rocket did a really cool barrel roll, rolling up to about fifty feet before it rolled back to almost ground level. Fortunately, the next revetment was empty and the rocket plowed into the revetment wall, where it stuck and flamed out in a disappointing finale. For the next couple of minutes you could have heard a pin drop on a mattress. Then, as we realized we had just witnessed something extraordinary and were still alive, the whooping and hollering started. Needless to say, the guy never lived it down.