Buzz Patterson
@BuzzPatterson
Tonight’s “Buzz’s Bedtime Stories!” A flying story. This is a good one! Tuck in. Pour some tea and turn it up.
I was tasked to fly CIA/DEA missions around the world several times when I was in the Air Force. Many times. We flew a C-141 into places we weren’t supposed to go. We wore jeans and sports shirts and our jet had no tail number. All I knew, as the aircraft commander, is that I had a letter signed by the President of the United States that said I could go wherever I wanted to go.
On one mission, we were tasked to fly around the Middle East for God knows what reason. On one leg we landed in Islamabad, Pakistan to offload people and “cargo.” We were supposed to be there for 30 minutes and beat feet. It was frikking hot and humid.
On our way out, and we fired up the engines (there are 4), we couldn’t get #2 started. The US Embassy rep was freaking out. “You can’t stay here, tonight! It’s too dangerous!” I turned to one of my favorite flight engineers (who will remain nameless) with three engines running and asked “what can we do?”
“I’ll malletize it sir!” Meaning he was going to hammer the starter on #2 until it fired. It worked and we got out of there. We’re flying back to Rome to spend the night before we headed home to DC the next day.
At about midnight, directly over Cairo, Egypt, that same engine shelled out. Gone. A husk. Now, my decision is where to divert to on 3 engines. The crew wanted to continue to Rome (but there was no USAF maintenance) or continue on. I chose Sicily (NAS Sigonella). C-141 maintenance. The boys weren’t happy.🤣
I flew an approach in the fog at Sig and we were stranded for a week.
Shudda gone to Rome!