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So after volunteering multiple times I finally got to go on a DART (Downed Aircraft Recovery Team) mission yesterday. Had to fly north to a tiny FOB in the middle of ******** nowhere to figure out why an engine on a chinook would not start.

Mission comes down at 3am and I said Ill go, so i get my s**t ready. 1030 comes along, get on two Blakhawks for an hour flight over essentially a barren wasteland. All you see for hundreds of miles in any directon along the hundred+ mile flight path is barren flatland with the occaisonal abandoned home in the middle of nowhere, the road that hasnt been traveled in a decade or the beyond dry riverbeds that only get water when it rains during the rain season which is now over.
We finally fly over and land on this tiny post in the middle of nowere named FOB Sykes (hey your in Iraq...SIKE........zing).

This little outpost in the middle of nowhere had a better dining facility than my large built up post does. Along with other little things that made mine look like a**. I swear, If we have another bird screwed down there, im going.

So we start working at about 11:45am. Engine guy replaces an exciter, and another electrician and myself do continuity check on wires and replace two relays that energize and send power up to the exciter once the engine has been motored to 10%. Pilot's do their thing.....nothing, engine doesnt start. So we leave the APU (Auxillary Power Unit. Small engine and generator that provide power and hydraulics with the main enginesand generator off) running and start doing power checks. Everything up to the relays is fine. One relay isnt energizing at 10% engine motor. Cut power, replace relay, try again. Relay is working now, just its not getting through the wire from the relay up to the engine exciter. We redo continuity checks on the wire and the wire is fine. We are beyond confused. Power is sitting on the relay like it is supposed to be, and the wire itself is good, but not getting power through. So we start ******** with the relay backshell, which is what the relay plugs into and holds the wire onto the relay terminal. We find that the backshell isnt holding the wire secure and we cant find a part number or NSN (national stock number) to order the part and get it sent to us on another blackhawk flight (one of our blackhawk units flies a ring route).

We find though that if we jam the wire down in hard enough and long enough, once the engine gets past 10%, we get power through. So we repin everything and see if the power will get through the wire, get to the exciter and spark the engine spark plug, and it did. Everyone looks at each other in a moment of slence, and all of a sudden you hear from the higher ups, "ok, everyone load up your s**t and yourselves, if we get the engine running, we arnt shutting down, we are going to take off right then and there and fly back." So essentially, we jump started an aircraft jet engine to get the aircraft going, so we could fly it back to base to replace the backshell. The amount of fuel that was in engine from the amount of motoring we did in 12 hours produced a pretty big fireball out the back of the engine once it finally sparked.

We were also the life of that little post. We had two fire trucks, two external lights sets, one pissy airforce tech sergeant, two Lieutenant colonels (my commander and some other LTC), about 10 civilian logistics support personnel, the soldiers in charge of the flight line, and everyone rom the original mission and the DART mission all standing around the helicopter as the two of us ******** with the relays and that wire. The fire trucks and the pissy tech sergeant were there because of all the fuel on the ground from the engine motoring but not starting.

We take off, a** soon as the bird lifts off, i pass out from being up nearly 24 hours, wake up as soon as we land in FOB Speicher, take care of s**t, go back to my little a** room and fall asleep for about 14 hours. great stuff.

what's next for our intrepid worker. Why, Jump starting a SR-71, then running like a little b***h before he's burned to a crisp when that thing gets going, or ingested by it.

Until 14 hours later when I go in to eat defac food.

Squad Slut: "You idiot, it wasnt the backshell, it was a broken wire!"
Me: "Bullshit, there were no broken wires when we came back, we repaired the only one that was broke, which we broke trying to extract from the backshell. Which one didyou idiots break trying to extract it?"
Squad Slut: "Wire B2"
Me: "Good job, your broke and repaired a wire that was not the issue at any point in time, the wire on terminal B1 was the problem child not staying secure in the backshell"
Squad Slut: "No it was that wire on B2"
Me: "if it was the wire on B2 we wouldnt be having this conversation you dumb b***h, Mangune and myself wuld still be in Talafar trying to figure what the ******** the problem is. You ******** broke a wire trying to replace the backshell, oh well, but dont try and pass it off as we didnt do correct troubleshooting up there. We shot every wire in the system and it was good, including B2. B2 was more than fine until you ripped it out for the pin because you cant figure out how to extract a simple pin. The only pin that you should have had a problem with would have been B1 like it was for us because the backshell is ********. Good job, when 176 comes back becomes the pin is loose again and the engine wont start, its gonna look bad on Mangune and myself because you did something that wasnt the issue."

That really honestly makes me want to join the air force. I'm jealous sad

taking the blame for someone else's stupidity... ... sucks. :<

Eh?

You have no idea how bdly I want to beat the piss out of that black little s**t.
I wont though because it is not me to swing (or boot if i need to -.-)
that I cant because the ******** can call the female part or the black part and make me out to be sexist/beating on a female or racist...

Yes. Every aircraft has a laptop called a log book with all the technical manuals for all that is associated with that model aircraft. Each logbook also has on it a program called ULLSA-(E). It contains all forms related to the aircrafts flights, flight history, engines, maintenance, etc. Whatever goes on with that bird goes in that log. Maintenance is recorded on three forms: DA Form 2408-13 which is the overall status of the bird's readiness; DA Form 2408-13-1 which is an individual fault, such as that case: "No 1 Engine motors but fails to start"; and DA Form 2408-13-2 which is a subform of 13-1 that contains all work done pertaining to that fault. Like for us it was alot of writeups suh as:

"Removed 4 screws from FADEC relay panel"
"Removed 4 screws from relay 101K1"
"removed Relay 101K1"

ten for each task, you right the corrective (opposite) actions

"reinstalled"
"reinstalled"
"replaced"