19 Dec

It has been an interesting couple of days. I flew another day mission yesterday that started out pretty smooth. We hauled several good sling loads of water and food out to a FOB in beautiful weather (the food was for their Christmas dinner which always makes us feel pretty good about what we do). Everything was going good and we were actually going to get home early until on approach to our last stop our No 1 flight hydraulic pump started making some bad grinding noises. We shut down hoping the pump would decide to behave after taking a break. But it was not to be, after starting up it sounded even worse and chewed its insides to pieces before we could get it shut down. It actually worked out pretty well because two CH-46s were just getting back from a mission so they stopped by TQ, picked up a new pump and brought it out to us. We replaced the pump but there was still concern about all the pump fragments floating in the hydraulic system. The last time this happened we had to replace the entire system but we couldn’t do the maintenance where we were so the decision was made to fly it home. It was the first time I have ever flown on just one system – I was glad to be back. Later that night we had another aircraft lose a hydraulic pump but this time the shaft sheared (as it is designed to) before the pump came apart. Once again two CH-46s came to our rescue. We’re not going to hear the end of this for awhile. That night we also had the holiday tour come through with Lance Armstrong, Robin Williams, Chris Black, Kid Rock, and Ms. America. It was an entertaining show. I wasn’t going to go but I decided this was probably my only chance to see these people in person. I am always struck by how small celebrities are in person. I always expect them to be bigger than life. It just reinforced for me the thought that the only power people have is what others choose to give them. Yesterday our guys flew the group over to the next base for a show and flew them back. They were able to talk with them quite a bit and get some good pictures. If I can get my hands on some I will post them. We had another dust storm kick up tonight but besides that it has been clear and cool. I can tell it is getting colder because for the first time I had no hot water in the showers tonight.

Dust H 68 L 36