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C-17 lands short at Dover


Butters

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All I know is that in the KC-10, I would choose 100% of the time a shit hot FE over a shit hot copilot any day & twice on Sunday. An FE that is slow as shit running the checklist and doing TOLD is just brutal. With an idiot for a copilot, I can easily fly & work the radios while he sits on his hands.

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Issue is on most modern airplanes you don't run TOLD, it's calculated for you by the airplane...and checklists are flows...

True, however there are AF airframes that have an FMS that calculates TOLD, has checklist flow patterns, and still has an FE.

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Surf...

After reading numerous post on here, I had to finally chime in.

A little background. I retired a few months after 27+ years in. Loadmaster (C/MC-130's,) CC (HC-130) and finally FE (C-5).

On top of that, I hold A&P, CFI and ATP licenses/ratings.

While I truly enjoyed being an FE on Fred (and would have remained, if my unit had not switched to -17's), your vision and version on what the FE of today and the past decade are is misguided.

Yes, at some point they were system experts, and also outside the "Pilot" union.. but those days are long gone.

My unit had some of the BEST FE's out there.. we also had some of the worse. No different that the Pilot section, or the Load section.

The fact that there was one Class A C-5 accident, and a handful of Class B's is testimony that even with FE's on board, shit can and will still happen.

Can we say for sure (100%) that this incident, or the Tampa landing, or the gear up.. would not have happened if there had been an FE onboard?- Nope.

As a strat airlifter- the C-17 probably doesn't need an FE. Hell, the 74's flying cargo with new -400's/8's don't have FE's either. There comes a day/time that the FE position needs to go away.

Now, don't get me wrong- an FE is a great asset to have. If he's a true Flight Engineer..an aviator, a guy who loves his airframe and loves his place in life. Unfortunately, those are far and few inbetween. Mostly the old heads and a handful of young tigers (until they get sick and tired of all the AF BS)

Just like many of the gunners have left, same with navs and slowly FE's, there will come a day when many pilots will disappear. Just the way it is.

Hopefully that's another 50 years away!

Always

Motch

You out of SWF?

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Page after page of inane discussion on FEs... Can someone shed some light on what actually happened at KDOV?

Yes, A C-17 landed short. If a warrant officer FE had been in the cockpit and at the SOF desk, that $h!t wouldn't have happened. Guaranteed. <sorry bro, couldn't resist>

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Yes, A C-17 landed short. If a warrant officer FE had been in the cockpit and at the SOF desk, that $h!t wouldn't have happened. Guaranteed. <sorry bro, couldn't resist>

You got it all wrong... an FE with two Masters degrees who just cross flowed from a 130J landed gear up flying solo in a C-17; turns out he was sexually harassing the gay singer from Tops in Blue at the time that he was planning the Christmas Party with when he learned he got passed over for a second time for Lt Col and got non-continued. Now he doesn't know what to do because he wanted to sign the bonus that got delayed and isn't sure if he can still transfer his GI Bill to his kids. All of this happened while landing at the wrong airport in Tampa when he was supposed to be landing in Benghazi, but just as he was manually calculating TOLD he got a call from both Obama and Clinton telling him not to go. He was planning on getting out any day now anyway when the Airlines start their massive hiring wave! I guess they already had the court martial and he got convicted by a bunch of shoes on the jury, but a 3 Star overturned the verdict. So when all was said and done... it was pretty much a long week for Rainman!

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You got it all wrong... an FE with two Masters degrees who just cross flowed from a 130J landed gear up flying solo in a C-17; turns out he was sexually harassing the gay singer from Tops in Blue at the time that he was planning the Christmas Party with when he learned he got passed over for a second time for Lt Col and got non-continued. Now he doesn't know what to do because he wanted to sign the bonus that got delayed and isn't sure if he can still transfer his GI Bill to his kids. All of this happened while landing at the wrong airport in Tampa when he was supposed to be landing in Benghazi, but just as he was manually calculating TOLD he got a call from both Obama and Clinton telling him not to go. He was planning on getting out any day now anyway when the Airlines start their massive hiring wave! I guess they already had the court martial and he got convicted by a bunch of shoes on the jury, but a 3 Star overturned the verdict. So when all was said and done... it was pretty much a long week for Rainman!

Sounds legit.
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You got it all wrong... an FE with two Masters degrees who just cross flowed from a 130J landed gear up flying solo in a C-17; turns out he was sexually harassing the gay singer from Tops in Blue at the time that he was planning the Christmas Party with when he learned he got passed over for a second time for Lt Col and got non-continued. Now he doesn't know what to do because he wanted to sign the bonus that got delayed and isn't sure if he can still transfer his GI Bill to his kids. All of this happened while landing at the wrong airport in Tampa when he was supposed to be landing in Benghazi, but just as he was manually calculating TOLD he got a call from both Obama and Clinton telling him not to go. He was planning on getting out any day now anyway when the Airlines start their massive hiring wave! I guess they already had the court martial and he got convicted by a bunch of shoes on the jury, but a 3 Star overturned the verdict. So when all was said and done... it was pretty much a long week for Rainman!

I stand corrected. :salut::notworthy:

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You got it all wrong... an FE with two Masters degrees who just cross flowed from a 130J landed gear up flying solo in a C-17; turns out he was sexually harassing the gay singer from Tops in Blue at the time that he was planning the Christmas Party with when he learned he got passed over for a second time for Lt Col and got non-continued. Now he doesn't know what to do because he wanted to sign the bonus that got delayed and isn't sure if he can still transfer his GI Bill to his kids. All of this happened while landing at the wrong airport in Tampa when he was supposed to be landing in Benghazi, but just as he was manually calculating TOLD he got a call from both Obama and Clinton telling him not to go. He was planning on getting out any day now anyway when the Airlines start their massive hiring wave! I guess they already had the court martial and he got convicted by a bunch of shoes on the jury, but a 3 Star overturned the verdict. So when all was said and done... it was pretty much a long week for Rainman!

Wow... The entirety of the Baseops forums*, summarized in one paragraph. Well done, sir. :beer:

ETA:

* except the boobs and guns.

Edited by JarheadBoom
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I've flown -21s, E/H model Herks and Js. The FE is absolutely essential on the E/H airplanes, but would serve little purpose on the J or other airlift aircraft. Nearly all modern aircraft today lack FEs. IMO they would complicate CRM on a -17 or J-model, not improve it. FEs from the outset were intended to run aircraft systems in a time before automation, not be a CRM babysitter. Landing at the wrong airport, or in the wrong configuration has and still does occur in the legacy Herk world. I could name plenty of cases of E/H buffoonery, even recent ones. Finally, I found I had a TON of SA and found CRM to be easier on the J flight deck than the H flight deck. I'm flying H-models now and I noticed the difference...the H flight deck is quite a bit more chaotic.

Thanks for saving me the brain cells to write essentially the same thing (except the -21 part, never flew that).

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  • 4 weeks later...

Anybody know what happened to the guy who started the now-defunct raptorpilot.com? He was a few classes behind me in UPT and I think ended up at Charleston...

I think he landed a C-17 short a Dover.

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