Lament Of The MA-1 Flight Line Troop (Read 2,543 times)

Wonderful Jake!!!
Many of those lines still ring true in my mind. Cannot recall how many times I had to call the wife and let her know that I would be working much later than originally thought.
Pesky little things those gremlins that hid in some of the most obvious places in that system! I'll have to dig up "The ballad of MA-1" again and post it!

One thing though --- If you were using a 7/16 in spin tight, you didn't get much accomplished! ALL of those worm gears were 3/8 inch!
But I'll give you a beer for effort! :drunk :green-beer

MArv :patriotic-flagwaver :fire_missle_ani

As I promised, here is my original post of "The BAllad of MA-1"

Enjoy! :green-beer :green-beer :drunk

MArv :us_flag :fire_missle_ani

This is just a little momento for ALL of those dedicated, hard working MA-1 “Weenies!” out there! You may remember this from long ago! As I recall, the actual composer was “Anonymous” but as I overheard from my “5” level trainer at Duluth, Minnesota, (the 11th FIS/343rd CAM), by the name of Bill Eldridge, that this was composed through a class effort. The tech school class supposedly had Bill Eldridge, Mike Emerald, Larry Genalo, Paul Stone, and I believe Paul Burke, along with a couple others I cannot pull their names out.
We had a copy of this in the Tech School Supervisor Office at Lowry, and I managed to make a copy of it and corrected the one misspelled word I found, along with the AFSC. We started as 32231A’s and became 32132A’s in about 1975. Enjoy it everyone!

MArv


The BALLAD of MA-1

As the base lies sleeping, throughout the night
There are those that still work, until their airplanes are right.
The most dedicated men under the sun
Are these unsung hero’s of MA-1.
In maintaining the system they never tire,
Of those little black boxes and miles of wire.
And when other shops say “It Can’t Be Done!”
Who else do they call on, but MA-1.
On these trusted men, others constantly lean.
Yet credit for the fix is seldom seen.
But these troops don’t seek the glory,
And that makes their lives an untold story.
Expertly trained and patiently taught,
It takes quit a person to fill this slot.
Their life is not a bed of roses,
And more difficult than one supposes.
The workload they carry is beyond compare,
It is far above, their fair share.
Attacking each airplane as fast as it breaks,
They expend all their energies, and whatever it takes.
Meeting the mission is on everyone’s mind,
And they push even harder, when they fall behind.
The problems they face are often troubling,
And confuse them at times, by frequently doubling.
Some problems it seem, they materialize,
And then disappear before their eyes.
After hours of sweat, and all the pain,
They almost have it fixed and it starts to rain.
But unshaken in their goal, they work day and night,
Keeping the planes ready to fly out of sight.
So now its been said, and the story is done,
About the unsung hero’s of MA-1!
So just you remember, as they pass your way,
These are the finest! – 321X2A’S!

ANONYMOUS

:drunk :drunk :patties_day :drunk :drunk AH, TIS WONDERFUL IT TIS TO BE AMONGST SUCH FOINE PEOPLE AS THE WEENIES FROM THE MA-1 FAMILY........................... :salute The "Lament" and the "Ballad are both well written, by a foine Irish lad no doubt who knew well the foine art o" purloinin................ The "Lament of the Flight line Mechanic" was originally dedicated to all of the support people who be agettin the greasey hands and the dirty fatiques (Before the days of the camies and Marine Shirt Sleeves- always rolled up) I first saw it posted in the hydraulic branch of the General Jet Mech school at Amarillo AFB, Texas in 1952........ This was in the days when the vast majority of specialists were in base shops (the forerunner of field maint squadrons)...... Thanks Jake and MArv for bringing these to light once again..............................
The Old Sarge :patties_day :drunk

Marv, I enjoyed the ballad and will pass it on to some other MA=1 types.

Hmmmm, are ya' sure those were 3/8" and not 7/16" heads on those boxes? I must be (know I am) getting forgetful in my old age. In any event I remember practicing bouncing the spin-tite (whatever size it was) so it landed handle down would bounce back up into my hand. I learned that trick from none other than Frank Rodgers, my favorite Hughes Tech Rep.

Do you remember the worst unit to pull (on an A model) was the ADC (I believe it was) down behind (actually, in front of) the right rudder pedal? It took about 2 hours to get the seat removed, and three years to un-thread the stick with it's 2,000 tpi collar .... and then some old timer came along and showed you how to curl around the seat like some sort of non-boned worm so you could remove the thing without disecting the cockpit?

Wellll, I don't see why not. Remember that ancient Incan saying .... "Once a weenie, always a weenie .... regardless of the brand" .... or something like that.

Yup, the wormgears were only 3/8ths.

Great poems guys!!

I spent most of my 6 time at Tyndall so B models were easy for me. I never did find stuff on the "A" model. In fact, I had the 3 round eye'd "B" models at Tyndall, 2526, 2527, 2528. TSgt Roger Phelps had 2 more birds than I did but he was happy ....He didn't have round Eyes.

I had a bit of a flashback a couple of weeks ago. I asked a tech I was working with if he had a spintite, needless to say, all I got was a blank look. It took me several minutes to remember that I wanted a "nut driver"!!