Man I love my Night job

[Kilgour Trout]

I know this might sound weird but Man..I love my my evening job. During the Day I work for the Ministry of Health (Drug and Alcohol abuse prevention programs) but at night I work at the local airport. The reason I say this tonight is that I just came back from crawling all over a CF-18/F-18. For those who love aircraft any opportunity to actually explore different aircraft is an adventure.
Having loved planes from youth It just stuns me the stuff I'm getting to do at the age of 40. It is made even more fun by the fact that our Northern airfield tend to see some old unique aircraft (C-47 Commandoes and the like). I find it kind of funny how at one end of the field we have Beavers on floats, skymasters,Hawker Siddley freighters, Beech 99's, Caravan's (Not the Dodge model),Fairchild Metros and Oh..at the other end of the Field a CF-18. The pilot happens to live in town, so he pops in just leaves the plane for the night in our drive way. He'll come back in the morning, we'll fuel up his fighter/bomber and off he goes to work.
It all goes to prove that God often gives us little adventures that can be so much fun. It gets better when we share them with our kids and our friends. I'm sure others have work related adventures they could share. I should appologize for the indulgence but when you pull your head out of the afterburner of a jet fighter you have got to tell somebody eh?

Warm Regards
Kilgour Trout

 

[Nathan Flowers]

That's really neat. You should take your camera to work with you at night in case stuff like that happens again.

I don't think our military here in the US allows their pilots to do that. I've seen F16's and A10's from the base 60 miles away come in for fuel, and some snacks, but they can't leave their planes just sitting there.

The coolest thing I have ever seen at our airport was an original P-51, owned by a guy in Cheraw, SC. The roar of that V12 is something that everybody should experience in their lifetime.

 

[Kilgour Trout]

Great Idea.

Zohar: Thanks for the idea . As summer comes on I'll remember to bring the digital camera out. I really wish I had it last year when a Beech 17 came in and sat at the field for at least a month. It is a type of stagger wing that took the owner 20 years to restore. It was absolutely beautiful. I will also keep my eyes out for the C-47 Douglas tail dragger. Like the P-51 you saw there is something about these planes that captures the imagination. Once you've seen and heard them you start to look for any opportunity to see them again. Depending on where you are in the US...there always seems to be something going in terms of an airshow or a musuem to visit. I just wish I wasn't so far away.
I don't know if you have heard of it but I would love to make the Oshkosh airshow one day. The variety and sheer number of aircraft is amazing. It becomes the largest/busiest airport in the world for (I think) 3 days. I wonder if any of us has had the opporunity.
I'm hoping that when the C-47 comes in again I'll get my chance to get a photo of my Old 69 Chevelle convert, me and my brood in our adventure gear. I should really ask to borrow Michealson's Plymouth for the photo (More era appropriate) but shipping could be a problem .

Warm Regards
Kilgour Trout

 

[STHill]

Back in the mid-70s, when I was in high school, I had an interesting experience. My dad was the Gulf Oil distributor in the little middle Georgia town where we lived. He got a call one day from a U.S. Government agent of some sort (DEA, maybe?). He said a drug-smuggling plane had been confiscated after landing in a rural area about 15 miles from town.

He was calling us to haul some fuel out there so they could fly it out. My Dad, my brother and I filled up the gas truck with whatever kind of fuel they specified, piled into the truck and headed out to where the plane was. We got there, drove down several dirt roads and through the woods. We emerged from the woods in the middle of nowhere and there's this C-47 sitting at one end of a hay field. There were a couple of government agents and a government pilot there, along with the farmer that owned the land. The plane was empty except for a few seeds and stems on the floor. My brother and I got to walk all through the plane and sit in the cockpit.

While the plane was getting fueled, we shot the breeze with the government guys. I remember the pilot was the classic hot dog Cowboy type, though very friendly. As soon as we finished fueling the plane, he hopped in, cranked it up, turned it into the wind, revved it up a few times, and took off right out of that hay field. The government guys got in their car and left (after making payment arrangements), leaving the farmer, my dad, my brother and me just sitting there in an eerily quiet hay field. Five minutes earlier, I had been walking around inside a vintage C-47 and suddenly, it was like it had never been there. We got back in the gas truck and drove on back to town.

 

[Andykev]

You guys stop!

I love planes. I own a plane. I sold a plane, I was restoring a plane.

Now I have a Beechcraft. FLy as often as weather, money, and wife permit.!!

Have you started a DC-3 motor? Wierd, you have to pull this, push that, turn off the mags, primer, activate the starter, swing the prop and count 12 blades (three rev's) which pulls oil from the cylinders at the bottom of the radial. Then you kick on the mags and it starts belching clouds of blue and black smoke, chugging. Then the beast comes to life, and initially it sounds like a bunch of workers beating a wheelbarrow with flat shovels.

Oh, but when those P&W Radials warm up, how sweet the sound!!!

 

[farnham54]

I'm guessing Darwin was in town, eh Rob? Did he smash any windows this time

Thats something you plane fanatics are missing out on by not coming to the Great White North for a visit--I think one of the youngest commercially operated float planes in the area is 1950s-ish, with many dating back to the 30's--Rob might be able to correct me on this.

Regards,

Craig