31 Aug

The last few days have been tiring. I have been flying quite a bit – two test flights a day for the last four days. I think I have already mentioned it but the hardest thing about flying is everything leading up to actually getting airborne. The nice thing about flying missions is that you only do it once and your day is pretty much over when you get back. The average test flight last between ½ to 1 ½ hours but form the time I start looking at the aircraft until I finish the paperwork after the flight it is easily between three and five hours. I’m not helping myself out either – I need to get back into the gym and going to bed earlier. I can see the effects because the last couple of days I haven’t been handling the heat as well. Brian made it back yesterday morning so that should help – we may go back to split shifts again. I have found I am not a morning person – I like sleeping in. J.R. started his official progression this morning with the pre-phase test flight on 169. The flight went well – I like teaching people. The second internet system should be up any day now – it is just a matter of getting the right computer configuration. Speaking of computers I may have to completely restore mine to get my TV tuner to work. Wendi and Betsy headed down to Seward yesterday for the weekend – I am very jealous but glad they get to do it.

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Steve Moore walking back to work after lunch. He is a pretty constant figure at the flight-line - he spends about 16 hours a day there.

This is Potter (the flight engineer for 168) and his crew. He is going over run-up procedures with his gunner. On this rotation the goal is for all the gunners to get signed off as full crew members which will give us a head start when we get back home and all our experience leaves.

This is Joice (our of our new crew chiefs) working on 172. I took the picture a few minutes before we went out for our test flight. He is assigned to this aircraft and he takes a lot of pride in how it looks and works. It is probably my favorite aircraft in the fleet.

The guys are pulling the forward transmission out of 172. You can see the rotor head with all the blades still attached sitting on the ground. It's riskier taking it off all together rather than pulling the individual blades off first then the head but if you have the experience to do it it makes things a lot faster. Our maintenance guys are doing a great job - most of them are still pretty new but they have the dedication to spend all day out there working in the sun.

This is Brian doing some hover checks on one of our aircraft. The area on our flight-line is big enough that we can do limited hovering but for any extended checks we have to fly to the other side of the base or else we blow up a pretty good dust cloud. Notice our tree - it is one of two we have in the area.

28 Aug

It’s hard to believe it has been five days since I have written. I guess that is a good thing- it means time is going by fast. Brian went up to Balad Saturday to pick up our replacement aircraft. Once they got there they found out it was coming due on its 3 year weigh. It has been a struggle to get the weigh coordinated in addition to the test flight and as a result Brian is still up there. So it has just been J.R. and I doing the test flights back here. A couple of days ago we had a maintenance day which means we don’t get assigned any mission. Each unit gets one a month – I think it is a great idea, it really helped us out. The last couple of days I have been flying 172 that just got out of phase. We made great progress the first day then after the flight we found a retaining ring that had slipped off the forward transmission adapter. It wasn’t to big a deal but everyone is still a little spooked after 171. It set us back for two days because the forward transmission had to be pulled and new parts shipped in. I finished the test flight today and it is one of the smoothest aircraft I have ever flown. At the end of the day it was the first time since we have been here that all the aircraft are up (of course we only have seven but it is still a good feeling). We finally got our TV connection hooked up in our rooms today (rough life huh?  It’s nice because they show a whole lot of sports (right now I am watching the US Open). I tried to plug it into the TV adapter my computer and only managed to shock myself and blow the circuit breaker in the room. At least it didn’t fry my computer but I need to figure out how to get around it.
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This is the crew up in Al Asad with 174. We were ready to go but for some reason our UH-60 escort delayed the departure for an hour. It did gives us the chance to go eat at Burger King. I really don't like the food but after not being able to get it for a couple of months it actually tasted pretty good.

This is all of us going into the memorial service for the crew of Dry Ice 41. It is the only picture I took but other people have some during the service that I will try to get my hands on.

This is the PC/QC shop where I spend a good portion of my time these days. Well that is not entirely true - most of the time I am out on one of the aircraft or going from office to office to find all the people I need to launch an aircraft. I have to get the mission briefed then approved, sign out weapons, sign out survival bags, check the weather, check notams, find out what callsign I am assigned for the day, get an enemy situation brief, and that is all before I get to actually fly the aircraft to see if it is fixed. It is a big relief to actually get in the aircraft.

23 Aug

We had the memorial service two days ago. It was very well done and a good way to honor the crew of Dry Ice 41. The chapel was packed with a lot of Marines all the way up to the General level. It was a nice way to show us that we are considered one of them. The guys did a really good job with the eulogies – Brian said it was the hardest thing he has ever had to do. The last few days I have found myself thinking about the crew more rather than less. I keep praying that God will give me the strength and wisdom to do everything I can to prevent this from happening to our unit again. We have had a bad run of maintenance problems over the last couple of weeks. In addition to the normal little things we have had problems with major components like rotor heads, aft shafts, engines and transmissions. It seems to be something new every night. It’s been awhile since we have had four aircraft launch without incident. Tonight we had three different problems – we were able to fix two but the third crew had to go to the backup. It makes for long days – I worked until 1AM tonight and I have to go in tomorrow morning to give Brian a day off. He has been working for over three weeks straight. J.R. (one of our instructor pilots) has started to fly with me to get him signed off as a test pilot. He went to the course two years ago but has never done the job at the unit level. It will be nice to have three again but it is going to be awhile before he can be on his own. The higher ups have requested another test pilot from the rear but we will see how that goes.

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22 Aug

It looks like I am done with night flying for awhile. It really helps to have two test pilots during the day – especially when we are rolling out phases every eight days. Getting an aircraft out of phase keeps you busy all day and even though I have done it many times it is not a good idea to jump from one aircraft to another doing test flight. You don’t have the time to research all the work that has been done so you end up missing things. So I am pulling out of the mission work to focus on maintenance, at least until we get another test pilot up. Brian and I split the day up which allows me to come in at lunch time and work until midnight. That way I am around when the missions launch to answer maintenance questions and do any test flights that need to be done prior to the mission. I just flew 174 back this evening from Al Asad. It has been up there for the past two weeks getting all the #2 flight control hydraulic components replaced. We hopped on one of our aircraft at midnight last night for the flight up there. They had multiple stops to make prior to Al Asad and the whole mission was a mess (two of our aircraft broke right before launch and I ended up doing a test flight right before heading north but that is another story) so we ended up not getting up there until 3:30 (it is only a 1/2 hour flight away). We got to bed around 5 and headed out to the aircraft at noon. The test flight itself went pretty smooth except for the normal pain of doing checks in the traffic pattern with strong winds. We linked up with a couple of UH-60s for the flight home and got here at 7:30 PM. It is going to be a great help having that other aircraft here. The guys did a great job getting it put back together.

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19 Aug

I was finally able to get my posts up to date. We have the internet running in our rooms but it is spotty at best. Thanks for the posts and emails - I will try to respond to everyone and I usually but the reply under the same post as the question so look for it there. Thanks again for your prayers and keep in touch. Love you guys and I look forward to seeing everyone in a year or so (seems too long to really think about yet :).

David

18 Aug

We are back into the flow but everything feels different. The guys don’t talk about what happened much except in reference to how this is going to change the way we do things. It’s not that people are afraid to talk it’s just that we all know the risks and in order to continue on you have to assume that what happened to others will not happen to you. That is why it is so important to figure out what happened. Our biggest fear as type A personalities is that there is something outside of our control. As pilots and crew-members we have confidence ( as misplaced as it may be) that we can handle any situation with the basic assumption that our aircraft will stay together. During my years as a maintenance test pilot I have encountered a lot of unusual problems but at the same time developed a strong trust in the Chinook’s ability to get me safely back on the ground. A known threat is always better than one unknown and right now what happened to 171 is a big unknown. The safety team from Ft. Rucker showed up yesterday and I went back out to the crash site with them. They are bringing it back today to start the analysis. I was finally able to talk to Wendi the morning of the 17^th. She had a pretty rough time. The earliest report to come out in the news was that it was one of our aircraft on a test flight which narrows it down to three of us. She knew I was working in the evenings and based on the time (early evening) she was afraid it was me. Unfortunately this information got to her through a series of contacts long before the official channels were able to react. It wasn’t for another 10 hours that she was able to confirm it wasn’t me and a full 36 hours after the crash before all the next of kin were notified and the names could be officially released. It’s a painful system but necessary. With 24 hour news there is no way the command can keep up and the last thing you want to happen is for bad information to be put out. For Wendi the relief of knowing it wasn’t me was followed by the sorrow of knowing other families were experiencing the reality of her fears. I have always said it is much easier for us over here because at least we know what is going on. I am so thankful for everyone’s prayers and support.

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16 Aug

It’s times like these that I really wish I was a better writer. Anything I say seems so inadequate, but maybe that is true for many things in life. We experience everything in the context of our previous experiences so our ability to relate is necessarily limited. Maybe that is why I am having such a hard time processing what happened on the 14^th. About 4 PM we were all told to meet at the flight line at which point we learned that aircraft 171 had crashed during a test flight with no survivors. It all seemed so surreal like a dream I was going to wake up from. It happened about 1 mile away from our hanger in the traffic pattern so quite a few guys from the company saw it. There was a lot of milling around while we waited for everyone to show up and the stories started to circulate – one of the crew was switched earlier in the day so he ended up not on it, Stanley from the engine shop jumped on at the last minute to do some checks. It all seemed so random. Brian saw the whole thing from the ground and I know he was thinking if he hadn’t flown a mission that day it would have been him doing the test flight. If I hadn’t been on a night mission I would have been giving Jackie his check ride. There are so many what ifs but all we do know is that God chose to take Jackie, Chris, Sean, Steve, and Stanley from us. I have known other pilots and crew-members who have died but never while I was in the same unit with them, much less talking with them just hours prior. It’s hard for me to comprehend the suddenness and finality of it. It’s like turning off a light switch – one minute they are here and the next they are gone, never to come back. An investigation team arrived within hours and they requested our safety officer, tactical operations officer and a maintenance representative. It certainly wasn’t something I wanted to do but Brian knew Jackie a lot better than I did and he had no desire to go. We rolled out in a Marine convoy and got to the site just before dark. My main job was to identify aircraft parts. Most of the aircraft was destroyed in the post-crash fire but it was coming apart prior to impacting the ground. I can’t go into more detail at this time due to the investigation. The command is pushing for night test flights. I did one last night – not fun and not a good idea in my book. If it was a component failure we need to know soon to get it fixed – people’s confidence in the aircraft is a little shaken. Please pray for the families.

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13 Aug

The mission load has slowed down already. One of our biggest concerns coming over here was our maintenance being able to keep up with the mission load – I wasn’t anticipating the opposite problem this early. It is so much better to stay busy – time goes by faster and it gives you something to focus on. We are still trying to get the flight schedule worked out. I was shifting back and forth between days and nights but it looks like I am solidly on nights for awhile. I think it will work out pretty good with Jackie and Brian doing test flights in the day then I will be available on my nights off if it is critical to do a test flight at night. I will have to go to days sometime before the end of the month to give Jackie his check ride. Every evening I have been working on the internet stuff. We have all the lines run for both systems. Now it is a matter of getting all the lines pulled into the rooms, ends put on and all the switches hooked up. I got the first system reactivated so once Tony figures everything out we should be up an running. I haven’t been able to talk to Wendi much at all – I sure miss hearing her voice. I did get all the photos that I enlarged to hang on my walls. Now I am just waiting on the magnets to hold them up.
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My room right after I moved in. It stayed this way for a couple of days until I had time to move things around.

This is our pile of bags as we were waiting for a truck to take our stuff to our rooms. Due to a miscommunication it didn't show up for five hours. People actually stayed pretty upbeat - getting into permanent quarters makes anything easier to take.

These wooden huts were pretty drafty (the back door of ours was held together with duct tape) but they did stay cool during the day.

This was the site of our temporary quarters on base. Not very appealing to the eye but I guess that wasn't really the concern.

10 Aug

The last few days have been a little crazy – I haven’t had more than a few minutes at a time to sit down. My night mission on the 6th went as well as could be expected. The radios are crazy – we did a lot of short hops and you hardly have time to change frequencies before you need to be talking to someone else. To make it worse the lingo is different from Army talk. I was flight lead and felt like a new pilot trying to communicate. Radio calls are a fine art of saying just what is needed and in the right sequence so when the other guy can only hear part of it (which is often) he knows what you said. At least we have the second aircraft to divide up the calls but then you’re not sure what they coordinated. I found out the Marine -46s have double the radios we have which is the real problem – our communication package is from the 70s. A couple of months from now it will be second nature – at least it is a great learning experience for our younger pilots. After this flying back home will be a cake walk. Another thing we have learned early on is that we spend between 1/3 and ½ of our flight time on the ground loading or unlading. The passengers are fast but for all the cargo they use Triwalls (heavy duty cardboard boxes with plastic tops and bottoms). They work fine on Marine aircraft but they won’t slide across our floors without catching on everything. Our big advantage is being able to carry more but the longer load times cancel that on these short flights. We are already one aircraft short – 174 chewed up a hydraulic pump and sent the parts throughout the #1 flight control system so it is now a static display at Al Asad. The same thing happened to 167 back in Alaska but at least this time they didn’t send me to fly it home. I never really understood that decision except that it gave the higher ups a good feeling knowing a test pilot was flying – if the flight controls lock up I would do what every other pilot would – crash. So now we have to replace all the hydraulic components on that flight system – at least we get parts faster here. We moved into our rooms the evening of the 7th. It was a lot of hot, sweaty work but worth every minute of it just knowing this was the last time for awhile. I still haven’t figured out how I want my room set up but I have nothing but time :). I finally paid the guy for the internet system they have here – it’s nice to not have to carry all that cash around any more. Tony and I plotted out how we are going to run all the wires and now it’s just a matter of pulling the old cable out and re-running it all. We turned the old system off until we get it set up which should be within a week. Our second system should ship out Monday so things are coming together. People are still coming up and asking if they can join which is a little frustrating since I have been asking since April to see how many people are interested.
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5 Aug

I flew our first combat mission yesterday and my first day mission in Iraq. It was a little anti-climatic since we spent most of the day waiting for a dust storm to pass. By the time it finally cleared we could only do the last leg of our mission which was just up to Al Asad and back. It was at the very last of our duty day and the crewmembers weren’t too happy since they had already closed up the aircraft. I though it was worth it because it allowed us to get an idea of how the missions flow, the radio calls (there are a lot more of them than in the Army sector), and getting in and out of the passenger/cargo pickup points. It is going to help us on our night mission tomorrow. The Marines have been very helpful but it will be nice when they leave. Right now we are working in corners of their offices and most of our stuff is still packed in Milvans not to mention that our aircraft are parked over a mile away. It’s only a few more days then we will have a year to ourselves. On another good note the modification to our UHF radios that we have been pushing for since April and just installed works great. It probably doesn’t mean anything to you guys but for us being able to talk secure UHF with the Marines is a wonderful thing. I finally got the housing list tonight so I can start planning out the internet system and it looks like I will be getting my own room!
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Aug 3

We finally made it to TQ. The last couple of days in Udari were more of the same – not much of anything. Our first four aircraft departed the night of the 31st and then I flew up with the last four on the 1st. It was great to leave Udari if for no other reason tan as a marker of time passing – one month down with only 14 more to go. The flight itself was a little depressing because I kept thinking this is the first of many. Our whole flight the temp stayed right about 124 degrees and we ran out of water halfway through the flight (we’re still getting back into the routine). We did almost run out of gas which at least gave me something to look at during the flight. For some reason our internal tank quit pumping so we had to stop in Talil for refuel. Out fuel burn rate was higher than we had planned for so we ended up having to cut off sections of our route and landed with 10 minutes of fuel. I spent all day yesterday running around tracking people down to get things coordinated. I got to bed at 1:30 then the main body people cam in the room at 5:00, after which sleep was out of the question. There are 12 of us in the room – a little crowded but at least it stays cool all day. Today was death by PowerPoint – classes all day then trying to plan our mission for tomorrow. It is definitely more humid here than at Udari. Clear H 126 L 93