Once upon a time when the aircraft community of which I was a member was
transitioning to a new aircraft...

On the armament control panel of the new jet, there was a toggle switch for
fuse selection. Depending on the type of ordnance, the procedure was to
select the appropriate weapon station and then select the appropriate fuse
arming option which was indicated by two tumblers under a little window on
the panel above ones left knee (looks similar to a mechanical odometer in
older cars). Successive movements of the toggle took you through the
options for that particular station and weapon. One fine spring day whilst
at the range with a flight of four dropping Mk76 practice bombs (25 lb blue
death) on the 500' bull, one of my wingmen couldn't seem to get a bomb off
the jet. "...I've tried A... I've tried B... I've tried C...etc" Finally,
I came up and asked, "have you selected a fusing option?" Wingman responds
in churly tones -- "...of course I have..." -- to which this wiley dinosaur
asked, "What does the option window say?"

Wingman responds -- SA and FE. Pregnant silence.................

.........broken by said dinosaur -- "any domestic beer will be fine. Make
sure it's about 2 degrees above frozen and don't forget to invite every
officer and designated wife and/or concubine"

A good time was had by all. Twenty years later, the story is still told at
the bar.




"Joe Osman" wrote in message
...
"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 24 May 2004 15:42:26 -0400, "R Haskin"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

I'd love to see the Talon with the new layout. Video alone, instead
of
16mm film in 50 foot cans, would be a great teaching aid.

You're welcome any time you make it to southern Georgia or north
Florida.
I'm sure that something could be arranged that would make it worth your
while. Unfortunately besides the jets and the bar (and the occasional
co-ed
from Valdsota State University), there's not a whole hell of a lot else
to
do down here!

I believe that there will be another 479th reunion this October,
though.

Well, if you guys at Moody did as good of a job of recruiting
operational types to be River Rats as they do at See-My-Johnson, you
could get a whole flock of Rats. SJAFB does a mini-reunion and air
show every year that's pretty whiz-bang. They've got almost 30 of the
Mud Hen drivers signed up, and as those folks get reassigned, we begin
to get active duty Rats at a lot of places.

If you page through the Doofer book (I don't recall if the call-sign
legend page was still intact), I'm "OFP"--which could mean "Old
Fighter Pilot" or "Old Fat Pilot".

This particular entry I'm thinking of is funny because it recalls that
famous list of "stupid pilot" maintenance writeups. I believe that in
this
particular writeup an IP notes that you wrote up in the 781s an IFF
that
was, as they say, "O-F-F."

You'll have to show me that one. You can back-channel me a photo of
the page and I'll confess if it's true.




Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

When I was learning how to fix IFF interrogators in the USMC, they told us
the tale of the pilot whose IFF was inoperative and who, after all the
switch positions that were considered relevant had been checked, asked
about
the proper position for the "ON-IFF" switch. He, of course, had placed it
in
the "IFF" position.

Joe




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