Most Interesting Thing To Get A Airplane Moving

boeing767mech · Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:19 am

Here's a silly one for you.

What is the most unusual or silly thing you had to do to get a airplane moved or out on a flight?

My example 6 of us had to jump up and down to get the outer wing tank to drain down to the middle wing on a DC-10, because the float switch in the middle tank did not open letting the fuel out of the outer wing tank. The APU had been running all night burning all the fuel out of the mid tank. The look on the supervisors face was classic, he was a new guy and didn't know the DC-10, for that point I didn't either but we bounced the wing and got the fuel to move down to the mid tank.

David

lowrider · Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:26 am

Jumping up and down at about row 6 in a Beech 1900 to free a stuck flap drive. The motor and drive assembly is located under the floor there.

HAWK21M · Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:41 am

Off loading a few Main deck Pallet using a lashing tied to a Tractor as the MDL Power driven units had become u/s.
Ground ops was stuck on Ideas,luckily Mx was not Smile

regds
MEL

SlamClick · Wed Aug 08, 2007 6:08 am

Crouch under a DC-9 to pull the APU inlet door to the "ram" position so the APU start sequence would begin. Alternative: Another long cold day in a place I didn't want to be in the first place.

* * *

Making a running takeoff in a skid-mounted helicopter. We topped off the fuel on a hot day in a place above the HIGE ceiling of the anemic Hiller. Slid along in the gravel for a hundred yards before going through translation and lifting off.

* * *

Run the rotor RPM to the upper redline, snatch the helicopter off the ground and hover over a few feet as the RPM bled off and we eventually settled back onto the ground.
Repeat.
Eventually I was able to hover off a cliff and trade the sudden altitude for some rotor RPM. Flew away in smart fashion.

* * *

Stop, set parking brake.
Shut down left engine.
Offload passengers with right engine running.
Crossbleed start left engine.
Shut down right engine.
Offload bags.
Load outbound bags.
Crossbleed start right engine.
Shut down left engine.
Board passengers.
Crossbleed start left engine.
Taxi away.

* * *

Sober up.
Relax you FAA guys, it wasn't in your jurisdiction. You don't want to know. Besides I made this up.

* * *

Hang on with one hand under the panel to keep my seat from tipping over.

That's enough. I'm starting to scare myself.

WrenchBender · Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:04 am

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 3):
Stop, set parking brake.
Shut down left engine.
Offload passengers with right engine running.
Crossbleed start left engine.
Shut down right engine.
Offload bags.
Load outbound bags.
Crossbleed start right engine.
Shut down left engine.
Board passengers.
Crossbleed start left engine.
Taxi away.

Seen similar to De-Ice a Herc with a tits up GTC/APU and no air start in Yellowknife.

Towed a Chinook with a 5 Ton gravel truck.

Jacked A/C while underway onboard ship for retraction test (very stupid on a small ship (<5Ktons)

WrenchBender

cancidas · Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:05 pm

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 3):
Stop, set parking brake.
Shut down left engine.
Offload passengers with right engine running.
Crossbleed start left engine.
Shut down right engine.
Offload bags.
Load outbound bags.
Crossbleed start right engine.
Shut down left engine.
Board passengers.
Crossbleed start left engine.
Taxi away.

done that numerous times, just your list seems a little short. assuming you have FOB, then you can do it your way. for us it was like this:

stop, park.
shut down #1, deplane pax, offload and load cargo, board pax.
crossbleed start #1, shutdown #2 and fuel.
pushback with #1 spinning and crossbleed #2.

last time we did that with a CRJ-700. 67 pax, 92 bags, 12000 lb of fuel in 28 minutes.

HAWK21M · Wed Aug 08, 2007 3:22 pm

Using a trestle to access the APU inlet door on the RH side of a B737 to tap it in ,ensuring the microswitch contacts to continue the start sequence.As readjusting the sw rigging would be done at the long halt.
regds
MEL

thegreatchecko · Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:11 pm

Things I've seen done to get a 1900 moving:

Rocked back an forth by pushing on the wings to help crack ice that has frozen the brakes when the brake deice is inop.

Watched a 1900 slide around on the ice outside a terminal for the same reason.

Lesson learned: "Don't taxi through snow piles if you can avoid it!"

Checko

Tristarsteve · Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:40 pm

Quoting HAWK21M (Reply 6):
Using a trestle to access the APU inlet door on the RH side of a B737 to tap it in ,ensuring the microswitch contacts to continue the start sequence.

A yard broom out of the R2 door used to do the trick for me. When we had B732 I kept one in the van.

Not quite in the same vein but, In the early 80s Gulf Air had two US registered Tristars, N92TA and N92TB. These were run under an FAA log book/MEL etc. One of them had a defect with the Slat PDU (sorry can't remember what) and had a 3 day MEL which ran out Thursday. Under CAA rules, which the other L1011 were under this was an unlimited time defect(in those days). We had to approach the FAA in FRA for a disp to continue to fly the aircraft until we got a new slat PDU due Sat. No answer. So on Thursday afternoon Colin and I interchanged the slat PDUs with another L1011 to get both aircraft flying Thursday night (when the whole fleet was in the air).

DeltaGuy · Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:02 pm

Moved a P-51 with a John Deere tractor and a chain

Pushed a dead k-loader off a 767 with a tug

Pulled T-34 out of mud (was grass when we parked it!) with 8 guys and a rope.

DeltaGuy

boeing767mech · Thu Aug 09, 2007 12:41 am

Quoting Tristarsteve (Reply 8):
Not quite in the same vein but, In the early 80s Gulf Air had two US registered Tristars, N92TA and N92TB. These were run under an FAA log book/MEL etc. One of them had a defect with the Slat PDU (sorry can't remember what) and had a 3 day MEL which ran out Thursday. Under CAA rules, which the other L1011 were under this was an unlimited time defect(in those days). We had to approach the FAA in FRA for a disp to continue to fly the aircraft until we got a new slat PDU due Sat. No answer. So on Thursday afternoon Colin and I interchanged the slat PDUs with another L1011 to get both aircraft flying Thursday night (when the whole fleet was in the air).

Aero California used to have mobile MEL's like that,I heard guys taking the bad parts off one airplane and putting it on another and clearing the placard on the first airplane and openning it up on the one with the bad part.

David

474218 · Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:45 am

Quoting Tristarsteve (Reply 8):
Not quite in the same vein but, In the early 80s Gulf Air had two US registered Tristars, N92TA and N92TB. These were run under an FAA log book/MEL etc. One of them had a defect with the Slat PDU (sorry can't remember what) and had a 3 day MEL which ran out Thursday. Under CAA rules, which the other L1011 were under this was an unlimited time defect(in those days). We had to approach the FAA in FRA for a disp to continue to fly the aircraft until we got a new slat PDU due Sat. No answer. So on Thursday afternoon Colin and I interchanged the slat PDUs with another L1011 to get both aircraft flying Thursday night (when the whole fleet was in the air).

Good story Steve; However, the only part of the L-1011 slat system that has MEL relief is the indicating system. If the PDU was inoperative you can not dispatch a TriStar as it must have the slats operational.

SlamClick · Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:53 am

Quoting DeltaGuy (Reply 9):
Moved a P-51 with a John Deere tractor and a chain

Moved an L-188 with a puny old half-ton Chevy pickup. Moving it was not a problem. Stopping it was. Wow!

pilotpip · Thu Aug 09, 2007 11:57 am

10 members of the Calgary Flames pushing the mains and nose because the stairs truck died with the outriggers down and their chartered A320 wasn't going anywhere because nobody had the correct towbar.

[Edited 2007-08-09 04:57:54]

Boston92 · Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:39 pm

On a recent flight from SFO to RNO, the Brasilia was heavy, and me and the rest of the back of the plane (heavyweights) had to lean back to help get the aircraft in the air and to our cruising altitude of 430 feet.

MD11Engineer · Thu Aug 09, 2007 8:00 pm

Quoting SlamClick (Reply 12):
Quoting DeltaGuy (Reply 9):
Moved a P-51 with a John Deere tractor and a chain

Moved an L-188 with a puny old half-ton Chevy pickup. Moving it was not a problem. Stopping it was. Wow!

Towing a MD-80 into a hangar using a 1 ton electric forklift because the tug was U/S.

Giving the nav lights on the wing tip of a 727 a "technical tap" (read: whacking them with a plastic traffic cone) to get them working again (the flight engineer's expression was priceless: "So Sir, where was the U/S light?")

Jan

[Edited 2007-08-09 13:03:38]

hangarrat · Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:59 pm

Quoting Pilotpip (Reply 13):
10 members of the Calgary Flames

How'd they get on board after that? Step ladder?

pilotpip · Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:26 am

Quoting HangarRat (Reply 16):

How'd they get on board after that? Step ladder?

We had a really flimsy airstairs that we kept around for detailing aircraft.

Tristarsteve · Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:03 am

Quoting 474218 (Reply 11):
Good story Steve; However, the only part of the L-1011 slat system that has MEL relief is the indicating system. If the PDU was inoperative you can not dispatch a TriStar as it must have the slats operational.

Yes I wish I could remember. But it is a true story. I wish I knew why we did it!

aogdesk · Fri Aug 10, 2007 3:50 am

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 15):
Giving the nav lights on the wing tip of a 727 a "technical tap"

Wow Jan, I forgot all about the tap on the 727 nav's. Always used to make a quick trip out to the airplane before the flight crew went out to preflight. I don't know about your method, but I ALWAYS used a calibrated tap. Wink

MrFord · Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:26 am

Quoting TheGreatChecko (Reply 7):
Things I've seen done to get a 1900 moving:

Rocked back an forth by pushing on the wings to help crack ice that has frozen the brakes when the brake deice is inop.

Watched a 1900 slide around on the ice outside a terminal for the same reason.

Lesson learned: "Don't taxi through snow piles if you can avoid it!"

Checko

Let me guess : This is the same multi-discs setup as the High Flotation Gears on the BE10?
At my old company, we had 2 BE10 out of 4 with that setup... and no brakes deice, they didn't think that this would be a useful option... well except when you operate north of the 49th parallel most of the time!
Correction: There was brake de-icers... one had 3 stripes, the other had 4, with a shared bottle of glycol IIRC Wink

Oh I still remember a particular snowback in front of the hangar on a particulary cold January snow storm... but then my job was to stay warm inside Cool

jetstar · Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:40 am

Quoting Boeing767mech (Thread starter):
My example 6 of us had to jump up and down to get the outer wing tank to drain down to the middle wing on a DC-10,

Did a similar thing on an Air Force Boeing C-97 during an engine change. The engine was mounted on a Quick Engine Change frame called a QEC. Everything came off the airplane as one unit and nothing stayed on the airframe.

During an engine change the QEC which was attached to the airframe with 4 bolts, we were only able to get 3 bolts in, the fourth was just a little off, instead of forcing or hammering the bolt in, I went out to the wingtip and started to jump up and down, the wing flexed enough so they were able to get the last QEC bolt in.

mark5388916 · Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:45 am

I've used that same method of attaching some things at school... how interesting that it works for airplanes too.... Not a big surprise mind you Smile

Mark

HAWK21M · Fri Aug 10, 2007 2:21 pm

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 15):
Giving the nav lights on the wing tip of a 727 a "technical tap

Yeah thats a common on the B737s too with both Nav lights & wheel well lights. Smile

regds
MEL

boeing767mech · Fri Aug 10, 2007 10:54 pm

Quoting Jetstar (Reply 21):
During an engine change the QEC which was attached to the airframe with 4 bolts, we were only able to get 3 bolts in, the fourth was just a little off, instead of forcing or hammering the bolt in, I went out to the wingtip and started to jump up and down, the wing flexed enough so they were able to get the last QEC bolt in.

We usually have to use a little 5 pound force to get the bolts in during the reversor changes we do on the 757's. I about fell over dead the other day when we had the Crane set right and the T/R alined perfect, all we did was grease up the bolt and the thread protectors and it slid in with finger pressure. I have never had one do that before.

David

MD11Engineer · Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:51 pm

On the 737 classic there is a bracket beneath the main gear actuator in the main wheel wells. To remove the actuator (during main gear replacements) you'll have to remove this bracket (which is held by two bolts about 1/2 inch thick). These bolts are usually corroded into place. To get them out we used first loads of WD-40 and let it soak over two to three days. Then we would take and ordinary drift and hammer to get them moving. If this didn't work we used the next option: The mother of all rivet guns (a 7x gun looking like a miner's pneumatic chisel) with a aluminium snap in it.
If this didn't work there was the brute force option: A 2 feet long brass drift and a bloke with a sledge hammer.
We always got funny looks when we started taking a sledge hammer to an aircraft.

Jan

boeing767mech · Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:13 am

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 25):
On the 737 classic there is a bracket beneath the main gear actuator in the main wheel wells

We did a fitting on a 732 for Aloha when I was working at a repair station, we tried a 12X rivet gun and still could not get it to move. Turned out it had to be burned out. I think it was the 695 fitting on the fuselage where the walking beam mounted.

David

HAWK21M · Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:10 pm

Quoting Boeing767mech (Reply 26):
Turned out it had to be burned out

What did you use.
regds
MEL

Buzz · Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:18 pm

Hi SlamCLick, Buzz here. I'd forgotten about jumping up and down in the aft cabin to get our DC-8 upper anticollison beacon to rotate.

And there was once when we taxied up to the gas pumps with a DC-3, once at Chehalis (KCLS) and once at Scapoose (KSPB). How do you back up a DC-3 ? get 3 guys on each main tire, try to roll the top of the tire away from you and the airplane backs up... if you aren't too heavy.

When we'd come back from an airshow in the PV-2D Harpoon, the RH shock strut would often stick up - full extend (the air pressure and oil level sure seemed correct). Once I got on a work stand, shake-pull the wingtip. The strut seals let loose once, and the wingtip was like a big fly-swatter, knocked me off the workstand.

While doing 737-300 accel runs, we'd need to tweak the flight idle speed. Of course we're out on a deserted taxiway and no ladder to get down out of the airplane. Idea: flaps out to 10 degrees (leading edge slats full extended), go out the overwing exit, jam my feet into the outboard half of the fan exhaust (engine shut down of course), hold onto the aft edge of the slats and slide down. I might even still be able to crawl back up on top the wing that way... it's been several years.
Anyway, tweaked the flight idle, finally passed the acceleration check, taxi back to the terminal. Things happen at night.

g'day

MD11Engineer · Sun Aug 12, 2007 8:58 pm

Quoting Buzz (Reply 28):
While doing 737-300 accel runs, we'd need to tweak the flight idle speed. Of course we're out on a deserted taxiway and no ladder to get down out of the airplane. Idea: flaps out to 10 degrees (leading edge slats full extended), go out the overwing exit, jam my feet into the outboard half of the fan exhaust (engine shut down of course), hold onto the aft edge of the slats and slide down. I might even still be able to crawl back up on top the wing that way... it's been several years.
Anyway, tweaked the flight idle, finally passed the acceleration check, taxi back to the terminal. Things happen at night.

I knew a South African engineer, who had to fix something on top of #1 engine pylon of a 727, but no ladder or staging.
He used the L1 door hinges and door as a ladder and climbed on top of the fuselage. Then he walked along the fuselage crown all the way back to just above #1 engine. There he slid down on the pylon.
After finishing his work, he let himself hang be his hands from the trailing dge of the pylon and let himself drop down to the ground.

Jan

n710ps · Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:48 am

Quoting Cancidas (Reply 5):
last time we did that with a CRJ-700. 67 pax, 92 bags, 12000 lb of fuel in 28 minutes.

Been there done that! Not with you though obviously. When we work together it is for some reason flawless except for you bitching at me about a missed entry.

cancidas · Tue Aug 14, 2007 12:38 am

Quoting N710PS (Reply 30):
Been there done that! Not with you though obviously. When we work together it is for some reason flawless except for you bitching at me about a missed entry.

more like the many missed entries. SLACKER!

Fly2HMO · Wed Aug 15, 2007 8:57 am

Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 29):
he let himself hang be his hands from the trailing dge of the pylon and let himself drop down to the ground.

That gotta hurt headache

CanadianNorth · Thu Aug 16, 2007 10:39 am

At Air North our front end loader, large forklift and aircraft tug are all the same vehicle. Basically it's an old front end loader with a forklift thing installed instead of the usual bucket, and there is a special thinger welded on the front that hooks onto the towbar. Sucks having to go the whole way back and forth between the hangar and terminal in reverse, but it's way cheaper than having that for a forklift plus buying a tug...

CanadianNorth

HAWK21M · Thu Aug 16, 2007 6:50 pm

Quoting CanadianNorth (Reply 33):
At Air North our front end loader, large forklift and aircraft tug are all the same vehicle

How about control panel.Is it the same for each function or at different locatons on the vehicle.
regds
MEL

Gr8Circle · Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:20 am

Quoting Boeing767mech (Thread starter):
My example 6 of us had to jump up and down to get the outer wing tank to drain down to the middle wing on a DC-10, because the float switch in the middle tank did not open letting the fuel out of the outer wing tank. The

Wow! If I was a pax in a plane and looked out of the window and saw six guys jumping up and down on the wing, I would be seriously worried.... wideeyed

CanadianNorth · Fri Aug 17, 2007 1:22 am

Quoting HAWK21M (Reply 34):
How about control panel.Is it the same for each function or at different locatons on the vehicle.

I've never actually been in it. But apparently it's much the same as a normal loader, only with a hook for the towbar. I don't know if there are any more control panels inside, but you sit in the same spot for towing and forklifting. Only difference is with an airplane hooked on for the plane to go forward you have to go backwards. It only gets used 4 or 5 times a day though towing airplanes to the hangar for starting their day, towing them back to the hangar after, and occasionally moving them around the hangars (both hangars only fit one aircraft at a time).

CanadianNorth

HAWK21M · Fri Aug 17, 2007 3:29 pm

Quoting CanadianNorth (Reply 36):
But apparently it's much the same as a normal loader

Try clicking a pic next time.As such multiple units normally have more than one control panel.
regds
MEL

tdscanuck · Fri Aug 17, 2007 4:15 pm

Quoting Gr8Circle (Reply 35):
Wow! If I was a pax in a plane and looked out of the window and saw six guys jumping up and down on the wing, I would be seriously worried....

I was on a 737 with some very minor damage to the nacelle that was found during walkaround. A mechanic applied a temporary speed tape repair, no bid deal, but a guy up in business class saw him do it and freaked out that they were repairing the airplane "with duct tape!". He demanded to leave the flight, and the cabin crew happily let him go.

Tom.

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