9 Oct

Well I am glad I got that one day off because the next one was long. Our mission was heavy RIP (replacement in place) from Al Asad to one of the FOBs (forward operating base) out west. It’s called a heavy RIP because the Marines have all their bags with them (two duffels and a rucksack each). The aircraft is pretty packed by the time we get everything on. It’s a great mission for us though because we can carry 4 times the people on each lift as compared to the unit we replaced. We took off in marginal weather (dust) and it only got worse when we got to Al Asad. The field went IFR which means only one flight of aircraft can move at a time so it took us forever to pick up our passengers, get fuel, and get out of there. The drop-off point was interesting (on top of a dam) and according to the charts it was only big enough to hold 1 CH-47 so I had to circle while the lead aircraft landed, dropped off troops and bags and loaded outgoing troops and bags. It took so long we had to refuel again when we got back to Al Asad. After our first turn we had already flown for over 4 hours and I knew we weren’t going to make it under our limit (8hrs) with still two more turns to go. On our next turn in we convinced the guys on the ground to let us try and land two at the same time (it’s a little tight but do-able) so we could load and unload together. Between our second and third turns we shut down (not something we like to do because it increases our chances of an aircraft breaking) to unload and load in order to save fuel and flight time. We ended up coming back after sunset and logging 8.3 hours but we moved over 350 people and 60,000lbs of bags with two aircraft. Two days later I did the same mission again and between better weather and knowing how to do it we finished in two less hours. On another note we also managed to bang up another aircraft. It’s a long story but the end result was they landed too hard on the pad out by our parking and drove one of the aft landing gear up into the aircraft. We can fix it here but the parts are going to be had to get. It just so happens to be 169 – the same one I had flown 8.3 hours on the previous day and one of our best aircraft. We are doing great work over here and the higher ups want to love us but we keep doing stupid things (lost weapon, ID cards, secret thumb drives, maps, breaking aircraft) and making it hard on ourselves. We had a meeting with all the PCs (pilot in command) that I hope will get us started in the right direction. By the way we finally finished 170 and I got to fly it on a mission – works great J

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