Ghost from the past! Read on!
C-124 "Old
Shakey"
HERE IS A STORY OF AN ALUMINUM
CLOUD
It flies awfully slow,
And it sounds mighty
loud.
It shakes and it rattles,
While it bounces and
roars..
This monster is known as a
"One
Twenty-Four."
The sync lever is touchy,
And the throttles all
stick.
And it's an oil leaking,
Backfiring son of a
bitch.
Now don't get me wrong,
One thing is for sure,
You'll get back alive
On this faithful old
whore.
The ground crews they cussed it
The whole world
around.
And the Navigators prayed
It would get off the
ground.
But a sleepy old Pilot
And a drunk Flight
Engineer
Put her up in the blue
Without any fear.
The Mag drop is
excessive,
And the torque's too
low,
But at thirty-five inches
the Flight Engineer hollered
"GO."
The fuel leaking engines
Were all belching flame,
And at eighty-five knots
He said, "Power
OK."
At six thousand feet
Then he set his
"Cruise"
The cargo six jeeps
And ten cases of
booze.
The Loadmaster said
That his hair turned
grey,
And if he had a parachute,
He'd be on his
way.
Now we're headed for home
And sweet Mama we'll
see,
After flying this mission
That took three
weeks.
Our ulcers are burning,
And we've spent all our
dough
But with three days of crew rest
We'll be ready to
go.
Believe me this story did not end too
well,
For that Engineer is now burning
in hell.
He flirted with Satan
And had lots of
fun,
But ended up flying
those
"One
Forty-Ones."
They said when he got it he was in the
rear
Convincing the Loadmaster he had
nothing to fear.
His eyes were all blood shot
And his head filled with
pain
And he could tell by the sound
That they were climbing
again.
Sweat streamed from his
forehead
And his face turned
pale,
As they hit
clear-air-turbulence
And the pressure door
failed.
The cabin filled with fog, and no one
could see
The old timer crumble and fall to his
knees.
His heart pumped pure whiskey and
labored with the task.
As he wondered what the hell happened
to his oxygen mask.
His whole life flew past
him,
From beginning to
end
In those perilous seconds
While trying to
descend.
When the fog finally
cleared
And his body was
found
All of his buddies had gathered
around
One said softly, as he wiped away a
tear,.
"Old Sarge's gone to hell as their
Chief Engineer."
We should all learn from this
story
And obey all the
rules.
Make use of your
head
As well as your
tools.
Perform all your duties,
And do them with pride,
Or old Sarge might just give you
"Your Final Check
Ride'
We almost went down in "Old Shakey" going from Tainan to
Thailand. We aborted to Hong Kong (hey it was tough duty being there for
a week, but someone had to do it) and landed at Kai Tek. At the time we
didn't know it, but later on our way to a hotel the flight engineer remarked
that in 24 years of flying that was the closest he had ever been to going
down. We ask what he meant and he said, "well, we only had 1 and a
1/2 minutes of fuel left when we landed." We had lost one engine
and two others were malfunctioning. Old Shakey made it though. A
maintenance crew came in and hung a new engine, got the others up to speed and
off we were to Thailand. Hank
After 90 days in Alaska I wanted to get home as soon as possible, when
there was a long delay with my commercial connection in SEA TAC I went
to McCord and jumped on a MATS C-124 flying direct to Mather AFB. I sat in an
uncomfortable canvas web covered metal seat next to pallets of cargo. The ice
rattled along the fusalage as we descended over California. Fran was waiting at
the terminal with the kids..it was great to be home. Lindy
RETURN
