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We were rotten to our passengers in the Navy when we got bored. There were a number of gags that we’d employ to fuck with the “pax”, but the hands-down favorite was the manual hydraulic pump trick.In an H-46 helicopter there’s a manual hydraulic pump located in the aft starboard section of the aircraft. The pump handle protrudes from the deck, stands about 3.5 feet high, and has a slightly curved handle. Think of a floor-Jack for a car, but at more or less at a 90 degree angle to the deck of the aircraft, with a handle at the top that protrudes at a little less than a 90 degree angle from the pump arm itself—-kind of like a hockey stick, with the blade being the handle. We used it on the ground to manually pressurize the hydraulic system for maintenance. In flight it served no purpose whatsoever, and moving the pump handle did absolutely nothing.As far as I remember, we only ever used the manual hydraulic pump for opening and closing the ramp/hatch assembly and, sometimes, moving the rescue hoist arm forward and aft for maintenance when there was no hydraulic power on the aircraft. Even those simple tasks required a decent amount of hand-pumping, and were completely unnecessary when the aircraft had the APU (auxiliary power unit “ape”) running and/or the rotor blades turning to power the hydraulics.When you’ve been at sea for several months, or even if you’re just a crew of sadistic assholes, the need to entertain yourselves is paramount to just about anything else, and after a while it’s not hard to spot the passenger, or passengers, who are not super comfortable flying around in an—at the time—30 year-old, leaky, rusty, low-tech, whistling-shit-can helicopter that had, literally, suffered battle damage during the Vietnam war. Those folks were our target audience.The trick worked like this:We’d wait for everyone on the flight to get good and relaxed. The aircrew in the back—crewchief also rescue swimmer—-would get on the ICS (inter phone communication system) and tell the pilots to fire up the “ape.” The APU is essentially a miniature jet engine designed to give the aircraft electrical/hydraulic power on the ground without engines and rotors running, or in-flight during emergencies as a back-up. In flight, with the engines roaring, rotors thumping, and the transmission howling, you can barely hear the ape start up…but you can sure as fuck hear it wind down. It sounds exactly like a jet engine shutting down, because that’s exactly what it is.So the pilots would start the ape, and then the aircrew in the back would give them the signal to shut down the ape.“BEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeeuuuuuuu….”Unless they are sleeping or listening to headphones, EVERYONE on the aircraft hears the unmistakable sound of a jet engine going offline. Here’s where the theatrics begin!The pilot dumps collective and the helicopter starts rapidly descending at a stomach-dropping rate. It’s only for about 20 feet or so, but the sudden downward lurch immediately following the pretend engine shut-down gets everyone’s attention. At this point anyone who didn’t hear the ape wind down is now in panic mode.The crewchief immediately yanks out his emergency checklist, gets between the two pilots—-who are making a big show of flailing around in the cockpit and feigning panicked confusion—and starts pretending to flip overhead switches and messing with circuit breakers.The most important person in this gag is the second crewmen/swimmer. As soon as the pilot dumps the collective pitch, the swimmer pops out of his seat like a jack in the box, makes a beeline for the manual hydraulic pump at the back of the aircraft and begins vigorously pumping—Pumping like his life and everyone else’s life depend on it. He’s pumping and pumping, and while the eyeballs of every single passenger are focused on the poor swimmer, who is now falling to his knees from faux exhaustion, the crew chief is looking aft and telling the pilot over the ICS exactly when to dump collective again—as the second crewman begins to weaken from the exertion of manually keeping the aircraft aloft, the pilots allow the aircraft to descend.It’s at this point where the second crewman really needs to sell it to the passengers. The only thing keeping this bird in the sky is that manual hydraulic pump, and the harder you pump, the more altitude the aircraft gains. Get tired and slow down pumping, the aircraft descends. As he pumps harder, the crewchief informs the pilots, who begin ascending. The slower he pumps, the more the aircraft drops from the sky.The goal here is to get the passengers out of their seats and, in an act of pure desperation, take over the pumping from the completely exhausted second crewman in order to save themselves from a fiery/watery death. On several occasions we achieved just that. There was always a lot of high-fiving and cheers when the aircraft finally began a steady and maintained ascent and the APU finally came back online.On my first cruise, one aircrew took it a little too far and had some midshipmen absolutely freak out. They had to break off the gag and tell him that they were just screwing around. Apparently the guy started losing his shit and crying, thinking he was doomed. Even the horrible assholes who perpetrated the trick felt truly awful.

I bought my first house when I was 29 years old. I’d been renting apartments and moving every year or two throughout my 20s. I lived in my parents’ house when I was a kid, of course.I had no idea how many different things need to be maintained on a regular basis to keep a house running smoothly, because I never had to do it before.This isn’t a complaint, though. I love owning my own house. I just wish that I didn’t have to learn about the need to maintain so many things via those things breaking from not being maintained. I’ve spent thousands of dollars over the years fixing things that only broke because I didn’t do preventative maintenance.Things like:Oiling the pump on the boiler.Vacuuming out the boiler before turning it on the first time in the season.Shutting off the feed to the outside spigots in the winter.Cleaning the downspout on the gutter.Rodding from the stack to the street. (Or, at least, knowing how to do that if needed.)Checking the chimney liner.Cutting down roots in the yard BEFORE hitting them with the lawn mower.Bleeding the radiators.Covering the AC unit in the winter.I just realized that a lot of these things are specific cold-weather issues that we didn’t have when I grew up in a warm-weather place. That’s why my dad never showed me how to do them. Still, no one tells you these things when you buy a house in a cold climate. You don’t turn off and drain the outside spigot in the fall, and then the pipe bursts and begins leaking in your basement, and people act like you’re an idiot for letting that happen.There should be a book for new homeowners with a monthly checklist of things they should do to maintain their new house. Better yet… an app with notifications every weekend.“It’s Saturday, November 2nd… locate the pump on the side of your boiler, and oil its gears. This will take five minutes, and will save you a $700 repair down the road.”

Three questions, three answers from somebody who has “been there, done that”. Keep in mind that the specifics are classified.Process. On US subs, there are many procedures for specific operations (called “rigs”), such as fire, collision, dive, surface, ventilate, diesel, ultra quiet, etc.. For most of them, there’s an announcement on the 1MC shipwide PA system, such as “Rig Ship for Reduced Electrical Power!” These procedures (a checklist) are memorized by everybody, as part of the warfare qualification process. They are also printed on laminated pieces of paper, which are kept in a hinged metal cabinet in each location. Laminated, so the checklist can be marked with a grease pencil. The checklist is used to ensure nothing is forgotten. For Ultra Quiet, least needed equipment, such as ventilation fans, are turned off, or shifted to the quietest mode of operation. For equipment that must be operated (steam plant pumps, for example), the quietest ones are selected.Speed. The actual speed is classified, of course. After overhaul, acoustic measurements are made, and used to develop the most quiet operation profile, which includes speed and depth. One feature is called “maximum tactical speed”. This is the fastest you can go and still hear an adversary before he hears YOU. Open literature suggests that this is around 20 knots, for the latest US subs.Shut-down equipment. Anything that is not essential. Examples include ventilation fans, fresh water distillation plant, atmosphere recycling equipment, air compressors, etc.. The exact equipment is classified, of course.For propulsion (the noisiest category of equipment that MUST be used), the newest nuclear-powered submarines have reactors that can be operated in a natural circulation mode, not needing reactor coolant pumps (the most powerful pumps, and the loudest) for relatively slow speeds. Actual speed limits are classified, of course. The steam plant will still have some pumps running, such as condensate and feed pumps. Diesel subs usually have some sort of quiet “creep” motors, either attached to the main propeller shaft or as separate creep propulsion systems. The same is true of AIP submarines.