First Mission

We arrived at our deployed location late on a Saturday evening and went straight to our quarters. With less than six hours of sleep we got right back up and reported for........more #$%^&* briefings!!!! A lot of it was the same goat roping information that we received before we left. Of course we also received a lot of awesome info from the people we were relieving. These individuals had been conducting the missions we would now be flying. Lots of do's and don't's and interesting tidbits about their experiences.

With that we proceeded to get our gear stowed. Wouldn't you know it the Air Force issued a major publications revision right as we deployed. At least it wasn't a group of changes where you have to replace a thousand pages one by one with the changed page. This was a straightforward, completely new manual. Of course they rearranged a lot of it so you can't find the information right away because your looking where it USED to be.

After we all got our new pubs and checklists it was off to Life Support to get our equipment squared away. The life support shop had their shit together. They'd already had our helmet lockers assigned and were accomplishing inspections on equipment like the NVG's (night vision goggles). I checked my helmet and stowed my pubs in my bag and then it was time to eat and get some sleep. We had a 4 am showtime for our first mission.

I set the alarm and went straight to bed and for some reason the alarm was ringing... It seemed like I just layed down a moment ago. I threw my bag on, grabbed my overnight bag and walked out the door. The crew piled in the van and off to the squadron we went.

As we were the first mission of the deployment everything was wacky. We got a loose crew brief, signed the flight orders, which demonstrates we arrived and declared we were ready to go. We'd already read the FCIF's (Flight Crew Information File), which detail things that pertain to flying operations that may apply locally or in the AOR (Area of Responsibility). Then I went to get my helmet and pubs while the navigator and pilots got the flight plan/weather. After that it was off to the conference room for an intelligence briefing.

Sometimes these briefings are as useless as a deployment briefing, but when your flying in to some areas it pays to be attentive. I always like to know what the people on the ground are capable of. For those of you who don't believe we should get our hands dirty by having human intelligence, how else are we going to determine what the enemy is capable of? Ask them?

Anyhow, got the brief and went straight to the plane. I love deployment flying. When I show to the plane it's already been preflighted so I just have to calculate takeoff and landing data and flip some switches to ensure the systems are operational and the engines are ready to be started.

With all this free time on my hands I decided to review the flight plan and low and behold: The gas required was not what was in the tanks. That was an incident waiting to happen. Long story short: I brought it up to the AC (aircraft commander) and asked him what he wanted on fuel. Of course we bumped it up from 36000 lbs to 52000 lbs because we wanted to avoid getting shitty gas from a third world supplier. There's nothing like putting in an alternative fuel, climbing to altitude and finding it out the gas sucks.

Add to all this our diplomatic clearances, or dips, were not in the ATC (Air Traffic Control) system so we were on hold for that. Then the DO (Duty Officer) mentioned to one of the other duty crewmembers that the crew (US) shouldn't have been alerted for another two hours because the dips shop didn't open till 7:30 am. WooooHoooo!!! I got up two hours earlier than I had to after two days crossing the pond and a day of briefings all with little sleep.

After all of this we took off into the sun and on to the continent of Africa. This mission was the most uneventful I've ever had in the 130. It was like a strat airlift mission. Takeoff. Land. Pick up things. Takeoff. In this case we picked up some individuals who were assisting the host nation in "nation" building. Take from that what you will. That's all I have to say about that. Then it was off to another country where we'd crew rest and get gas. Might I add that Espana is rather nice this time of year? It sounds easy, but there will be a lot of other missions where we will be in harms way so I'll take any easy missions I can get.

As I write this blog I am listening to the sound of yet another C-5 lifting off into the sky traveling eastward toward the simmering conflict in the middle east. It's really weird seeing the C-5 crews doing their thing and knowing that world, but no longer being a part of it. Some guys transition to a new aircraft and don't even look back, but I find myself constantly looking back and thinking about what they are up to.

Having written that, I love the Herk. A C-5 is like an airliner. The scariest thing they do (other than being shot at with a missle) is air refueling. In the Herk we live most of our lives close to the ground. We are easy targets. If the enemy doesn't get us the ground could. We fly low in mountainous terrain and at night with the aid of NVG's, which are not safe despite what the media tells you. Depth perception is off, optics can be degraded by flashes of light. We land at austere airfields with dirt strips that aren't very wide, or long.

I have never been happier. Sometimes it's stressful because your running a lot of checklists when your trying to drop cargo. At the same time your trying to maintain altitude and airspeed, navigate, prepare for the drop and keep your eyes peeled for enemy ground fire or listening for the missle warning system to squawk off!!!! I would never trade it for anything.