Funny story. Sorry if a repost B-1 Bomber For Sale A B1 bomber was in here ( Billings , MT ) doing practice approaches and touch and go's. On one of the landings the pilot sets his brakes on fire. He taxis in, and the airport parks him on a taxiway and then puts cones around him until parts and mechanics can be brought in from Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City SD,the next day. The next day is a Saturday, which doesn't have much going on, so we get to laughing in the tower that maybe somebody should hang a For Sale sign on the plane. We convince one of our guys who's well known for doing things like this that it would be a good idea. So he takes off for the hardware store to buy a For Sale sign. On the way back he stops at a car dealer and gets one of those "As is/No Warranty" signs that hang in all used cars. On that sign was written something like low miles, new engines, needs brakes and tires. Those signs were taped together, and off goes our hero. He climbs over the fence, leaving some skin on the b! arbed wire, and makes his way the 1000 feet or so to the aircraft. As he's doing that, we see a couple of airport vehicles starting to gather with the recently arrived mechanics as well as the plane's crew. Not looking good for our intrepid airplane salesman. He gets to the nose wheel and tapes the sign to the nose strut. Then he starts to make his way back from the plane as the vehicles start to head out from the shop on the way to the bomber. Somehow he makes it without being seen. The vehicles arrive at the plane, and of course notice the sign right away. The Air Force guys are in stitches, funniest thing they've seen in a long time. Airport guys are not sure what to think. Airport management is livid as they've been tasked with security. Pretty soon a camera appears and all the Air Force guys are taking pictures of each other by the sign. Our hero is back in the tower now, and notices the bomber's commander is talking on a cell phone. Our guy gets on the radio to the airport truck and asks for that guy's phone number. As soon as he finishes that call, our guy calls the aircraft commander. When he answers, our guy says "I'm calling about the plane you have for sale." Aircraft commander about falls over from the laughter. It just so happened that the chief photographer for our local newspaper is a pilot and he may have been called prior to the sign being placed. He was told to get up here with a big lens. Here's one of the pics he got: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3415/3315809933_35fa96d641_o.jpg An article showed on the front page of the Sunday paper. When that came out, the Colonel running Ellsworth called the airport director and read him the riot act, wondering what kind of dog and pony show he was running up there. We were later informed by the crew that the sign was framed and is now permanently mounted inside the aircraft. Hard to have that kind of fun anymore. Image Unavailable, Please Login
I can only imagine the genuine price per hour of flight when all the receipts are added - parts, fuel, wages, maintenance, depot work, logistics, REMF paper pushers, upgrades, training, custom parts, (combat), and other associated fees.
Here is an article on the subject..... I'm a bit curious about the numbers as the C-130J is WAY higher than the number I usually hear which is $7k. Costly Flight Hours | TIME.com A-10C Warthog Attack Plane $17,716 AC-130U Spooky Gunship $45,986 B-1B Lancer Bomber $57,807 B2A Spirit Stealth Bomber $169,313 C-130J Hercules Cargo Plane $14,014
Hilarious, especially to us ground folk. The upper echelon, not so much… I don't recall if I've posted this before but… One of our Weasels had a total utility hydraulic failure on a mission and IFE'd into Tonopah, or as we called it back then, "up range". Twas the secret home of the F-117 at the time, hence the TR where the WW used to be. When it got fixed and flew back home, it was plastered with these little silhouettes of the 117 under every service panel, and both sides of the tail. They added their patch decal as well to the tail and intake and sent it home with a "parking ticket" from their commander listing all the infractions like, leaking all over their ramp among other things… Our "old man" was not impressed but we all sure got a kick out of it. I wish I had a copy of that ticket, it filled a full 8.5 X 11 page. Memories... Image Unavailable, Please Login
That is good stuff and something that the Germans could not understand during WW2 since war was a serious and gallant business. To see an American airplane with something written on the nose like, " Hang The Expense", Idiot's Delight, Is this Trip Necessary?, Royal Flush, You Cawnt Miss it, Carter's Little Pills, Patches-The tin Tapper's Delight, Big Boober Girl, etc. The Yanks never lose their sense of humor and more important , their sense of camaraderie. It's called Brotherhood and Cohesion.
Yes, they were perplexed by our personalization of our aircraft. But in WWI, they did similar... Red Baron, Flying Circus, etc. (A few did, anyway, guess it was not common like ours.) But not WWII. Also, I don't think I've heard of it much in the Pacific... can't recall a Navy carrier plane that was personalized.
