So There I Was

A Thousandth of an Inch of Trouble is all that stood between one airline crew and an on-time departure. Actually, it was a worn brake wear pin, measured down to the thousandth, that a mechanic waved off as “technically good to go.”

This week’s episode is a lighter one. It’s just Fig and RePete, no guest, trading stories while juggling schedules and a certain eye surgery on the calendar. Before the flying talk starts, Fig recaps a fundraiser for YL-37, the effort to keep a UH-34 Marine helicopter flying as a living memorial. Vietnam-era crew chiefs, dubbed “Ugly Angels,” turned up to honor thirty-three squadron mates lost in the war. It was, by Fig’s account, truly spectacular.

Then the real theme of the night kicks in: airplanes you keep versus airplanes you refuse. RePete walks through a Low Altitude Tactics qual he pushed through despite a caution light, a Paris battery-discharge light that kept recurring for weeks, and an MD-11 jump seat jammed at a forty-five-degree angle that maintenance wanted to sign off as legal.

A Thousandth of an Inch of Trouble: The Refused Airplane

Furthermore, there’s the coffee thermos that popped three circuit breakers on takeoff roll, and two separate environmental control system failures that nearly cooked Fig alive, once over Camp Lejeune and once out of Darwin, Australia. However, the headline story is the brake pin.

On a 737 preflight, the first officer found no pin sticking out where one should be. Maintenance measured it anyway and found one-thousandth of an inch of clearance. Consequently, that counted as “in limits.” Fig refused the airplane, ate the delay, and bought drinks for the whole cabin. New brakes went on that night.

The episode wraps with thanks to veterans, their families, and everyone still serving.

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This week's episode honors Coast Guard rescue pilot John "Sticks" Hall with his brother-in-law's eulogy and son Tyler's letter, plus a night-divert tale from Stretch off the USS Midway.

5 Feet — that’s the altitude Roadrunner held on a self-appointed decoy mission in Vietnam, and it’s the heart of Episode 227. It’s also the reason he walked away with a Bronze Star.

This week, RePete and Fig welcome Chuck Howard, callsign Roadrunner. He flew with the 175th Assault Helicopter Company, earning two Bronze Stars and 25 Air Medals for valor.

Roadrunner’s path started on a Jersey City hammock, watching jets land at Newark. Actually, he almost became a commercial artist before the Army got him first.

He walks us through flight school and a co-pilot who froze on short final. Then there’s the Cessna climb to twelve thousand feet that ate an entire afternoon. Consequently, we get one of the funniest bike-to-the-airport stories in show history.

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I Never Exceeded 5 Feet: The Decoy Mission

The Bronze Star story is the centerpiece. Roadrunner grew tired of rules of engagement that only let him fire after getting shot at first. So he built his own workaround.

He stripped down a demilitarized Huey and lit it up like a Christmas tree. Then he flew it straight at the tree line at night. He hovered along the perimeter at an altitude he never exceeded, five feet, daring Charlie to take the bait.

However, the story doesn’t stop there. Roadrunner later flew Port Authority helicopters and was first on scene for Sully’s Hudson River landing. He also worked the water recovery after TWA 800, marking wreckage while FBI agents jumped aboard his aircraft mid-hover.

Furthermore, he shares two separate tail rotor failures. In one, he saved a multi-million dollar helicopter by nursing it into a drainage ditch. His book, Tales from the Cockpit, covers even more of this.

This episode is also brought to you by DC Artworks. The veteran-owned laser-cut steel shop is keeping gift-buyers out of the doghouse this season.

Vinh Long Airfield
Huey Gunship in the River
Huey Gunship in the River
Spraying Agent Orange

Link Flight Trainer
Chuck Howard in Vietnam

Newark Airport

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Farewell Sticks is the hardest episode we’ve ever had to record. On August 20th, we lost our friend, producer, and co-host John “Sticks” Hall in a small plane crash near Bristol, Maine. His son Tyler was flying with him and survived with minor injuries.

We’re not speculating on cause. Actually, we’re not speculating on anything about that day. What we can tell you: it was a Diamond DA20, Sticks bought it last spring, and that’s where the facts stop for now.

Farewell Sticks: The Man Behind the Mic

Sticks was a true unrestricted aviator, qualified in both fixed wing and rotary wing. Furthermore, when the Coast Guard tried to send him fixed wing in flight school, he threatened to drop on request unless they let him fly helicopters instead.

That stubbornness paid off. He spent his career as a Coast Guard rescue pilot, flying a hundred feet off the water, a hundred miles out, at night, in weather nobody sane would choose. Consequently, he pulled people off sinking ships when it mattered most.

Sticks was also a nurse practitioner who prided himself on being an outstanding diagnostician. He didn’t clock out when he left the office, either. Friends of the show can tell you he talked them through injuries and health scares more than once.

He met RePete years ago as his son’s Boy Scout troop leader. All three of his sons, Noah, Jack, and Tyler, became Eagle Scouts under his mentorship.

Sticks first joined the show in Episode 30, “Are You Sure It’s Mine,” discussing 9/11. He came back most recently to co-host Episode 223, “Coasties in Space.” However, his fingerprints are on this show in quieter ways too. He designed the logo, hiding a goat at a 120-degree angle of bank for anyone who looks closely enough.

He recruited guests, hauled gear from New Hampshire to North Carolina for the Harrier sundown, and finally met the whole crew in person this past June. His son Tyler appeared on Episode 176, “Don’t Be Afraid to Use the E-Word,” and is heading into his senior year at Embry-Riddle.

We’re praying for Sticks and his entire family. Semper Paratus, Sticks. Always ready, right to the end.

Here’s a link to the news report of the mishap.

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Drawing by Pat Dowden, USCG Retired.

Retired C-141 pilot and author Chill-Rob McD joins Fig and RePete for a night of Starlifter chaos: a Dutch roll at 35,000 feet, a mid-air fight with a runaway yaw damper, and a landing that ends in blown tires and a fifty-foot wall of flame. Add a gunpoint landing fee off the coast of Africa, a loadmaster who nearly ate an elevator cable, and the story behind his book Flight Path: An Irreverent Aviation Tale — this one earns the title He Who Dies with the Most Laugh Wrinkles Wins.