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In the Engine room of steam driven Navy ships, we drilled regularly for all sorts of emergencies. High water in the boiler, major fuel oil leak, class bravo fire, and other drills. Most were annoying because we had to trip or shut down the boilers, generators, and evaps (flash type distilling plant that turns sea water into clean drinking water). There was one part of the drills that scared me, but I did them. Stop and lock the shaft. Basicly, it's a three man evolution. You had the throttleman at the ahead and astern steam valve wheels watching the MM upper levelman who was watching the shaft and giving hand signals to the throttleman. Near the MMUL was the MM messenger with his hand on the jacking gear lever waiting for the command. Once the shaft has stopped moving for several seconds, the command is given to engage the jacking gear to lock the shaft. Once engaged, the MMUL and messenger run away yelling "clear the area". What made this scary was if the throttleman made a mistake with the throttles when the jacking gear is engaged, it could turn that jacking gear into a grenade and explode in fragments killing people in the area. We had to trust the throttleman to not make that mistake.
1.) All of the transmitters I worked on were 3 phase 480, 400 amps. More than enough to kill you, we worked on them with covers over to to perform troubleshooting, we actually had a girl electrocuted while doing this. Her hand was a little too close and -1250 volts arched and went through her hand and out her elbow, blew a chunk of skin the size of a silver dollar. If her elbow wasn't grounded she would have died.
As a Navy ADJ, crawling in the 6 foot air intake to inspect engine fan blades.
At the test engine pad, being under the plane engine when run up to 100% and afterburner.
As a Navy ADJ, crawling in the 6 foot air intake to inspect engine fan blades.
At the test engine pad, being under the plane engine when run up to 100% and afterburner.
Long ago F100 and F111 crew chief here. I didn't mind the intakes as they they were always clean. It was the exhausts that I hated to crawl into.
I agree on the trim pads. In stage 5 afterburner the F111's two TF30s were deafening and shook the ground. To crawl under an F111 to remove a belly panel during run-up was like working under a running locomotive. I once saw a cottontail rabbit blasted about 75 feet into the air out of a blast deflector wall made of 5" steel pipe. It sounded like a mortar round when he came out. We picked him up afterward and every bone in his body must have been broken.
I also did not like doing preflights at the end of the runway just before the aircraft took off. Those inspections required you to get really close to the running intakes and exhausts.
Long ago F100 and F111 crew chief here. I didn't mind the intakes as they they were always clean. It was the exhausts that I hated to crawl into.
I agree on the trim pads. In stage 5 afterburner the F111's two TF30s were deafening and shook the ground. To crawl under an F111 to remove a belly panel during run-up was like working under a running locomotive. I once saw a cottontail rabbit blasted about 75 feet into the air out of a blast deflector wall made of 5" steel pipe. It sounded like a mortar round when he came out. We picked him up afterward and every bone in his body must have been broken.
I also did not like doing preflights at the end of the runway just before the aircraft took off. Those inspections required you to get really close to the running intakes and exhausts.
GREAT post, High Plains Retired! My first assignment was to the T-43 (B737 used as a navigator trainer). While the T-43 had enough "danger" areas to be aware of, my first experiences around a fighter aircraft at F-4 FTD was a whole different kind of scary until I got used to it. And flight controls that were in close enough proximity to maim & kill, unlike most of the T-43s'.
On my first boat, a nuke ET was testing voltages on a 440VAC panel, made a fireball that left a hole in his chest the size of a soft ball. He left a widow and two children.
At periscope depth once during a hurricane we had a flooding incident when the head valve stuck open and we took on a lot of water through our induction mast. Lots of mattress' went on top of the battery compartment to keep sea-water from flooding the battery [and making chlorine gas].
I was the first CO2 extinguisher responding to a laundry fire once on that boat.
Once I had to make a solder repair to a back-plane junction in the back of my mainframe computer. To access it I had to crawl into the out-boards and hang upside down, going between some pipes. As I was making the solder repair, we detected a Soviet Delta in the area. To avoid detection we went deep below a thermal-layer. By going deep our hull compressed [as usual], the pipes are all suspended from the hull so they moved in tighter and pinned me. Compressing my rib cage and eventually sliding between two of my ribs and forcing those ribs to separate apart. Fortunately ribs are kind of held together by cartilage, so nothing really 'broke' [maybe?]. It hurt really bad, and compressing my ribs like that I was not able to inhale very good. Hanging upside down, pinned, in pain, and unable to breath, when my vision faded that was the only time I ever experienced claustrophobia. Eventually we were able to go back up to a higher depth, the hull expanded, the pipes returned to their normal spacing, I was able to breath again, I regained consciousness [though my ribs hurt a lot]. I finished my soldering. It took months for my ribs to stop hurting.
Then I was on a tender, they had fires all the time it seemed. A main steam line blew up once and injured a bunch of men. But I do not recall anything that was very frightening to me.
Then I was on shore-duty doing Police Work and we [me] were fired on from off-base once.
On my second boat we had a couple fires. Fires are always exciting when your underwater. No floodings though.
I do not recall my third boat ever having any fires, or floodings.
Then I went back to Police work overseas, and got drawn into Kosovo [back that would be off-topic here]
Had a condensate pump's flexible coupling that blew apart at a Navy nuclear prototype plant. As I replaced the metal coupling, I noticed how many of those jagged fragments had stayed embedded in the grease and how many had gone flying, spun off the shaft. Needless to say, if I had been walking in front of that pump when it gave way, it would have been like a grenade.
People always ask me if I saw combat. I can only laugh. There are two places in the military where its dangerous all the time, combat or not - the flight line (especially on a carrier, with so little room), and a warship engine room. If you get sucked into a jet intake, or get boiled by high pressure steam, you're dead, wartime or peacetime.
Had a condensate pump's flexible coupling that blew apart at a Navy nuclear prototype plant. As I replaced the metal coupling, I noticed how many of those jagged fragments had stayed embedded in the grease and how many had gone flying, spun off the shaft. Needless to say, if I had been walking in front of that pump when it gave way, it would have been like a grenade.
People always ask me if I saw combat. I can only laugh. There are two places in the military where its dangerous all the time, combat or not - the flight line (especially on a carrier, with so little room), and a warship engine room. If you get sucked into a jet intake, or get boiled by high pressure steam, you're dead, wartime or peacetime.
My first ship was a helicopter carrier, an LPH. Lost a grape shirt during hot fueling, that's when the crew are fueling helicopters while they're still running and ready for takeoff. He walked into the tail rotors. He had only a few years left to retirement. Combination of exhaustion, flight deck heat, sweat in eyes all contributed to his death caught on our closed circuit camera system.
My first ship was a helicopter carrier, an LPH. Lost a grape shirt during hot fueling, that's when the crew are fueling helicopters while they're still running and ready for takeoff. He walked into the tail rotors. He had only a few years left to retirement. Combination of exhaustion, flight deck heat, sweat in eyes all contributed to his death caught on our closed circuit camera system.
Thanks for posting, Sailordave! What an illustration of "it only takes a second of inattention..." I can only think of my close calls with moving flight controls, high pressure air and other dangerous flightline stuff.
Once I saw a guy drop a trouble light into a trash barrel full of JP-4 underneath an F111 inside a hanger. There were two F111s in the hanger that night but luckily a fire extinguisher was able to extinguish the flames before they spread beyond the barrel.
On the F111 there was the story that walking around the nosecone while the radar was working would make you a eunuch. I don't know if it was true but I always ducked under the cone when I had to walk around the front of the aircraft while the engines were running. At any rate, I do have children now.
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My first assignment was to the T-43 (B737 used as a navigator trainer). While the T-43 had enough "danger" areas to be aware of, my first experiences around a fighter aircraft at F-4 FTD was a whole different kind of scary until I got used to it. And flight controls that were in close enough proximity to maim & kill, unlike most of the T-43s'.
