Its Go Time

Well I know its been awhile, but writing about working in the scheduling office isn’t as exciting as you may think. The long anticipated time has come, we’re on the road again. This time on our way to an all expense paid two month stay on the western edge of the world’s tallest mountains. The highest in AFland is over 24,000ft, yesterday flying here ATC cleared us up to 23,000 but I had to bashfully admit, “Denver Center, Teton 37 here, I don’t think we’ll be able to make that today, we can give you 21 though.” Turbo props do have their limits compared to jet engines, but I prefer to emphasize the opportunity this presents for excellent sight seeing as we weave our way through valleys.

Everyone is excited and chomping at the bits to be there and get going. Two weeks ago we received a briefing getting us ready for what to expect. Things learned from the crews we’re replacing and differences from what we would expect to be normal desert ops. Apparently Iraq and Afghanistan are two different places… WHO KNEW? While Iraq has a well-established infrastructure with 12,000’ runways you can see popping out of the sand 20 miles away, afland doesn’t. Instead you have trails etched out along pre-existing goat trails leading to 4,000’ dirt strips surrounded by aforementioned peaks. And with the lack of infrastructure comes the need for more airdrops to resupply troops moving into the backcountry. You combine these needs and have a herk’s sweetest dream and why it was built, an airdrop platform/cargo plane that can land on short dirt strips.

I came out of the brief with the same feeling I had after the half time “brief” from coach Mann against Clarksville my senior year. He let me know what I was doin wrong, what I was gonna do to fix it. It was a strange mix of encouragement behind a stern mask of “get your butt in gear” we had (have) the skills, just have to put them in gear. I came out pumped up and ready to tackle somebody, but that is slightly frowned on in a professional office. I’m REALLY looking forward to the next couple months.