THE ADVENTURES OF REX THE WONDER ENGINEER:

REX THE WONDER ENGINEER

It's a hot, muggy, greasy Arkansas morning. The sun is still below the horizon as Rex stands outside the VAQ at Lttle Rock AFB wiping the last chards of puke from his scraggly mustache. Joe, his faithful puking partner, former Castle CCTS hero of the steamjet world, is still on his knees by the butt can, ejecting his stomach contents heroically into their copilot's helmet bag, which was left on the bus the day before, and ended up spending the night by the door of the BAQ.
Rex, KC-10A Flight Engineer, former hero of the C-130 world, is happy to be back at Lttle Rock. The old Top of the Rock E-club hasn't changed, he thinks. What a time he had last night with his old herky-homo buddies! A wonderful night of depravation and shame in good old Arkansas! But now he begins to think about the upcoming flight and where the hell is the bus anyway and Holy shit he's going to be running behind on the preflight now and Joes still puking and oh here comes the bus now..............

The ride to the airplane is pretty quiet. The copilot is overjoyed at finding his helmet bag (Rex has zipped it up tight) and doesn't notice the flecks of barf on the stupid UPT class patch that all copilots treasure so much. The AC, Capt Tinkle, is quiet also, and appears to be deep in thought. Suddenly, he clears his throat. Joe and Rex listen up, just in case he says something intelligent.
"Well men, here's the plan. We'll go by base ops, and file, and then go to the Oclub for a bite, and you guys go get the jet ready. We're going direct to Travis, and there's no cargo and I don't know how many pax"
Joe speaks: "Hey, Cap, what about me and Rex go to the snack bar so's we can get some grub?' "Not going to work", says Tinkle, "I want to take off early and you guys should have eaten before the bus." Copilot stays silent during this exchange, but is storing this leadership lesson away for when he upgrades.

Rex and Joe grumble a bit but don't really give a fuck about food right now. Rex is primarily concerned about the impending bowel movement that is certain to occur within the next 5 minutes. They drop off the pilots, hurl their bags onto the ramp, carry their own up the stairs, pause to say eat shit to the crew chiefs, and ride to the world renown flight line AAFES slime pit for some grub.

An hour later, Rex is finishing up the 5 flap TRT TOLD, when the pilots arrive at the airplane.
"Lets go, guys, I got a tee time back home and we're taking off ASAP and flying the pole all the way back." "What altitude are we agoin back at pilot?" said Rex. "35.0, eng.....we don't want to wear no stinkin mask if one of us has to go to the bunk". What a dork this guy is, thinks the Rexter.....pilots should not breed.
During the walk around, Rex notices some fluid dripping off the center gear doors and the taste test confirms it as fuel. No problem, thinks Rex, reaching for a smoke.....Jeez I gotta take a crap again....He blows off the rest of the exterior inspection.

TO BE CONTINUED SOON.............................................................................................................