12/17/09
Deicing steam engulfs ship 39
under F-7’s tungsten lights
Author: Jeff Fenske Page 10 of 15
12/21/09 – 9 am – F-7 (facing south)
Waiting
to hear “clear to push” from the captain
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Lynn waits
for the headset-disconnect signal
during engine-start
on what was my last push
12/21/09
Main Deck – N2, load-sheets in hand:
Dioni and Lynn
The Bulk
Our equivalent to the Russian Front
12/27/09
The Bulk — Uphill View —
where the very back of the aircraft radically slopes up
so it won’t hit the runway during rotation on take-off
Area 51 (compartment 51) is on the right
From this super wide-angle view, the ceiling looks a lot higher than it really is.
At the end, it’s only a few feet high.
I work the entire bin on my knees.
Imagine stacking up-to 120 pound boxes of fish by hand,
coated with wax — so the boxes slide and we slide —
on wax coated aluminum,
slip-sliding away …
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The Bulk — Downhill View
Incidentally, our guys* loaded so much fish into bulk during Cargo’s Last Stand that the rubber belts of our belt loaders got so coated by wax from the fish boxes that even the non-wax-coated boxes often slid right down the belt during onload and offload.
*I can say guys, literally, because rarely did the ladies get assigned to bulk, but some of the leads didn’t honor some of the older guys in the same way.
Related: Dr. Rich
Tech info:
This is a good color temperature example. Notice how compartment 43 is white, while the same color panels further forward are much warmer. COMP 43 is illuminated mostly by daylight, which is a colder color temperature than the incandescent lights that light the inner belly.
Also, the extreme wide-angle lens distorts my face and especially my head, being at the edge of the photo. But Caesar, in the center, is mostly perspectively balanced.
12/27/09
Lower Deck Aft Bin
Being tall has its disadvantages
12/27/09
12/27/09
Forward Lower Bin Looking Aft
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Looking Forward
Jon put my After the Fog photo into this historic henway
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I’m sorry to disappoint, but I stayed home on my day off for these,
the last of the regularly scheduled flights —
though I spent much of my next day off (Sunday)
shooting the absolutely last freighter
before it took off on Monday morning,
which I both worked and shot.
Henway = way of the hen, flight schedule
We use the word all the time,
but I can’t find it in the dictionary.
Someone dug this out of their locker to show the number of flights back then:
9 scheduled freighters, 11 total
(2 were delayed arrivals from the previous day — passenger flights at the bottom)
12/27/09
12/27/09
Sal and Caesar build up what was to be the last stack of pallets,
but we’ve found more to send out on other carriers since.
This is only about half the size of a normal stack.
12/27/09
Steve zooms out the door on the rabbit
(propane powered forklift)
While Jim grabs the “last stack” with the big turtle
(diesel powered, “it’s all about tork” Taylor)
12/27/09
Steve supervising the operation
while Jim and Sal build up a pallet of comat
to go out on the bird in the morning
Many years ago, I started calling Steve, ‘.Com’
when I realized how much he was into communication.
He’s also into cuisine, by the way!
12/27/09
Labeling ‘dangerous goods’
Kitiona, who most often goes by ‘Muku,’
but I either call him by his real name
or the title I dubbed: ‘Kitman’
What a great guy!
12/27/09
Loretta and Kitiona ‘Muku’
12/27/09
View from the ‘blue room’ — operations
12/27/09
The lower-deck loader operators left this message
on the aft cargo bin door
Some of our equipment can be seen palletized,
ready to be loaded on this airplane
to go out on tomorrow morning’s last flight
Sunday — December 27 — 3 PM
I came in on my day off, Cargo’s-Last-Stand Eve. This, the last freighter was scheduled to leave the following morning. This was my last chance to take some photos of the group and of this airplane before it would be turned into scrap aluminum. Most of the other freighters are sitting in the desert.
I asked the afternoon shift crew if they would also like to be photographed in the engine. Caesar was the only volunteer.
With the plane facing directly south, and just a few days after winter solstice (our shortest day, the sun setting to the SW), the the lighting was perfect. We took 8 shots in less than 5 minutes. What an opportunity!
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12/27/09
12/27/09
12/27/09
John & Lynn
12/25/09
Ken, Louis, Tino, Edie, Rita, Bob “Pineapple”
12/25/09
Thanks to everybody for tuning in.
Lots of more Cargo’s Last Stand photos coming.
I’m putting a lot of TLC into this.
Each photo is hand-crafted from RAW.
Most have been shot with the little Canon G10 and G11,
but many of these last photos are shot with Canon’s 5D Mark II.
And I just got better noise reduction software
so the G11 photos shot in low light will pop!
Thanks for the memories!
Jeff Fenske : )
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12/25/09
No.
It’s Tino and Bob “Pineapple”!
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12/25/09
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