On Mar 28, 2007, at 11:00 AM, Cotty wrote: >> I lost two Leica II cameras in similar incidents. One fell into the >> Pacific Ocean from 26,000 feet > > 26,000 ? Come on Godders - let's hear it ! ;-)
I thought I told the story at a prior time. About 1986, I was working at JPL on a flight project that involved a radar scatterometer measurement of ocean surfaces. We had managed a 'piggy back' data acquisition session on another group's time that we shared the airplane with, a C-130, and were going to be in flight for about 10 hours. I wanted to get out of the office for a couple of days and was accepted in the flight crew as a backup tech for our radar scatterometer system. The flight path went out over the waters of the Pacific near La Jolla, California, leaving from March AFB in Riverside. Our first target was right in that neighborhood, so we prepped prior to take off. Everything checked out. In the middle of the first data pass (about 15 minutes), the SNR from the rear antenna went nuts and ruined the data take. We physically examined as much of the system and cabling as possible and determined that the problem lay in a short stretch of cable that passed right over the top of the C-130s immense rear cargo door, and was inaccessible without opening the door (assuming that it wasn't the antenna itself that had gone faulty, of course). Since the other experiment was the plane's primary purpose for this flight and they were paying the bills, we were faced with the notion of sitting around in a noisy plane for 9 more hours with nothing to do or attempting to replace the cable section. We talked it over with the pilot and copilot, and they said they could crack the door open about a foot, holding it on the hydraulics, while using a cargo net and body harnesses for safeties as well as a limit link on the door's motion. Bill and I, being the techs assigned, agreed. I had the Leica IIc in my tool belt, as usual, when we suited up and got the rest of the gear in order. The pilot leveled us off at 26,000 feet for a transit section to the next target and the plane's crew setup the safeties, unlocked and opened the cargo door about 18 inches. Just enough room for us to reach the connector that we needed to get to by climbing up the cargo netting on the door and reaching outside the plane on the underside of the fuselage's tail section. The cable replacement went well, although Bill was cursing loudly about "not being paid enough for this kind of s**t!!!", and we were about to wrap up ... I reached down to grab the camera for a snap of the repair. A tiny bit of bumpy air caught us right then and the hydraulics jumped, allowing the door to pop open to the limit of the safety link on the door's motion. It was only about 8 inches that it moved, but it felt like it was yawning wide open and I made a grab for the cargo netting. Bill near lost his lunch. In that motion, the camera slipped from where I was pulling it out of the holster and my hand, somehow found its way over the edge of the door to disappear into the ocean below. We were done, however, crawled back down the netting, closed up the door, and proceeded to make five successful data runs on the rest of the flight. A lot of laughs, some jokes about "racing underwear", and a good stiff drink or three ensued after we landed ... Godfrey -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
