I was in MARS-37 at MCAS El Toro, and for about a year I was the calibration tech for the unit's engine test cells. We tested those big-ass recips (reciprocating engines) in an old WWII cell.
We also tested the GV-1 turboprop engines — they were frightening — used in C-130 Hercules transport planes. The final step was to feather the prop at 100% — the earth shook and I knew that eventually that blade would flop off and cartwheel all the way to San Francisco, slicing and dicing.
But the most fun were the J-57 (F4-D Skyray and F8-U Crusader aircraft) and J-79 (F4-H Phantom) test cells. Those cells used angled beach matting as exhaust deflectors. One of the mechanics discovered (we usually worked 1600-2400) that an oil can lobbed above the deflector would take off like a rocket when those engines were revving. Well, the wheels-watch shack was just two hundred yards away — in line with the axis of the engine being tested.
The obvious thing for a bunch of Marines on night crew to do was to figure out how to hit the wheels-watch shack with an oil can (no comments needed from you artie types). We became fairly accurate by slightly adjusting the engine's power, and could hit the shack once in ten tries.
The poor dude in the shack (usually there as punishment anyway) would jump out, look around, then jump back. One night the guy on wheels watch discovered the source of the Klunk! and fired a flare in our direction. It lacked sufficient elevation and ignited some grass, which we put out. Those stray oil cans also pissed off the FOD walkers the next morning.
Nut therapy
Sometimes a jet engine's compressor blades become fouled, such as after sucking in a bird or flying low through Los Angeles smog. Rather than disassemble the entire engine, the common practice was to dump in a measured amount of "shells, pecan and walnut, mixed." Don't know if this is still done; perhaps a younger Winger will enlighten us. The shells came in a big, bulky laminated bag that weighed 30-40 pounds.
When used properly, the shells were completely consumed in the jet engine's combustion chamber after performing their intended function of cleaning the engine's compressor blades. Was that good enough for us? Nooo! — we invented other games.
One of the mechanics, Wayne Kindig, stood 6ft 6in and weighed about 300 pounds. After discharge he played in the NFL for a decade, earning two Super Bowl rings with the Miami Dolphins. He also tossed the hammer on his high school's track team in Missouri.
Wayne "discovered" that slitting a nut bag diagonally, spinning around and tossing the bag like a hammer into a jet engine's full afterburner exhaust would result in a wonderous sheet-fan-mushroom cloud of burning shells that would rise a two hundred feet and and just as wide.
Our hijinks didn't amuse the officers who staffed MCAS El Toro's control tower. MPs, crash crew, and fire trucks were hurriedly dispatched to the site of the "explosion" — only to find a group of Marines hard at work in the dangerous task of testing jet engines, which would sometimes malfunction in the form of a "JP-4 burp."
So we didn't do the nut-bag stunt very often as it always drew the same response from the control tower. That plus our nightcrew OIC always had a fit because the next day he had to fill out a long report. You guessed it — those "burps" usually occurred when a prick lieutenant was OIC.
Such recollections ought to confirm Grunt opinions of their high-flying brothers. No matter as, in the true Marine tradition, we made lethal weapons out of whatever was at hand.
Semper Fi(ddling)
Ed
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** About the author: Ed Butsch was active duty 1960~64. Served in TLC (Thai/Laos/ Cambodia) theater as Avionics Chief attached to CAT (Civil Air Transport). Today he is a high-tech engineering manager.
