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
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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
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
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
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