Larry;
I can remember when #60 was on the BLM contract out in Reno in the late 80's early 90's I was suckered into washing the airplane by Wally and Rich. I was on the loading crew at the time and we were sitting around quite a bit toward the end of the contract with nothing to do, so I'm out there on top of the right wing washing from the tip toward the fuselage use a fire hose 5 gallon wash bucket and a bug sprayer full of Zep degreaser soap. Well as I get into the wing root area have a slight problem of being able to move my scrubbing brush around without hitting the fuselage, soooo I sent decide I'll move out board a bit turn around a scrub down the wing root area.
There was just one slight problem with that, as I had set down the brush and wet to move the bucket I took a step right into some Zep degreaser which I just sprayed the back half of the wing with behind the #3 engine, well there goes my foot and being that I’m standing on a wet wing there goes my other foot!
Yup here I’ am in the matter of a millisecond on back on a wet wing that is covered with degreaser, so here is were gravity kicks in and off the back of the wing I go heading for terra firmma! I don't know how many people can have the claim to fame of falling off a DC-7 wing!
So as I'm heading for mother earth (thank god the flaps were down) I thinking to myself this is going to hurt, but as I land I come down on my feet Yippee.
Well as you know I have been washing a wing and the ramp is all wet covered in water, degreaser, engine oil and retardant. So out go my feet from under me and flat on butt I end up, but the best part is as I was sliding to my death I was grabbing for anything I could hold onto to try and stop my decent so I had a hold of the hose when I hit the ground. It had moved across the wing enough to hit the 5 gallon bucket to knock it over and it too came raining down along with it's contents on top of you know who!
So I pick my self up look around and to my surprise nobody else was outside on the deck or the loading pits, so I was saved a little bit of embarrassment from my co-workers and pilots.I ended up finishing the was job a day or two later, and as I’m putting the final rinse on the tail the fire phone rings and we get a dispatch to a fire!
I thought you and some of the guys on here might get a laugh out of the "bone head Scott file's" of being an airport bum. Keep the pictures and the stories coming Larry, as this is about as close to the tanker biz I can get anymore, I sure do miss it though.
Scott........
The tanker bum at heart.
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