Six of us flew to Minneapolis on Sunday July 31 to handle the final inspection on Engine 24-1. Due to low levels of partyability four of us went early and 2 later in the day. When the first crew arrived we got a call from Rosenbauer Chief Engineer Mike Lemuiex who told us he was at the plant working and wondered if we wanted a sneak preview. Huh, wow did 24-1 look good. We stayed about 2 hours and then checked into our hotel and went to get the party animals. We met Will Hayne at 7AM the next morning and went to work. We crawled over every inch of that truck and when we found something we didn't think was quite right they had a guy on it right away. Lonnie Brown spent his time with the pump guy and by the end of the day Lonnie had things under control. We stayed at the plant until 6PM and then went to Famous Daves and had a Bar B Que dinner. Back at the hotel we sat around in the lobby talking things over until 1AM and met Will at 7AM to start the UL test in the 100+ heat index. During the test they were working on a 6X6 Airport Crash Truck at the pump pit, you got it, the little boy came out of them and they had to go for a ride. And ride they did complete with using the Rhino bumper mount monitor (1000gpm) and the Rosenbauer 2,000gpm roof turret. Chief was talking about making a trade already! We left for the airport and home at 11 AM but the excitement wasn't over yet. On our plane the flight attendant was almost knocked out by a large bag falling out of an overhead bin. By the time we got near Philly she felt she would not be able to handle her landing duties. Lonnie was tabbed to be our new flight attendant as they went over emergency procedures with him. Boy did he look good in that flight attendant seat.
