C-130 Flight Engineer

C-130 flight engineer on our crew in cockpit checking his eyelids out for holes as we wait on ground for departure - 1972. The flight engineer sat in an elevated seat aft and between the two pilots … the job included managing and monitoring major aircraft systems like electrical, fuel, hydraulics, etc … also closely watched pilots so they didn’t screw up, and was another set of eyes to watch out for other aircraft traffic in the friendly skies over Vietnam. Notice the old gray headsets we all wore … relatively crude in today’s world and part of the reason why my hearing is so bad today.