The lucky guy is usually the Squadron Maintenance Officer or the Assistance
Maintenance Officer. One of the perks of the job.

ouch.

A little off the subject , but I learned that it was best to rotate the
hanger queens every 30 days or less. This made it harder for the higher ups
to tell that you had a hanger queen, kept the readiness numbers up and the
exception numbers down.

I had less trouble with aircraft in this category than the often volitile "just
back from rework" birds. I trust a bunch of overworked homesick 20 year olds a
lot more than the contractor guys -- I had several attempts against my life
made by aircraft in this second category. Still, I guess everyone looks at
hangar queens the same way - "I wonder what they missed...?"

Where it
really got rough were for the guys with a detachment, and didn't have enough
aircraft for a hanger queen.

Agree - on H-2s, we had nine maintainers plus four pilots and a Chief,
responsible for every concievable evolution. None of the H-2 squadrons had the
luxury of a hangar queen, primarily because if we were down for maint, the
ship's whole "air wing" was down, often bringing visits from the CO or OPS
boss, trying to get the repairs expedited. Nothing like personalized service -
if we lost an engine, the ship was often trying to get us a replacement
practically before we landed. Perks of carrying the mail, Miss America, etc.
out to other ships; our skipper wanted that "damn'd H-tooo" in the air at all
times. Worked out great for us!

v/r
Gordon