Hazing/Humiliation and fun in the military

[JOES66FURY]

A little history. As engine mechanics we all get burned with practicle jokes that have been around since Christ was a Airman. We have been on the look out for 110ft of flight line, reach around pullies, retrieved air samples from jet exhaust and had out steel toed boots NDI'd. This here is a new airmen who was burned with performing an "echo check" of one of the engines. This "Check is done to ensure that the harmonic fluxuations through the compressor and turbine are good....

Here is A1C Degado performing an "echo check" on a C-130 engine here in our inspection doc...the vets here should appreciate this.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=360841233931755

[Barry Donovan]

it says address is bad, some error.

there ought to be an echo check. I am that weird in real life...as former crew chief.

know the compression stall beforehand.

I have gone up them listening to the blades as it winds down..waiting for oblong something or other, vibration.(me and my trainer really encountered one headed for outright fail)

a and e model tankers used that attention.

[JOES66FURY]

dang it...It works for me...wonder why you cant see it...anyone else having issues?

[Barry Donovan]

dang it...It works for me...wonder why you cant see it...anyone else having issues?

I guess I'd need to log in.
never.

on a serious question, is echo check a metaphor for something else?

[67pete300]

In the Navy you get sent to fetch a can of relative bearing grease or up to the bow with a pair of binoculars to help spot the mail buoy.

[CTX-SLPR]

When I worked NDI, my favorite was sending someone to get the aluminum magnet...

The serious job we gave them (or me as the case was since as the Lt in a group of civilians I was low man) was inspecting composites with a tuned hammer. You really can find things that way but mostly its a dull job of sitting there with a tiny hammer tapping lightly on a T-38 rudder assembly waiting for it to go "thump" instead of "tap".

[BangShift McT]

Different take on an echo check: By opening the endcap of an OH-58D's tailcone, you effectively turn the tail into a giant megaphone. And yes, it works. One loud MF on one end, one FNG with his head in the avionics bay. Scream.

Also did the trashcan full of ice water for promotions and duct taping was a near-weekly event. We did dial it back some after an AVIM vs. AVUM platoon brawl broke out...I got punched in the head, a PFC drew a knife on a SGT and one poor SPC was chased a half-mile to the gym, where he locked himself in the changing room and called his commander...

[CTX-SLPR]

Different take on an echo check: By opening the endcap of an OH-58D's tailcone, you effectively turn the tail into a giant megaphone. And yes, it works. One loud MF on one end, one FNG with his head in the avionics bay. Scream.

Also did the trashcan full of ice water for promotions and duct taping was a near-weekly event. We did dial it back some after an AVIM vs. AVUM platoon brawl broke out...I got punched in the head, a PFC drew a knife on a SGT and one poor SPC was chased a half-mile to the gym, where he locked himself in the changing room and called his commander...

I got punched by a 1-star for my Captain's promotion, the Sq/CC just lightly tapped me, that 1-star let me have it!

[Barry Donovan]

Different take on an echo check: By opening the endcap of an OH-58D's tailcone, you effectively turn the tail into a giant megaphone. And yes, it works. One loud MF on one end, one FNG with his head in the avionics bay. Scream.

Also did the trashcan full of ice water for promotions and duct taping was a near-weekly event. We did dial it back some after an AVIM vs. AVUM platoon brawl broke out...I got punched in the head, a PFC drew a knife on a SGT and one poor SPC was chased a half-mile to the gym, where he locked himself in the changing room and called his commander...

that sounds like a gang fight more than military.
here local, there is a puase, could metaphor echo...

know to get out of the way for a stall. maine is weird anyway..

hot tarmac cold air, cold tarmac hot air

-22 to 55 in 3 days.

no jokes on me as a newb, or ever. very difficult place. I joined as to be an unusually tortured mechanic before enlisting. good ingredients if you kept your head.

my only mental match was ncountering a closeted homo..and learned I am a homophobe capable of bodily harm. my only bad event mentally in my tour.

[Cyclone03]

The early T-38's had FOD screens that would fit over the intake for ground maintenance runs. The screen attached with a ball lock quick pin. The hole in the fuselage had what looked like a button about 10" forward of the intake. On the aft portion of the fuselage near the front of the engine is a panel about 8" square, it's called the Inlet Guide Vane Inspection Panel, or IGV panel. The trick was to get a NEWBE to push the button while another crew chief shined a light into the IGV panel. "Check it out an intake light" do about 2 or 3 intakes,2 per plane BTW,4rth one, "the light is not coming on". Now the fun part...send the skinny new guy down the intake about 16" tall X 12" wide with a rope around his leg to "change the bulb". Yea it sucked the intake is about 15 feet long, once you got past the first 4' it opened up to about 18" in dia. The other trick of course was to call a new electrician out to repair the wiring in the light....I was an electrician called out to repair said wires, I said "no problem, I need the engine out first" and I caught hell because the guy was about 1/2 through a Boat Tail removal (aft section of the fuselage) before his supervisor ask him what the hell he was doing.

The Air Force guys know about giving the leaving guys a big wash down their last day.
The best one I've ever seen was when an engine TSgt (E6) was leaving, the guys was a known @$$,so half the Squadron showed up to see him off. The party lasted about 3 hours, shutting down the engine shop for the most part, the whole time the guy was duct taped to a chair (old strait back school desk type) and wheeled to each shop in the Squadron so everybody could add a little liquid. Think Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo, lard, baby oil, pretty much EVERYTHING BUT WATER, he was well covered when they got him back to the engine shop and paraded him through one last time. Finally the time came to clean him up and end the party, so they rolled him out the side door with a RAMP, him facing direction of travel, and half way down they stopped the cart. The chair continued forward and the well duct taped NCO went face first onto the concrete, broken nose, blood everywhere and an accident report for the CMSGT in charge of engine shop...no more duct taped wash downs.

[Cyclone03]

When I worked NDI, my favorite was sending someone to get the aluminum magnet...

The serious job we gave them (or me as the case was since as the Lt in a group of civilians I was low man) was inspecting composites with a tuned hammer. You really can find things that way but mostly its a dull job of sitting there with a tiny hammer tapping lightly on a T-38 rudder assembly waiting for it to go "thump" instead of "tap".

A 38 guy! How about tapping the stab with a nickle to find a DeLam?

[CTX-SLPR]

A 38 guy! How about tapping the stab with a nickle to find a DeLam?

Never did that one, I worked USAF level failure analysis so I worked on a bit of everything. I always used the hammer.
Fortunately I didn't have to go over the whole C-17 horizontal stab with a hammer, that thing was bigger than a T-1's wing!

[JOES66FURY]

We do "ring checks" around the intakes on the 130 to check for loose rivits and loose skin. In the old days guys would use their wedding rings...hence the name...now we just lightly tap with anything metal.

[Thumpin455]

Cargo guys do lots of this. It gets interesting.

In Charleston SC there is a restaurant called "Capt'n Dee's" so we would write down their number and give it to a new airman on a sticky note telling him to call Captain Deez. Sometimes the kid on the other end would play along, other times they would be just as confused as the kid on the other end of the line. Actually, we did that one to almost anyone new to Charleston, even friends in other units.

Pallet stretchers to make the pallet a bit longer so it fits in the rails, similar to a board stretcher.

When you are working with long cargo like helicopter blades or other outsized stuff that wont fit on an 88"x108" pallet you need to build a pallet train. We have small aluminum blocks that fit in the tie down rings on the pallets to 'marry' them into a train. If they arent available such as in an austere deployment location we can use a chain. So we would send new guys looking for 'marrying rope' to build a train.

Prop wash, jet wash, flight line, and tornado watches on clear days. In Germany we had an old Jeep from before the Hummer days and the starter was a button on the floor. We would hop in, turn on the key, rub the dash and say "Come on baby, come on baby, start" and it would start. Then we would let the FNG try it, and of course it wouldnt start. So he wasnt doing it with enough 'feeling' so the Jeep was miffed at him.

Sometimes we would send them for dual rails, which was an actual section in the maintenance unit, but had nothing to do with us outside the planes having working rails.

They tried to get me with that stuff way back in 89, but I actually paid attention in class and read the book so I wasnt falling for it. One kid in Charleston was easy despite being in for 2 to 3 years. We had him taking air samples from the forklifts with a small case and test tubes. Air samples on the roof of the warehouse with trashbags which needed time, date, and location on them.

My favorites were having them get their I D Ten Tee (idiot) cards, or finding me a TR double E (Tree). My brother's favorite is a BA eleven hundred NST ring (ballonstring).

The dousing thing pretty much went away in APS, nobody had that happen to them in my units at all since 2000 when I went back in. All the freakin time in the late 80s early 90s though.