C-141 Starlifter:
A few decades ago, I flew down the Jersey coast on a cross-country. A string of Starlifters flew across my flight path and a few thousand feet under me, inbound for McGuire AFB. It was cool to see.
Spanks, But No Spanks
40 minutes ago
4 comments:
I always thought of the Starlifter as big, going back to walking through one during an airshow. Then I saw a Starlifter in formation with a C-5A flying a low pass over the Mississippi River in St. Louis for 4th of July. That C-141 looked like a toy!
My Galaxy story was over Hanscom. It was a rare event, I think. I suppose there might have been an approaching airshow I was somehow unaware of.
I was on my long cross-country as a student pilot, coming back to Tewksbury from New Haven, CT. I foolishly decided I could fit between the Hanscom airspace and the underside of the Boston wedding cake, and so wouldn't have to communicate with either. I was, however, monitoring the right frequency.
I was watching the Galaxy from rather far away, in front of me and turning slowly. I seemed to be moving very slowly to me, at my 115mph. In fact, it felt like I was approaching an aluminum cloud. About the time it started to feel very uncomfortable to be on my course, I heard the controller talking to an "A Ten," and I wondered if that was some sort of Bonanza I hadn't heard of.
A glance below me showed a maneuvering Warthog a thousand feet below. So I said to myself, "Oh, THAT kind of A-10."
My flight continued without incident, although I gripped the yoke pretty tightly thinking about the wingtip vortices that were floating around up there nearby.
Holy smokes, totally missed that that was a Starlifter and not a Galaxy. Coffee hadn't kicked in yet.
My Starlifter story is 1971 McGuire AFB. In the Army being sent to Germany. After 12 hours of KP got told your order came. So I was poured on to the Starlifter and immediately went to sleep. Woke up sometime later learning we were landing at Lajes in the Azores for fuel. Wind changed and couldn't take off. So spent the night there. Next day flew on to Frankfurt. Well is was lucky we had some officers on the flight to explain why we were all AWOL on our orders. So great fun but I really don't remember much as I slept almost the whole time. I do remember flight crew tossing us box lunches....
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