On the road - again

September 23, 2006

I'm the only one not wearing tan.

Well, my boots are tan. Does that count?

These boots have carried me around the world a time or two, and they're on the move again. This time, they're taking me to Iraq with Little Rock Air Force Base's 463rd Airlift Group.

A C-130 cargo plane is a slow way to go, but these folks wouldn't have it any other way. They're quick to say that if they have to go to war, they might as well get there in their own planes.

The Little Rock Base has been moving planes and people in and out of the war zone since 2002 — before the ground war kicked off. The C-130 Herc moves people and equipment to front lines. When the Army and Marines move, the Air Force's Air Mobility Command takes them there. And most of the time it's in a C-130.

Not all aircrews are as lucky as the men and women who are sharing this plane with me. Some move to Iraq in a “rotator” — a commercial jet under military contract.

"I'd rather go this way," said Capt. Steve Hreczkosij, one of the pilots on the Herc. "When you're in the rotator, it's a tube of pain. You're crammed in a plane in a seat that has less room than economy seating, because it’s a charter with 200 other people. At least in the C-130 world you ease into the schedule."
The three day flight to war in a C-130 eases jet lag and allows crews to get used to constant flying.

And they get to blow off some steam along the way with mandatory rest periods for air crews.

The crowd in this C-130 wears the Red Devil patch of the 50th Airlift Squadron. They'll join some of their fellow 50th airmen in Iraq, as well as some from the other squadron, the 61st.

Together, the two squadrons make up the 463rd at Little Rock and the 777th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron in Iraq.
Photographer Dan Hale and I are tagging along as guests of the Air Force's Air Mobility Command, the big daddy of airlift.

Back to the desert

Whew! It took all of that to tell you I'm headed to the desert again.
Again is an interesting word among this crowd. There's a loadmaster who's deployed to the war zone eight times in the last six years. A flight engineer has seen more than 400 days in the war zone and is headed back for more.
Airlift is the busiest business in the Air Force right now. It takes planes to move people and people to move planes.

As I sit here on the flight deck of this C-130, voices chatter in my ears over the bulky headset. The crew chats about charts and waypoints. They joke with one another and laugh.

The four churning prop engines hum along so loudly that we all wear earplugs — even under our headsets. The whole metal plane vibrates like something called a bouncy seat that my friends with children swear is a Godsend for its calming affect on babies.

As the sun dips to the west, the flight deck glows green with the switches and dials that cover its ceiling, walls and navigator desk.

We've left Newfoundland after a day of crew rest and are headed over the ocean. My fingers are chilly, my polar fleece zipped up tightly. But my boots are keeping the tootsies nice and warm. There's nothing like a good pair of boots.
Hammocks swing like rockers in the cargo bay. Those not working are sleeping or reading or watching movies on computers. Rest when you can, they say.
Everyone is bundled up.

On the bunk above me at the back of the flight deck, Staff Sgt. Amber Battles, a crew chief, is soundly asleep under a knitted afghan.

It gets awfully cold out there at 19,000 feet. C-130s are a little light on insulation.

I don't know how cold it is outside right now, but on our way into Newfoundland yesterday, it was 20 degrees below zero outside the plane.
The weather on the ground was fabulous, however. Perfect fall weather with crisp breezes and warm sunshine.

The evening's report on Iraq said it only hit 109 degrees today.

We'll see, we'll see. That's a ways away yet.

Back to Newfoundland.

The wind never stops on that pile of rock. The island is the easternmost point in North America. It's the land of icebergs — just 350 miles from Titanic’s grave. Whales live in these icy waters, moose live in the island's forests and Puffins waddle around on the northern shores.

It's long been a place of transients. The main road was established in the early 1700s, as were some of the buildings that line it.

Ships use it as a waystop. At the airport, a massive C-130 prop sits on a pallet marked 463rd AG. The crew chuckled as they spotted it. It's broken, they say, waiting for a lift home.

As we left Newfoundland tonight, two C-130s and other planes from various places were parked beside ours. This place is like the all-night 7-11 of aviation.
A diner downtown St. John's Newfoundland has pictures of C-130s and crews from years past. Like I said, this is a place for transients.

Lights in the sky

So here we are, cruising above the north Atlantic.

It's 1:15 a.m.

Everyone is awake, the pilots are talking about radio calls and waypoints. The engineer shifts in his seat as he checks the various dials and switches, marking in the log book.

Staff Sgt. Whitney Moore, a flight engineer, just popped up to the flight deck with his night vision goggles. He quickly moved to the space by the windshield behind the pilot and held his goggles to his face. They made his face glow kelly green.
He walked to me, sitting on the bench in the back of the flight deck.
"Hey, you want to see the Aurora Borealis?" he said.
You bet!

I held the goggles up to my face and looked out the windshield and the night came alive.

Stars filled the sky, bright dots that stop only where the sky hits the black void of ocean.

There, hovering between the stars and the nothingness of the cold, dark Atlantic, the Northern Lights — the aurora borealis — radiated in milky waves.
"It moves faster than people think" Whitney said. "It radiates differently depending on where you're at."

Waves of color move up the horizontal streaks like heat from a campfire on a cold night. Of course, through night vision goggles, it's normal rainbow of colors becomes an array of greens.

Amazing.

These are the treats of the road, the little bonuses that make you smile.
The drone of the engine is finally working its magic. It may be time to join the others in the cargo bay and call it a night.

Posted by admin at September 23, 2006 01:52 PM