Call Ripley’s Believe It Or Not

And I can hardly believe it’s already Friday again! I totally spaced out there, drawing a very complicated custom cartoon for my favorite airline, and almost forgot to upload todays strip.

But, fortunately, I remembered, so here you go with today’s installment of Chuck’s adventures. Maybe somebody should better call an ambulance instead? As we can see in this comic, it’s easy to get injured in your workplace, so please be safe out there!

Have a great weekend everybody!

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3 comments on “Call Ripley’s Believe It Or Not
  1. JP Kalishek says:

    Once, when a hurricane was coming (Forget which one, but New Orleans got two within a week or so) one of the FOB guys was pushing planes into a hangar as the rain was pelting down, and clipped the wings of two of them. One was rather pricey to fix.
    A manager who was the only other person on duty was chewing him a new one, and due to the money involved decided to call the General Manager and Owner to come look and likely fire the guy … Apparently both the GM and Owner said Exactly the same thing I did when I walked through the hanger in the AM to get to the Terminal to start the day for SouthWest Airlines …
    “Where was his wing walker?”
    Yeah, that manager who was mostly in charge of freight handling didn’t want to be out in a flooding rain so he refused to help the fobby stuff planes into the hanger.
    All the owner did to him was tell him henceforth, if he needed a wing walker and anyone refused, to call him and refuse to move a single plane. Yes, protecting the clients planes is very important, but not by damaging the wing of a rather new King Air.
    Unfortunately they didn’t fire that manager, and later, after the buyout he ended up in charge of a larger portion of the company and between he and the new ownership, things got untenable to me and after he threatened to fire me for not coming to a meeting he only informed us about at a very late date and after many of us had prior commitments (Mine was being in Texas, overseeing my Brother-in-law’s business while they were on vacation) I quit. At that date we were the Number One system for fueling (largest number of daily flights with out any fueling related delays). Within months they were bottom third.
    Then Katrina hit and quite a few of the other better guys decided to relocate and not return to work there.

  2. Rwill says:

    My story isn’t as bad as JP’s, but the wing tip of our rental 172 was all busted up and the last guy to rent/fly it said that it was that way when he returned to the (another) airport to fly back to the home field and and so someone else had damaged it while it was sitting untended on the ramp. The only thing was the blue streak on the hanger door frame and all of the missing pieces from the tip on the floor of it’s hanger pretty much told another tale. That he hit the hanger door while putting it away.

  3. JP Kalishek says:

    Rwill,
    His name wasn’t Chuck by any chance, was it?
    The first FBO I worked for had at one time several rentals, but they sold them off. A 172 was bought by a pipeline running company. One Saturday afternoon I see it taxi in, flagged him to a stop and saw the last 3 feet of wing except the tip rather caved in. The Pilot got out and says “This is one of the owners former planes and I know him well. I know you are not supposed to allow us to use the pilots car, but can I borrow it and where is the nearest Hardware store for some Duck Tape?” I knew nothing was planned to come in and knew he was coming back fast so I let him use it (normally it was for jet pilots only, though a few upper turboprop types and classic pilots got it)
    He came back and I showed him how a Sprint Car quick and dirty wing repair was done. His attempts were not going to hold past taxiing. He said it flew fine, but he wanted to be sure the tip stayed with the plane while he rushed to get it home and away from the possible sight of the FAA rep.
    He had “hit something Big and Black” while running a line. Likely a turkey vulture. It hit just inside of the tip attachment and flattened it in to the spar with the dent tapering to nothing that 3 or so feet from the tip.

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