Friday, November 30, 2007

details

well, i am officially on my first army detail of the deployment. and if this is the way that details go, we of the flight companies have it pretty darn easy. i have been sitting in front of a computer since 2000 keeping track of people who are using the phone and the internet. if all of the phones or computers are full i keep track of who is next in line and when they get to get on the computer. there is a little program that runs on the computer that keeps track of how long people are on so all i have to do is tell them that they need to get off if they are on for over 30 minutes with people in line. and now that it has gotten later here, all i have to do is say phone or internet, and click the start or stop button when people come or go. after this is over i have to go do maintenance for a while, but i can't complain. i am not sitting in a guard tower for a week straight and i am not watching iraqis fill sandbags. so this is pretty nice.
things here are going really well. we hauled a senator around the other day and i got a really cool shot of the other helicopter and one of the escort aircraft that was flying along with us. if i have the time i am going to try and add it to the post. if i can't i will add it when i get a little bit more time. i am currently waiting for my replacement to show up and relieve me so that i can go eat something before i go do maintenance.
so the image should be in there, but we will have to see... i haven't added images before as you can tell.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

hey!

Things here are going really well, things have been really busy with the new mission set that we picked up a few weeks ago, so i have been flying almost everyday. this mission is a good one because it goes out in the afternoon and it comes back in at night so you get some day flight time and some night flight time. the one thing about this mission is that you need to remain flexible. we can't get to the helicopters without there being a mission change, but after the first week, we were quite used to it, and started planning for the changes to happen. we have had days where we have flown all over the place to get people and accomplished nothing and days where we barely flew anywhere and we got a lot done.
there was one day that we took off out of here and we picked up a few guys from romania who were just trying to get home. we had to go pretty far south past baghdad and we had a head wind so it took a lot longer, instead of a 1 hour flight it was almost two. and on top of it the weather was starting to get bad, so it was hard to see where we were going. from there we had to fly out east past baghdad and when we got there we shut down to switch from days to nights, and they found out that the weather was bad so we decided to wait it out... remember that the romanians have already been with us for about 4 hours. once they decided that we were going to wait it out, we went to go get some chow. about 5 minutes after we went to get chow, one of the pilots came and told us that we had to get going right away because there was a c-130 waiting for our passenger to get him to where he wanted to be, but we had to get him from where he was because the c-130 can't land that the base that he was at. so we picked up and went out to the birds... poor romanians didn't get to eat anything either. we went over to the base that we were supposed to pick up this guy at, and when they get there they say that now that we are there we are the back up because he is going to get picked up by some ofsprey that are coming in. so we shut down there too. we couldn't get any further west because of the weather, but the romanians needed to get into baghdad so that they could get home. luckily they had an extra day planned into their trip because we ended up going back home after that place, and they made it down to baghdad the next day in the morning. so they spent about 9 hours touring iraq to get back where they started. we felt so bad for them.
well, i need to get to work so i will hopefully write again soon.
hope everyon is doing well back home!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

good story

here a good story to tell about what it is like around here and how fast the weather can change.
wednesday we were flying one of the missions and we had some VIP pax that needed to head out east from bagdad. when we started the mission we briefed, the weather and it was supposed to be hazy but clear. that is normal for bagdad so we didn't flinch. we flew down to the big airport in bagdad to refuel before we picked up our VIPs and there were no problems there either. hopped over to the place that we were picking up our VIPs and got them all loaded up. when we left there it was hazy like it was forcasted and so we didn't even think about it. but we started flying east to where we were supposed to be dropping people off, and all of a sudden it is sandy all over the place, and the visibility is getting worse. we start to take heed to the fact that we can't see as far as we used to, but we only need to be able to see a mile to continue on... well as we kept going through it kept getting worse and worse. the Lead pilot called that if it got any worse that we were going to have to go back to where we came from. no less than about a minute later they called that we were going to turn around. we were flying about 800 feet and we could barely see the ground. it was very sandy and a little bit nerve racking not being able to see very much of what is going on. so we went back to the place that we picked the VIPs up from did some weather checking to see if we were going to be able to get them to where they needed to be going, and when it came back that it was going to be too late for us to do anything we flew back home.
one of the more entertaining things to look back on now, was the face of the 1 star admiral that was sitting right next to me as we were getting deeper and deeper into the sandstorm. as the visibility got less and lass his face started dropping and he started looking more and more worried. and when we turned around, i let him know by writing a little message on my clip board with a dry erase marker, and when he saw that we were going back he was definatly relieved. when we got out for a little while all he could say was "you made the right choice" it was a little comical to say the least. specially because this guy was about 6 foot 6 and made me look like a midget.
well, i should be getting to bed. i hope that everything is going well for you back home!
Signing off

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Back on days

Things have been going well here. i am back on the day schedule again and i am flying a lot. i have been on our steady day mission the last two days and have logged at least 5 hours of flight time each time, and tomorrow i am on the mission that flies a little less often, but it is flying tomorrow. i am excited any day that i get to fly. not that maintenance is a bad thing, i just like to fly better...
i figured that i would let everyone know a little bit more about what it is like to live here, since most of what i talk about is missions and flying. we as lower enlisted live 2 to a room. it is about a 12x12 room, not too big not to small. when you move in you have a bed, a wall locker and two sets of chests one with 3 drawers and one with 2. both about a foot wide with different heights depending on amount of drawers. right now in our room we have all of those things, but we have built lofts for our beds so that we can a little bit more space in the room. we have both also built desks for our computers and such things. there is a TV, and a mini fridge like the ones that you buy for a dorm room, and some gaming consoles. i have my side of the room and my roommate has his, but we get along really so everything here is cool. we have known each other for about 3 years now. we met right after i signed up for the guard, and we have been working together ever since. we were both in the same AIT he was one class behind me, the we were both in the same med unit. and we both got transfered here to the Air Assault unit. when we started flight training we went through most of it at the same time so when we get to fly together on the rare occasion (which happened today) we can judge what the other person is going to do most of the time, and we often say the same thing at the same time. so we get along real well.
chow happens here 4 times daily: breakfast, lunch, dinner and midrats. it is all free, or you can go eat at one of the fast food places that they have here, that are open most of the day. the food here is decent, the fast food is just ok... not as good as it is back home, but it is still a nice change of pace from the defac every once in a while.
we don't have to do our own laundry here which is a perk. there is a service that you can take no more than 6 kg of laundry and turn it in every other day and have clean clothes. now 6 kg may not sound like a lot, but i have gone 10 days without turning in laundry and not hit that number. so what they do for free for us is really good.
well, i need to get to bed! i hope that all is well back home and i miss you all!
Signing off

Monday, October 22, 2007

hello all,
things are going well here, i had my first mission flight in 3 weeks yesterday, that was a lot of fun to get back into. i had lost the system that i had all set up for getting ready to go fly, but once i got that going, everything went smoothly. we went through the test fire area and the 1st sergeant managed to hit a bird. we basically did two separate missions last night. we moved people around bagdad last night and then we moved people around north east iraq. we even had a break in the middle. we were all over getting to where we needed to be early. last night we would get to the places early enough that we would have to sit for 5-10 minutes before we left to the next place, then we would still have to sit there. but it was pretty cool because we had a good crew and had some good conversations. after our trip to bagdad we came back here for a break, the crew here had dinner for us, they had a bunch of food for us, and because two of our pilots had their birthdays yesterday they brought us a cake from the chow hall too. it was pretty entertaining. after that we brought a bunch of people to NE iraq. we did that pretty fast too. we landed in one place and they told us that the people that we were supposed to be picking up were going to get on a set of snooks that were coming behind us. so we got out of their really early. and that pushed our entire timetable forward. we got home really early and the guys back here were so bored that they did our dailies for us and we got out of their really fast. after that i had to try and stay awake for a while because i have to be at work until 0630 tomorrow morning. but i don't start til 1830 today so it shouldn't be too bad.
well, i need to get ready for work so i will talk to you all again soon!
hope everything is going well for everyone, and stay safe!
Signing off

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Finally!!!

i would like to begin by saying that i hope that this is the first of many posts that will be coming. and second that with, i am sorry that the past posts have been few and far between.
we just recently got the internet hooked up in my room so things should be getting better.
me, being the nice guy that i am (and the only computer nerd in the group) have been setting up everyone's internet. so since the internet has been up i have had about 30 minutes of time to get anything done on it. i actually had to stay away from my room tonight just so that i wouldn't have to fix anything or make sure that someone didn't screw up their connection already. i don't mind helping, but i need to get some time off too. if you count the time that i spend setting up the internet after work it is about a 16 or 17 hour day for me. so i can use a day away from all of this. luckily i am going to nights for the next two weeks so i am going to be off from most peoples' schedule and i can work on their problems on my time. ok, rant over.
other than the internet things have been going well here. i haven't been flying, but i have been learning a lot about what goes on in one of the major maintenance events that the helicopter goes through. i have been working with the civilian contractors on one of the birds that is going through what we call phase. it is a two part inspection occurring about every 350 hours. alternating different inspections on the 2 different types. basically we did one of the two thorough checks on all of the aircraft systems. it takes about 12 days to complete at the fastest. but we had some major things need to be changed so it has taken a little bit longer. i learned a lot of different things about the aircraft and a lot of different things that should be checked on our daily maintenance too.
sorry that this one is a little short, but they will be coming more often now so i am going to go to bed right now. i will talk to you all soon.
i hope that everyone back home is doing well
Signing off

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

some questions answered

I wrote this a couple of days ago but i was too tired to get here and put it out on the web. so i am putting it out now! sorry about the delay between posts!

Hello all,
Things are going well here. Uncle Gary asked a few questions that I thought that I would try and answer so that you can understand without being too specific so that I don’t say or give away anything that I shouldn’t. First, most of the flying that goes on here is done at night. There are a few missions that go out during the day, but most of the time they are specific missions with very little flight time, just moving someone important from one place to another. I have already accrued about 20 hours of night flight and I have only been on about 8 flights with 3 of them being during the day.
We take precautions when we fly that we start long before we start flying. Even the missions that have the same basic principal keep changing so to stay a step ahead of the enemy. Once we have a mission in our hands so that we know what we are going to be doing, the pilots plan out a route, avoiding all sorts of known bad areas and entering high traffic areas differently each time. Once that planning is done we get the whole crew together and we do a mission brief. Walking through what we will be doing and where we will be going. One of the things that happens is we get a brief from the intel guys about what has been happening along our route to keep up on our toes when we go into an area where we know that bad things could happen.
Once we get out and flying there are a lot of different things that keep us safe. For one we never fly the same route twice. We don’t take a canned route that has been planned and just go the same route over again. We also do what is called three dimensional flight, moving left and right, up and down so that we aren’t an easy target going across the sky. Now this doesn’t mean that we fly like Tom Cruise in top gun, just simple altitude changes or direction changes that keep out flight path moving. All of our night flights are done under NVGs (night vision goggles) so that we can see in what would be almost pitch-black conditions. The helicopter has different countermeasures both passive and active that keep us safe from some of the bigger weapons that could be used against us. It has a system to dissipate heat from the engines. Different IR sensing equipment and flares to thwart off missile attacks. The flares go off right past the crew chief windows, and though I had seen them go off before in the daylight, last night was the first time that I had it happen under NVGs and it was quite an experience. They look like fireworks that don’t go off with a bang at the end.
With all of these things going on before and during a flight I feel pretty safe. I doesn’t make me feel like I am not threatened, because I know that every time that I get into that helicopter there could be a chance that someone is going to try and shoot at us, but with all of the precautions that we take things are pretty safe up in the air.
Just last night was a good example of the reason why we can’t get complacent when we are flying. Everything is ok and nobody was close to being hurt but it was just the idea behind what happened. We were flying out of Balad when someone on the ground decided that they wanted to shoot at us. Now, you have to understand the people who are trying to hurt us sometimes aren’t that smart. When we fly at night if you look out under the NVGs it is pitch dark, so they can’t see anywhere near where we actually are, but they can usually hear us. We can’t hide that, so they shoot at our sound. The guy probably unloaded a mag of AK rounds up into the air, but he had no chance of even coming close to hitting us.
Well, it is getting late here; I have to get some sleep because I have to fly tomorrow. I hope that everyone at home is doing well and staying safe. Gary, I will try and answer some more of your questions when I get a chance if i didn't already answer them. If anyone else has any questions feel free to ask, and I will do my best to answer them.
Signing off