Trip 109, Fall 2015, Jordan Fail
306 “Hurray!” Our squadron got some money, so that means the ye ole boots got swapped out for a fresh pair of steel toes. I’m superstitious though, I hope nothing goes wrong not having my lucky old ones on.
307 Range of patches showing the vintageness and experience of this crew. Wait, mine is the oldest. When did I turn into the old guy?
308 So cruising across the ocean, I was kicking back relaxing with a nap. Suddenly woken with a, “BANG BANG BANG BOOM BOOM!” WTF is that? As I’m pulling my glasses on looking between the pilots, I’m seeing and hearing a Master Warning light, and “THRUST LOSS” alarm. Now I know this jet will fly all day just fine with three motors, but it’s a disheartening feeling watching the number 2 engine roll back to sub idle while the throttle is still up at its set power. “CHIEF!!!” “Well let’s run the compressor stall checklist friends. Pilot keep us shiny side up, copilot what’s your book say?”
1. Pull affected engine throttle to idle.
2. If compressor stall stops, slowly advance throttle to as needed setting.
3. If compressor stalls continue, shut down engine.
Well, here we go boys, and he slowly pushed up the power back to a normal running engine. This isn’t something we should take into the desert, so we made the call to divert to Spain, and take a look at things. Biggest risk with a compressor stall is bending blades in the core of the motor, or even the fan forward as the shockwave of air is going the wrong way.
The engines used on the C-17 are Pratt and Whitney F-117-100s, and are normally very reliable. The core and fan is identical to the P2000 series of engines on 757’s that had a million flight hours in the air at 1991 before the first C-17 even flew. Airlines don’t mess around with less than reliable since they have to make money. Only minor differences we have include a bit more horsepower with tuning, and different thrust reverser system that allows in flight use, and ground use by blocking the core exhaust to walk behind the motor during engine running offloads and refuels. We get ‘er on the ground at Rota and crack the doors open. Well there is the problem…
309 Ha! Not really. This also was the very first high bypass turbo fan motor that is completely digital and throttle by wire instead of control cables. The computer is something like a million bucks in itself to run the bitch. One of the features is recorded data burned to a disk that P&W can usually pretty quickly tell what’s wrong. Unfortunately, the 14th stage bleed air control valve called out by the engineer who deciphered the data wasn’t going to be changed in time to get the cargo shipped on time. A backup C-17 was launched to come pick up and get the goods to continue on. C5’s pull this stunt all the time, but this is my 109th mission, and the first I’ve not delivered. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten new boots!
310 Next day had the part changed, engine bore scoped, power run, and all signed off to fly. We’ll be now heading empty to chase after our original cargo to bring it home when the customer is done.
311 If you all wonder what I do on these periods of disconnection from the wired world, I usually am sitting behind the copilot reading with the Kindle app. Normally nonfiction or history, but got pulled into this series about a group of people trying to survive after a nuclear holocaust.
312 Almost at our downrange sandbox vacation destination kickin’ back and then a, “BANG BANG BANG BOOM BOOM!”
“You son of a &$&$& mother $&$&*& motor that doesn’t want to run right for @#$%. I hate you, and your stupid compressor stalling fits.”
Well let’s not land this where we don’t want to be stuck if the engine needs major repair. Not enough gas to get back to Spain, so closest friendly airfield is in Italy.
313 Pointed to divert to Italy.
314 Mount Etna is snow covered and lightly erupting, so we got that goin' for us.
315 If I wasn’t so annoyed at our motor, I’d find this funnier.
316 Never even knew the Netherlands had an Air Force. Converted KDC-10 tanker airliner.
317 Oh 169. You’ve been good to me every time before, but really on my worst days this is still the best job I’ve ever had.
318 So now what to do? Forget the cry to Pratt and Whitney and beg for help. Book says it could be a fuel pump delivery problem, fuel control valve scheduling problem, or an engine replacement. Screw it, I’ll order both a fuel pump and fuel controller. Gotta take the fuel control off to get to the fuel pump anyway. Made the appropriate calls to have it shipped in, so we wait. Normally would be a short process but a drone crashed on the runway and closed the airfield for a few days. Launch another backup jet to go take our cargo home. Oh well, I guess we’ll go occupy a bar. This is what the C5s must feel like all the time.
319 Three days later finally got my parts and two helpers to knock out the replacement. Pretty much the same idea of a fuel pump and carb replacement of a small block Chevy, except it’s an 8 million dollar motor instead. The two Mission Recovery Team members were top notch like how I used to do it back before flying. Knocked out the pump change as quick as safely possible, along with finding a few other things that could have caused the compressor stall. Book said our variable stater vane controller linkage could have a maximum force limit of 300 inch pounds to close, and mine would bind around 500 inch lbs and finally snap shut above the 600 of my wrench. Never had seen that before. Crisis management team of P&W, Boeing, myself, and 10 other people I didn't know were on a conference call all arguing. I asked everyone to stop, and said, "1. Can I run this engine, and 2. Can we safely fly it home for an engine change?" *crickets* Finally a P&W engineer said if I power ran it for an hour straight on the limits, and it passed the snap accell/decell checks, he'd wright our ED to get us home. At 0200 AM in the morning, I woke the island up with power run on the runway with engines 2 and 3 screaming at MAX for 1 hour at 1.42 EPR. Our limit is 625 degrees Celsius for the exhaust temp continuously, and 20mins at 20deg more. Every time she’d hit the red line, just pull it back a bit to reset the clock, then right back on ‘er! Now it’s time for the real fun of power reverse runs. There is a technique of pausing at reverse idle from power reverse before going back to forward thrust to just help the core and fan blocker doors out, but not today friends. 10 times we sat at max reverse, then pushing to max forward to time the acceleration. The rocking up and down of the airframe we had even with a ramp weight of 480k full of fuel surprised me. Never have run motors that hard before, but no stalls so let’s get the hell out of here before this turns into having to change the motor.
320 All the way home she behaved herself, but our bossman back at Dover was going to have none of it anymore. Turns out this is a factory engine to this airplane with over 9000 flight hours, and due for a change to get rebuilt back at P&W. Oh well, win some and lose some.
016 Crashed drone that ran off the end of the runway and dicked over the whole week closing the airfield
017 Looks expensive
018 Copilot hero shot
019 Pilot hero shot
just busting your stones.
