Second day of HOA. Today was the first real day of flying (not that the 11 hours we flew to get down here wasn't). We got up in the early hours, well before dawn, to get out to the airfield. Of course getting out to the plane is a $%^&*#@ chore!!! We get a bus ride out there and the shitty ass contractor only wants to give us one ride. Yet they'll hold the bus for us while we hit the Bob Hope Galley (that's the name of the chow hall), ATOC (Air Terminal Operations Center) and billeting. Why not drop us off to be of more use to someone else? Rhetorical!!! Smaller government in action. If you want to make money low bid a contract for transportation and then show up with a small shitty van that seats five children never mind any baggage. Then tell the government you'll provide them with transportation when you see fit. I'm in the wrong business.


We get out o the plane and go into ops mode, but the power cart won't start and the battery is dying. I start the APU (auxillary power unit) before we're dead in the water and then one of our crewchiefs gets the power cart started. Really? Then we're waiting on fuel and when it arrives we're trying to replicate the BP experiment by trying to suck the gas out of a hose the size of fire hose at a rate that makes a snail look like Danica Patrick in a formula one race. The load plan is dicked up right from the get go; we had 13 people hanging on to pallets during takeoff. It's completely unsafe. If we had done a no shit max effort takeoff where we pitch off the runway at a sharp angle to get above the treeline before the end of the runway, someone could have been launched airborne and in all likelihood would have been killed.

As for the dicked up load plan the local "authority" informed us that the two pallets of needed shit would be bumped if we couldn't take the total cargo weight. Djibouti has a long runway and it was cool enough at dawn that weight wasn't an issue. It all had to do with the center of gravity. In the end we took our three grateful passengers and their much needed cargo even though we had to double block from the military ramp to the civilian side because we can't load explosives or other hazardous cargo on the mil ramp. I know. How do you fight a war without explosives?

Off to Nairobi, Kenya to handle diplomatic stuff then  to a tiny strip in the middle of nowhere. Again, the military in it's infinite wisdom has granted us a waiver to operate on a field during wartime that is less than we really need. Yet they don't provide us with a waiver that would allow us a no shit max effort takeoff out of the same airfield. Go figure. It's a war...it's the diet coke of war, just one calorie, not war enough!!!!! That was the most stressful point in today's mission. I definitely earned my money.

We were only on the ground 25 minutes, which included taxiing back to the little ramp via the runway and backing into position so a forklift could remove our wares. I had to compute a max effort takeoff adjusted for a safety speed which guarantees that we will have controllability should we take the plane airborne if we run out of runway. Well the pilot said we could do a no shit max effort thereby removing that safety net. If something were to go wrong the performance manual basically says find a place to crash cause it's gonna happen. Luckily someone brought it up that I was correct. According to the data we had NO room for error. All of this took place in five minutes while I'm running the charts and all eyes are on me. Finally the takeoff was briefed and we moved onto the runway. I turned the bleed air off so there'd be no draw on the engines and we pushed the power up to the maximum possible temperature allowed, barreled down the runway and lifted off. Had we had to go off the end of the runway it would have been messy.

We saw a ton of giraffes and a few buffalo as we flew over the countryside. It was the heat of the day so no lions or tigers, but it was still awesome! On the way home I hooked up the Sat phone again and called my parents and wife at 19000 feet over Ethiopia. My wife was impressed, but I think my parents are business as usual now that they've gotten used to how it sounds. I also flew my flag in flight and will print up a certificate when I get back to my room in Germany.

Back home to a much needed rest. The day was only 16 hours long, but it seemed longer right at the very end. And yes, we ended back up at the chow hall and ate a big meal. I once again shoved every pocket of my flight suit with Cocoa Krispies and milk, but added a ton of water and a Coke lite for good measure. Everybody else hit the ice cream bar and got their sundaes on!!!!!! Imagine a restuarant that's buffet style 24/7 where you finish eating and can then grab additional food to go. Cereals of every flavor, candy bars, pop tarts, fruit, milk, juice, tons of water in the upright coolers. It's like walking in to the convienence store and grabbing something and just walking out without paying. Don't worry mom their feeding me well. It's what we live for. If you stay somewhere long enough you start getting a yearning for a particular night. Maybe it's steak night, or in the case of one of our security detail one of the guys  was bragging about the cheddar fries. Man he wasn't kidding. TGIFriday's look downright healthy compared to the Navy's version of how to eat a heart attack!!!

I'm back in my room and taking a rest. Unfortunately for the next two weeks I'll have no pictures of this little adventure unless some of the other crew are kind enough to email me some. My camera met with an untimely demise:( Have no fear, I'll give it my best attempt to describe in detail the events of my trip.