Day Three

thursday, december 09, 2004 3:52pm stone roses

I don't know if I'll ever get used to the boat rocking. Although I'm beginning to deal with it when walking around a little better now, it's still obnoxious when sitting or sleeping. I didn't sleep very well this morning because I kept shifting in the rack. I consider myself fairly lucky with the rack selection. The first time on the boat I had a bed that layed in line with the boat, so as it rocked side to side so did I. It's hard to relax when it constantly feels like you're going to be thrown out of bed. This time my rack is perpedicular to that axis, so it rocks head to foot. As far as racks go, it's not too bad. I'm on the top bunk out of three, so it's a little hard to get in and out of. The payoff is that there's a hole in the top so that I can sit up through that with all the duct work and wiring around me. It's a big mind saver. It's the closest thing to privacy I've found.

Last night turned out to be a fairly busy night for us. I don't know what happened to the supposedly rough seas, maybe they are still on the way. When I woke up all the aircraft that had been stuffed into the hanger were gone. I'll never adjust to sleeping through a full work day. Soon after, we were bringing down the Cobra (AH-1W helicopter) that was past due for a phase inspection and settling in for a long night of tearing it apart. Every 25 flight hours we have to essentially rebuild the aircraft. These are old air-frames, the Marine Corps been using them since Vietnam. The Huey's (UH-1N helicopter) are a little older. Those are the choppers you've seen in every Vietnam movie with guys hanging out the sides with big machine guns. I mainly work on the Cobras, but we have Huey's in the squadron too.

Anyway, a major part of the phase is pulling off the main rotor, main transmission, both engines and the gearbox that connects them. So we spent the night disconnecting everything from those components and dealing with the guys in the tool room who were still unpacking some key tools we don't carry in our boxes. For some reason the Sgt. in charge of the job refused to use the powered hoist saying that it was too much trouble to deal with the Navy running it for us. Instead we had some manual cherry picker type contraption with long legs that had to go under the bird. That involved removing belly panels for clearance and, finally, putting the whole chopper up on blocks. I'm really trying to keep this short, so I won't go into detail about what a pain in the dick that was. So finally, the "amish hoist" is in position to remove the main rotor, weighing in at several hundred pounds. Now, this is a fairly tricky procedure normally. You have one guy on top to make sure the hub goes straight up without hitting the aluminum driveshaft (mast), and he really has no place to stand up there because everything's been removed for the tranny removal. Two guys on either end with ropes to hold the blades still, a spotter on the ground, and one guy manning the hoist. Well, that's normally, on land with a power hoist. As soon as the hub cleared the mast, the boat started rocking considerably more than it had been a few minutes prior with only myself and one other guy to keep it from bashing against the cherry picker and ruining a blade. Then, six guys remove the chains holding the hoist in place and roll it away from the helicopter so we can set the main rotor down on stands. Talk about a big production.

The main rotor made it safely to the deck and no one got hurt, but I think the Sgt in charge was eventually convinced to use the Navy's power hoist (mounted out of the way on the ceiling) for tonight's engine and tranny pulls. Thank God. They weigh a little more than the hub and blades and I just don't trust that hand hoist.

It's funny how that's the short version of the story. About all I do is eat, work and sleep. The few hours I have off of work I end up spending on basic hygeine. Unless you want to hear about that, all I have to talk about is work. Come to think of it, I already told you how I slept last night. Hmm…good story? At least I'll get it out of my system when I write to Kady, but then what do I talk to her about? I guess I'll tell her all about the Snickers with almonds and raspberry tea I just ate for breakfast.

Working nights, I might as well be on a spaceship. When I do get a chance to look outside, all I see is black and stars. There aren't exactly any windows down here. I can't stand it. No wonder everyone in the Navy is as pale as maggots. The last two times on the boat night crew was more of an afternoon crew. That was nice because I spent most of the afternoon on the flight deck launching planes and doing daily inspections. That can be a lot of running around, but there's usually enough wind if we're moving to keep it cool.

"I want to break right into Heaven, I can't wait anymore."