Our second mission of this HOA rotation was to a remote assault strip a couple of miles inland from the Kenya coastline. We normally have a three am bus, but the mission was cut for a two am bus this time. This rotation we're flying with a new aircraft commander; He's heard stories and seen facebook postings about us so he didn't want to fix what wasn't broken. I made the mistake of describing to him how things had been previously. Nothing has been close to the other HOA rotations. It may sound superstituous, but that was a major faux paux! Starting out this run started a little earlier which meant the chow hall wasn't open until right before takeoff. Also the bus was a little late and everyone was tired already because we'd had a hard time sleeping. We were starting off the aircrew way: situation normal all fucked up (SNAFU).
We showed at ATOC and the load plan looked problematic. They had three bars stacked on top of some already built up pallets of cargo. We couldn't imagine what they were so we went to the aircraft and proceeded to wait for the load to show up. I am always anxious because I need the actually cargo and passenger weight to compute my takeoff and landing data. I did a quick thruflight and made sure the plane was ready to go. This time the crewchiefs had gone in on our day off and refueled so all we were waiting on was the cargo.
The loading is done by a contractor called PAE which is based in the Phillipines; they are a subcontractor to Lockheed. I love small government. These guys roll up with a giant 780 lb bar that is used at checkpoints sitting on the cargo. They laid it right on top of a bunch of cardboard boxes on the pallets. The bar was crushing the boxes. Wow, how smart do you have to be. Anyone of you would have been livid if you knew someone was smashing your luggage or shipment on it's way to you. I'm sure SOCOM (Special Operations Command) would not have been happy to know that these guys just threw it up there willy nilly.
The bar was just laid across the top. It loosened the netting that holds the cargo in place. It was strapped down, but as it smashed the cardboard boxes beneath it loosened it's restraints. One evasive manuever in response to the missle warning system and we'd have a 780 lb missile INSIDE the cargo box. The loadmaster attempted to explain to them that we had no way to get it off the pallets. At the assault strip they have a huge forklift, but can only remove one pallet at a time. the bar would have to be removed first, but it sits eight or more feet above the cargo floor and 780 lbs is a lot to move by hand when you can't even reach up and lift it. If they pulled it straight off, it would rotate up and punch a hole in the cargo door and we'd be grounded. Finally, Shawn put his foot down and refused it. They jumped up and down and said that J4 said this was essential cargo to get down there. If you watch tv even a little you'll know that a checkpoint gate never stopped the enemy. How many of our guys have been killed at checkpoints by Bombs? Exactly.
The contract loaders had a heck of a time removing it themselves and I couldn't help but comment directly to the supervisor. I asked him why they didn't just pull it off as we were expected to do when we got down there. He had nothing. He knew at that moment that I had just pinned the tail on a donkey!! These kinds of things might sound trivial, but if the MWS system sounds a warning and we break left or right suddenly, pulling over two g's in a 60 degree bank, that bar would kill several people. To calculate force, multiply the weight of the bar by 32 feet per second squared and you'd see that it suddenly becomes over 20,000 lbs and is moving at least 50 miles an hour. We'd be lucky if all it did was kill some passengers. If it punched into our computer rack and navigation equipment and that stuff caught fire, we'd crash.
I took the opportunity to call my folks and my wife while PAE was impressing us with their lack of understanding and ability. I always laugh when I get dad on the satellite phone. He always asks, "who do you want to talk to" as if someone who you don't know calls and says, "Hi dad how are you?" I've never received a phone call where a telemarketer called me dad and asked how I was doing. The sat phone makes you sound different and the caller ID indicates Hawaii so it might throw someone off. At least he didn't hang up on me this time. While I was calling a sandstorm whipped up so I'm crouched down behind a truck on the ramp, in the dark, yelling into the sat phone trying to talk with my mom. I had a mouthful of sand after that call!! Then I called my sweet wife and talked with her for a few minutes. She gets a kick out of my calling her from the aircraft inflight or on some remote airfield. On a side note, we pay a flat rate for the sat phone, but the cell phones that we use for all other communications costs over 5 grand a month. Lunacy!!!!
Finally we were loaded, the O's showed up and we all changed into our flightsuits and got to our stations. Luckily the sandstorm wasn't one of the giant ones that obscures visibility and grounds us. Engine start and taxi were uneventful and we took off, on time, for our first stop Nairobi. The flying was uneventful down to Nairobi and the weather was fabulous. Nairobi has a higher field elevation and it's inland so it has low humidity and temperature. You go from 45 C to 21 C and it's a welcome change. Usually we take stuff off and then wait to go to the assault strip an hour's flying time from Nairobi. This time we had some stuff to take. I get a lot of ribbing from the loadmaster's because they're back there breaking a pallet down and offloading by hand and I have food in my hand. I've given up trying to be helpful. They don't sit in the cockpit for seven hours and do my job so I'd say it's fair.
Assault landings are not your normal fare. It's not like flying Continental into Atlanta and jamming on the brakes. We come in fast and drive the aircraft onto the very edge of the runway. We have a rule, at least the main wheels have to touch down in the first 500 feet of the strip or else your pushing up power and going around. It's exactly like landing on a carrier except we don't have a tailhook!!! We picked our way through rainshowers to get to the airfield. Luckily we maintained visual contact with the ground and made it to the field. We don't just land. We first make a low....LOW pass over the airfield to assess the conditions on the runway. Once we verified it was dry and there was nothing on the runway we circled around for the approach and landing. At that point I'm shouting out checklist items as we drop the gear and run the Before Landing checklist. I'm calling out, "Landing Gear" as we're a quarter mile from the strip. "Down indicators checked, Pilot, copilot" and then I call out"checked engineer". At that point we threw the flaps down to 100% to slow us down and the pilot drove it into the ground. As soon as we hit the deck the pilot's on the brakes and I'm watching the torque gauges to let him know he can throw the props into reverse. If he just went to full reverse and a propeller stayed in the flight range we would spin like a top and depart the runway. In this case it would be fatal. We stopped the aircraft in a thousand feet!!! Definitely a cool landing!
We taxiied to the end and made a turn around in the cutout at the end. There is no room for error on this field. It's not a dirt strip, but it's actually smaller than required. We normally operate on 3000 foot strips or longer. This one is less. We got to the end and turned into their little ramp to position for offloading. This time we shut down because we had a large item to load that required winching. I personally like engine running offloads as they leave you exposed for a shorter amount of time. It was not to be this time because they had a 8000 lb generator that had to be brought back and Shawn needed time to figure out how he was going to do it.
While they were loading, some of our crack security team, the Ravens, decided to go into the treeline and play with the baboons. They fed them all of our pop tarts then one of the brain trust threw a gatorade bottle. Hmmmm!! I can't see a Gatorade commercial with a Baboon running and sweating yellow, or blue gatorade with a caption, "Is it in you!" It was obvious that the primates were the smarter ones in that exchange.
The loadmasters attempted to winch the generator onto the plane, but the angle was off. Luckily the forklift driver knew what he was doing. He got behind the generator and as the winch pulled, the forklift driver lifted the generator up to give more clearance and took the stress off of the winch. Then came the "extra" baggage. People show up for the flight and it's hard to gauge how heavy their stuff is. At least they were aware of the maximum weight we could get off the strip with. I won't divulge any classified stuff, but we can get off quite heavy. Usually they don't care about that and load us with stuff and underestimate the weight. That's fine unless an engine blows up on takeoff and you crash into the trees doing a max effort takeoff. These guys actually seemed concerned and it was our turn to say, "bring it on, we can handle it!" Finally we were loaded and ready to go.
We started engines and ran checklists at the edge of the runway. Once all the checklists were complete we lined up at the very edge of the runway and I shut the bleed air off. We don't want to rob the engines of any power so we close the bleeds. It also adds power because there is no load on the engines. The pilot held the brakes as I called out the temperatures and monitored the torque. When I was satisfied we'd made takeoff power I called "power set" and we barreled down the runway. We jumped off like a rocket and climbed out assault style to avoid obstacles and keep our profile as little exposed as possible. Another uneventful takeoff and landing at LC1. I wish it were a dirt strip. It's awesome to go four wheeling!! All you see is a cloud of dust and the nose of the Herk and it's four props spinning out of the dirt like a ghost. You call, we haul!!!!
On to Mombassa for some fuel and then home. All of that was uneventful other than it poored like a Monsoon. we made it home at about 15 hours into the duty day. We had a sandwich and something to drink and went into crew rest for another day.
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