Page 30 - Jan22T

Mike Lovelace and Peter Sloan.
I hope she puts a smile on the faces of my wife, Christine, and our three daughters. But when she’s not, OMG will be free to haul medicines and clinicians to Haiti, supplies to disaster sites, and wounded U.S. veterans and their families to their destinations (veteransairlift.org).
Back in the Air
Before any of that good stuff can occur, this machine has to get off the ground. For runway, Bob and I had about 2,800 feet. Any doubts about thrust were dispelled by a call from Mike DeVader of Prime Turbines two days earlier (we’ll call him Mike 2.)
Mike 2 was the guy who parachuted into N30 to trim in the engines after installing new containment rings, combustion liners, nozzles and overhauled fuel components in compliance with a 2014 AD. Now, he needed to test out full power. But with only 55 gallons of Jet A weighing her down, Mike 1 and Mike 2 had to tie the airplane to a dump truck just to keep her from jumping brakes.
“Don’t worry,” Mike 1 shouted over the dump truck’s rumble. Mike 1 had been an Air Force F-100 crew chief back in his early days. He knew something about thrusty birds. “We had to tie them by the tail all the time,” he said as he wrapped a come- along from truck to tail. “Only ever tore one off.”
Later, it was our turn to hold brakes.
“Remember, if anything goes wrong, stand on the left rudder pedal,” the voice of Cheyenne owner Steve Riggs chided us over the radio. Taking the bait, we replied,
28 • TWIN & TURBINE / January 2022
Turbines