DAY 193 - 26 FEBRUARY 1991 - Day / Night / Day from Hell!

DAY 193 - 26 FEBRUARY 1991
I have about 60 days to my EAOS... End of Active Obligated Service, or basically my contract with the Navy. And I still am not sure which way I'm going. Stay in, go where. Get out... go where! Life is so much easier when you have a clue or even a vague plan. Will see I guess!

This was the Day / Night / Day from Hell!

Well, maybe not so much that's it bad, it was just LONG. Yeah, not the day from Hell, unless Hell is long. Ok, moving on along now...

It went something like this...

First we changed a 25 inch flight boost accumulator on 10. That's pretty easy, think of it as a big soup can with a hydraulic line coming in one end, and a nitrogen servicing port and gauge on the other. Simple fix there... then we finished the Phase, and did a Hydraulic Systems test and bleed. Then it was time to service the shock struts on the launding gear. See? Easy night right? This would have been an early night.

Oh no, no no no... no easy night tonight!

The Starboard Main strut got "airlocked" in the extended position, and wouldn't come back down. Ok, so we jack the aircraft and remove the strut. Figured we'd pull it apart and repack it, see what's up. First we find a seal on the "floating piston" that was flat, but the book said it should have round edges.. Ok, we'll change that. Then we notice that the piston was in there completely upside down. This is where we would use a phrase like "WTF" or What the Fuck? Ok, we get it all cleaned out, put it back together with the correct parts, in the correct places, service it up, jump on the aircraft and bounce it, it seems to move around ok, we're doing well! Tired but well!

We also replaced some bearings on the "step up" bell cranks behind the intakes, so we're hoping that fixes some of our flight control gripes, the pilots sometimes complain about feeling vibrations in the flight controls, which to me is a bit funny, because the whole helo vibrates, so how could you tell the difference?

Anyway, after we got it all closed up, tools put away, and paperwork signed off, it was 1500. We've been on since 1900 yesterday, so... 20 hours? And our shift starts at.. you guest it, 1900... yawn... of to the racks!