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Darwin Awards
2010 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

KI Sawyer AFB Radar Hazards

2010 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

This first story is too humorous not to tell. There was near self-selection here, common sense intervening at the right moment.

From March of 1976 to May of 1978, I was stationed at what is now Sawyer International Airport and was back in the day Kenneth I. Sawyer AFB, or KI as we called it.

This was my first choice of assignment coming back from the Phillipines. I'm an avid winter sports person so picked every northern tier base the Air Force had on my assignment coming to an end at Clark AB in the Phillipines.

At KI, I came to know one Gus Rutherford, a 5-striper or Tech Sgt in our shop. He had one of the first HP hand-held calculators made famous by one of the Skylab astronauts offering one to a Russian Cosmonaut. The Cosmonaut thought classified material was being offered to him and was embarrassed to find we sold these over the counter in the USA.

Gus was a consummate expert in all aspects of Nav Sytems, including safety around high-powered RADAR equipment. As a note, Gus is black.

We had a beacon for aircraft to locate KC 135 refueling birds, called the APN 69 RADAR Beacon. It has a series of very large capacitors known as a Pulse Line in it. Sections of the Pulse Line are switched in for setting range.

There was a malfunction where one of the beacons was causing a blur on a screen and it turns out the pulse line was the culprit. It turns out what had happened was the bleeder resistor had opened so the pulse line was never discharging.

Gus was showing a trainee safety and nearly touched the line with his finger. He was pointing out how this had to be the issue but with his finger a safe distance away as yet, said to the trainee "Never trust this to discharge fully. Use this grounded strap to discharge the line always. I've never known this not to discharge but always use this."

Good thing he did this: Even though the set had been off for nearly 15 minutes, upon touching the hook of the discharge rod to the line, it blew the 3/16 inch hook into several pieces, some of these going the distance across the shop and a few either vaporized or just plain not locateable. The webbed strap at the far end of teh 3-foot fiberglass rod was fried back over a foot, with the plastic insulation over it melted back even further.

The explosion was so loud personnel from the Orderly Room ran into the Nav Shop to see what was up.

Due to Gus' good sense safety practice, he had all 10 fingers when I met him and could use his HP 45 calculator with very good dexterity.

After all personnel were found to be safe except for being more keenly aware of good safety practices, someone of course blurted out, "Hey, don't you guys have a black Tech Sgt in the shop? Could have sworn he walked in with a RADAR Beacon not half an hour ago."

Certainly the trainee never forgot the lesson learned about grounding rods.

Story 2: David Damp, my roommate was in the Fire Control RADAR Shop. I worked Search RADAR/Nav Aides. Fire Control maintains the RADAR for the gattling gun on the back of a B-52.

Dave tells this personal account of a friend who advised what to do with a RADAR transmitter if you're up on the stand at the back of a B-52 and happen to slip while ooming down the stairs of the stand holding the set: push it away -- you can't be replaced as easily.

As a note, even with the stand lowered, it's nearly 2 stories one has to descend holding a RADAR set some 100 pounds either by handles or over one's shoulder.

In the winter, where a bad snow year is usually 8 feet or so, his buddy got to test his theory but Physics proved him wrong. He forgot one thing: 2 objects in flight, departing at the point and traveling at the same speed will fall in the shape of a parabola roughly parallel ... :) Good thing there was snow on the ground.

Lacking a stable point to brace himelf for a good push on a set that weighed over half as much as he did, it was rather humorous to watch him disappear into a fresh snow bank attempting to get this set away from him.

Due to being fully dressed in a parka and falling into a 10' drift, he could be heard calling up from the hole he made (shades of Austin Powers/Dr. Evil) "I'm OK!" His feet were a foot below the level of the hole -- RADAR set and technician none the worse for wear.

Story 3: Not a RADAR hazard but a RADAR tech (yours truly) along with a Medical Tech who are both winter enthusiasts, with a touch of alchohol-induced self-selection.

As a note, my friend and I (Joe Brickham) being avid campers and hikers, pitched camp in a blizzard one Thanksgiving weekend in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This went well. We nearly did not survive our cross country skiing experience right on the base.

We started off at the NCO Club with a couple drinks as I recall. At a slope headed back to the barracks, we checked out the wax job on our skis by going down the slope. We properly chose the wax for the snow type and temp. Also having a 6 pack of beer, we decided to divert over to the golf course just across the entry road.

We skied well out past the medical clinic by a few miles. It was night and in the middle of a record winter at KI. We had 15 feet of snow on the base by Feb 1978.

We were well out from any heated facility at 11PM or so, on a clear (and thus very cold) and windy night. We set down for a rest and put away the rest of the beer.

We both were getting hypothermic and at the same time, looked at each other in the eyes with the look of "Oh Shit! Get moving!", which we promptly did. It was also windy and the chill was probably about 15 below. Golf courses are known for being clear of trees ... so we had to make it to groves to thaw back out. We kept each other awake, had to be careful of not even a twisted ankle, etc.

The final grove was about 1/4 mile from the clinic where it was heated. At this point, alcohol doing it's thing to delude one that they're warm and quite shivering (but not numb, a good sign), we rested up and decided to go for the clinic. We had ice and snow all the way to the door, so this was good for us.

At about midnight, we skied up to the door, unstrapped our gear and went inside to warm up for an hour or so. The barracks was across the street, so we made it out of that one.

I've always wanted to immortalize the stories of my friends and as they verge on self-selection due to alcohol- or "youth-enducement" they're pretty good.

There are others ... next up is the adventure of Gus Rutherford, Roy Williams and being lost on the way home by snowmobile after drinking at the Club. Self-selection was clearly involved ... moreso from Roy's wife wanting to skin Gus alive after all were found well and alive ... until next time, Sgt Mike signs off.

Enjoy.

Submitted on 02/03/2010

Submitted by: Mike Durthaler
Reference: Personal Accounts from KI Sawyer AFB

Copyright © 2010 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Maybe Toss: Lacks Excellence
Thanks for some interesting and very detailed stories, Mike. However I just don't feel they're intriguing enough for an award. The first story sounds like an example of everything done right and proving why safety steps should be followed. The second is quite humorous but again it sounds like an accident and not a case of egregious stupidity. The last story, on the other hand, does include a dose of stupidity but drinking and then heading out into frigid conditions is pretty commonplace. However the stories are humorous and I did get a good chuckle out of them. Thanks for sending them in!


Candi said:
Definitely Toss: Lacks Excellence
I agree with Bruce! These remind me of some of the stories my dad tells of his earlier Army years. (Like the one with the bulldozer in Belgium...)


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