By: StaubRacing
Edited by: Michael T Smith
Midnight shifts, cold ramps, and keeping tired 727s flying at MSP in the mid-2000s
Featured Post!The Ramp at MSP
The mid-2000s feel like another lifetime now, when Champion Air still flew vacation charters and Kevin, my partner in crime, and I were keeping tired 727s moving at MSP. Back then, every night bled into the next. Same ramp, same cold, same noise.
Most nights were all noise and exhaust, the kind that fade together over time. But some nights, the ramp still finds a way to entertain you and scare the hell out of you in the same breath. There’s one night I can still see clear as day, a midnight shift on the cold ramp at Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, or as we knew it, simply MSP. The night shift started at nine and, if we were lucky, ended around nine the next morning, but usually dragged closer to ten. The air smelled of jet fuel and exhaust, the kind of cold that made metal sting when you touched it.
The Routine
I started every night the same way — park outside the hangar, pull my collar up against the wind, and walk through the side door into the little office in back where the coffee pot hissed and the night’s task sheets waited. The place always smelled like burnt grounds, cold air, and hydraulic fluid. That’s where I grabbed my assignment and found out what kind of trouble I’d be babysitting till sunrise.
Kevin, or K-Dog, as everyone called him, was a farmer from International Falls, Minnesota. He had that mechanical sense you only get when things break forty miles from the nearest toolbox. Out in the fields, if a tractor quit, you didn’t call for parts you made it work with what you had. That mindset followed him onto the ramp. He lived on Mountain Dew and Copenhagen, swore at airplanes like they could hear him, and somehow kept them in the air. Give him a problem, a crescent wrench, and a bad idea, and he’d have that piece of shit running again before sunrise.
The Assignment
That night, we drew a 727-200 with an erratic fuel-flow issue, easy job, just messy as hell sometimes. We loaded the truck with toolboxes, a spare transmitter, and our standard survival kit, coffee strong enough to strip paint, a couple bottles of Mountain Dew, and enough smokes to fog the hangar. The dashboard was a mess of logbooks, menthol cigarettes, and empty Copenhagen cans sliding around as we bounced across the ramp toward the airplane.
Kevin killed the engine and popped the door.
“You grab the transmitter?” he asked, already knowing I had. “No, shithead, I left it at the hangar,” I shot back. “Of course I grabbed it.” He just grinned, the kind of grin that said same shit, different night.
The talk was always rough, the kind of banter you’d hear in a kitchen at rush hour. Outsiders might’ve thought we hated each other, but it was the opposite. That back-and-forth was respect in our world, a bond built from too many long nights and close calls. You could trust a guy who’d call you an that would make a sailor blush and still hand you the wrench before you asked.
Trouble on the Ramp
We hauled our toolboxes down, boots crunching on ice and grit, the smell of jet fuel thick enough to taste. Somewhere off in the distance an APU whined, a reminder that the rest of the airport was still alive and moving freight while we froze our asses off K-Dog and I were usually the problem solvers, the ones called when something refused to cooperate. The rest of the overnight work fell to a gang of contractors from the, at-the-time, bankrupt Sun Country Airlines. They handled the basic checks, periodic service inspections, PS checks, the routine stuff. Good enough hands, but they didn’t know our airplanes the way we did. Every now and then one of them would wander over, eager to “help,” and that’s usually when the fun began.
I pulled the truck under the number-three engine and started opening the cowlings, digging in. Each of our trucks had what we called surfboards on top, steel platforms welded to the bed and frame that stretched out over the cab of the old GMC 1500 Sierras. They were built for reaching the engines and gave us just enough height to work without dragging out a maintenance stand. It wasn’t fancy, but it got the job done.
I was halfway through pulling panels when I spotted some movement out of the corner of my eye. One of the Sun Country contractors was circling the aircraft, clipboard in hand, pretending to look busy. Great, I thought, now I get to help this asshole too. The last thing we needed was another body in the way, especially one who didn’t know our airplane.
Getting to Work
I started digging into pulling the old transmitter, ready to get after it. I sent K-Dog up to the cockpit to pull the fuel shutoff handle and cut the supply to the engine. With that pulled, the fuel system’s isolated — this baby won’t start without the go juice. You still get a shot of fuel that’s left in the lines, and it’s damn near impossible not to end up with your hands covered in Jet-A. Kevin came back to see if I needed a hand, and I told him to just be my moral support and maybe give me a back rub. He laughed and said, “How about I give you a rub and a tug while I smoke and watch you do all the work?” I flipped him off and went back to wrestling with the fuel line. Same routine every night. While I was installing the new fuel-flow transmitter, I asked Kevin what the other shitheads were up to.
“The dumbass is up in the cockpit,” he said over the intercom. “Looks like he’s poking around, asking what we’re working on.” I rolled my eyes. “Perfect. Last thing I need is a helper.” Kevin chuckled. “Yeah, he’s got that ‘I’m here to help’ look.”
I could hear him up there talking with the guy, some small talk over the radio. I didn’t think much of it, just figured the contractor was curious, maybe trying to look useful. The job was simple, just messy, and I was almost ready to button everything up. As long as he stayed out of the way, we’d be done in no time.
Light-Off
I sent Kevin to the cockpit and told him, “Fire this fucker up!” We both knew the drill with this kind of part change. The fuel lines were drained, and it would take a while for fuel to reach the fuel controller, think of it like a carburetor or fuel injection system, but for a jet engine.
The starter whined, spooling up like a turbine hair dryer, but I knew it’d take a minute before she caught fuel. I was inches from the engine and could see the fuel-control rod slide into place, that meant Kevin had switched on the fuel flow, right on cue.
But we weren’t getting light-off, no signs of the engine spooling up toward idle. After a few seconds, I told Kevin to kill it. With all the noise, radios were useless anyway. Guys like Kevin and me had an unspoken language. I grabbed the fuel-control rod and gave it a shake, our signal. I knew Kevin was several yards away in the cockpit, his hand resting on the fuel shutoff lever, waiting for that exact move.
Just as I reached my hand toward the lever, thinking to myself, What the hell did I screw up?, the whole area lit up like a lightning bolt went off. A chest-thumping boom followed that damn near made me shit my pants. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a blast of blue and orange flame shoot at least thirty feet out the tailpipe.
The Boom
I immediately felt like the biggest idiot. No hesitation, no excuses, just that voice in my head going, You stupid fuck, what did you forget to do this time?
Scrambling to get my senses back, I realized the engine was running smooth at idle. Well, fuck it! I’m here now; might as well make sure I don’t have any leaks.
Once I knew things at the engine were under control, I saw the fuel-control rod return to the shutoff position and knew Kevin was shutting it down. Damn, that dude knows me too well, he could tell I wasn’t panicking and that I was just doing a leak check.
These are the people you want on your team, the ones who know what you need and when you need it, without a single word said.
The Dumbass
I climbed off the truck, made my way up the aft airstair, and headed for the cockpit. Kevin was already standing in the doorway, and I could tell he was pissed. The thing about Kevin, though, when he’s pissed, he doesn’t yell or turn red. He just smiles, and that’s how you know it’s bad.
I wasn’t even halfway up the row of those typical blue-covered seats when I called out, “What the fuck was that?” Kevin didn’t answer, he just looked over at, you guessed it, Dumbass. Still smiling that calm, dangerous smile, he said, “Ask him,” motioning toward the newly and well-earned name, Dumbass. I turned toward him. “Why did you fucking pull it in the first place?” He shrugged. “Well, I didn’t want the engine to accidentally start while you were working on it.”
I just stared at him. “Accidentally start? Really? What — we’d accidentally fire up the APU for bleed air, accidentally hit the start switch, accidentally move the fuel shutoff to run, and just sit back while the jet lights itself off?”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on anyone. Even Kevin cracked a grin. He always got a kick out of watching me “do my thing,” as he liked to call it, meaning when I really let someone have it. He’s been known to let me off the leash now and then, just to make a point.
I’ve been called an asshole more than once, and fair enough,sometimes you have to be. There are ramp rats and bag smashers out there so clueless you’ve got to make sure they understand, usually with a very specific tone of, Are you fucking kidding me?
Dawn on the Ramp
By the time the paperwork was done and the ramp lights started to fade into dawn, it already felt like another story no one would believe. Just another night, another near-miss, another reason to wonder why we kept coming back.
But that’s the thing about this life, you don’t do it for the glory or the paycheck. You do it because you can’t stand not knowing what broke, or how to make it run again. You do it for the noise, the smell, the brotherhood, and the stories that start with “You’re not gonna believe this one…”