How To Make a VAW Maintenance Dept Head Sweat…
Crane-off an E-2.
Now for the small-boys, it’s not as big a deal as they are more practiced at it given t he numbers in their squadrons, but also just because, well, they’re smaller, more compact and don’t have this big ol’ airframe feature called a dome in the middle to deal with that calls for a special brace. Don’t do it right, the dome gets punctured and now you’re looking at a dome swap – not cheap and not easy (besides, it’s not like there’s spare domes lying around either). Your humble scribe counts his lucky stars that he never had to crane one off. Here the pros at VAW-115 and Kitty Hawk’s Air Department make it look all too easy –
Someone pass me the Tums…
But wait, there’s more. After they got it to the pier-then the aircraft had to be hoisted 2 more times. Once onto a barge so that it could be towed across Tokyo Bay to Kisarazu-45 miles away, where a new wing had to be put on in a less than stellar CH-47 Japanese hangar. Then flown back to Atsugi. Why?
Because an E-2 will not fit through the tunnels on the Yoko-Yoko expressway. The winds were kicking up so it was touch and go that they could get it on.
And all this, mind you, the day before 60,000 Japanese were to come on base for the Grand Illumination festival. 👿
There were a lot of people sweating, on the base, on the Kitty Hawk, and at C7F.
As an aside Steve Schmeiser says hi. He has a few less hairs today because of this.
aycarumba….. 🙁 forget the hairs, how about a digestive tract….?
– SJS