I'm flying, I'm flying!
Saturday, August 9 I finally relented to my bladder around 5:50 and then proceeded to the transit tent for role call. When I arrived I saw a beautiful site—a flight posted for BIAP with a 6:55 role call and 72 open seats. At that point, I figured my waiting was over. Can you tell by that line that it wasn’t? After the general role call at 6:30, the next announcement was that the rolecall for the 6:55 BIAP flight had “slipped” to 8:20. At least that gave me time to run to breakfast, pack my bags and get my gear to the transit tent. At about 8:20, they called the role, I made the cut, and received my manifest. At about 10:15 they called our flight to board the bus, and we did. When we arrived at the airstrip, we pulled up behind a C130. We sat on the bus for about 25 minutes waiting for the plane to finish refueling, and we received our flight briefing. Basically what I was able to hear was that if there was a fire or some sort of problem with the air, grab a bag hanging above my head, open it, pull some red ball, and put the plastic bag over our my head and breathe. If I start sucking the plastic bag into my mouth, throw it away and grab a new one. It will provide about 5 minutes of oxygen, which would be enough time to set the plane down and escape. If for some reason we do make an emergency landing, we were instructed to follow the airman out the back of the plane and do what he says. Can’t say I’d be inclined to do much else. He also mentioned it was about 115 degrees outside, and at least 15 degrees hotter inside the plane since it was just sitting in the sun all morning, so we were better off sitting on the bus until the last minute—no argument there. Finally, we offloaded, grabbed our bags, and boarded the giant lump of a plane through the rear cargo ramp. The C130 was actually much smaller than I expected, and it holds a maximum of about 74 people seated on fold-down nylon benches that run parallel to the body of the plane. Oh, and you’re wondering about legroom, right? Well, I have a new appreciation for United Economy. We sat sweating while they loaded the cargo pallet into the back of the plane, and then two airmen boarded and began closing the ramp and talking over headphones. They closed the lower cargo door, but not the upper. We sat for about 10 minutes and then they opened the lower door—not a good sign. One of the airmen announced there was some mechanical problem, and gave us the option of getting off the plane while they fixed it. Since they originally told us that it was 15 degrees hotter inside the plane, and they hadn’t exactly turned on the AC while we were sitting there, getting out seemed like the prudent course. We all got off and stood in the shadow under the tail of the plane. It turned out that one of the engines did not start, and they called in a small crew to repair it. Although we were standing in the shade, the wind was scorching hot, and it actually felt hotter outside than in the plane. After another 20 minutes or so, one of the airmen said, “flight’s canceled, we just hit 36 hours.” Of course, it looked like they finished fixing the plane at the same time as they announced they had hit their duty limit and had to go on break. A woman approached us and announced that she had called in the news and that there would be some sort of solution, but we had to hop back on the bus and return to the tent on the base. Just as we were about to reach the entrance to the LSA, the bus stopped, and then started making a u-turn. For a moment we thought we had been spared, but then the driver completed a circle and drove us back to the base. It was a cruel hoax. When we arrived, a man came onto the bus and told us to sit tight for a few minutes while he tried to find out whether we would be retasked on a new flight, in which case we would be confined to the tent, or whether we would go back onto the stand-by list, in which case we would be free to roam but would have to show up for role calls. After a minute he announced we would be retasked on a new flight out in the afternoon and had to stay in the tent travel ready. This was somewhere around noon. So, we sat in the tent. We heard conflicting bits of information—at one moment we were going to fly out on a new flight in an hour or two. Then, we were told there was space on another flight to BIAP and we would join that one. Then, around 2:30, word came that we were booked on a new flight taking off around 8:30, and our call time was 5:15. We were free to roam until then. I went over to the Media Transit Office, hoping the couch would be comfortable enough for a nap. It wasn’t. I sat for a while and told the sad tale to the PAO’s, and then decided to run to the PX to pick up a few things, then take a shower. When I popped into the transit tent to get my shower things out of my bag, I heard that our flight time had been moved up, and the briefing/role call would be at 5. Apparently, it had been moved up to 4:30 at one point (when I was out doing errands) and then pushed back to 5. Still, I had time to grab a quick shower, and got back to the tent in time for the call to board the bus. For the second time of the day, I boarded a bus to the airstrip, although this time I contained my expectations. We arrived at the C130, boarded, the crew loaded the pallets, and we taxied to take off. One thing I figured out largely by accident, is that you want a seat where there is no one across from you. I got the second to last seat on one of the inside rows facing the wall of the plane. The opposing seats ended one seat next to me, so I had nothing across from me. The person sitting in the last seat had the luggage pallet crammed up against him, although that did allow him to lean on it during the flight. This time we actually took off—not that I could see it happen. There are about 5 windows on each side of the cargo area of the plane, and the two in the back are well above eye-level so I couldn’t see out as we took off. The climb was long and steady, but the flight was surprisingly smooth. Still, the inside of a C130 looks like an unfinished basement—wires, cables, hydraulic lines running everywhere, and exposed metal framework throughout. It kind of makes you think twice about flying—if you got on a commercial jet and actually saw how much mechanical crap there is in an airplane, you’d panic about how many things could possibly break/go wrong and run screaming for a train. Seriously, there are so many wires, cables, hoses, metal thingies—thingies that could be years beyond their useful life or repaired with chewing gum or… Well, let’s not go down that road. Suffice to say, the inside of a C130 is primitive and chaotic looking. In addition to the 72 of us sitting in the cargo area and the two pallets of bags, there were two crewmen in the back. Each one was seated on a wooden perch hanging from straps attached to the framework—it looked like something in a birdcage. During the flight the two sat there and joked with each other over the comm system. I half dozed for a while, and then felt a sensation we were about to descend and I opened my eyes and got a small dose of reality. The airman who had been casually sitting on his perch all flight was now wearing a flack jacket and strapped into a harness. He was now facing out the window, and since it was just after dusk he was also wearing night vision goggles. He and his counterpart on the other side of the plane were now spotters looking for hostile threats as we approached Baghdad. Then, the descent started for real. When approaching a hostile zone, the approach is too stay high as long as possible, and then get down quickly, and not in a straight line—and we did. It never quite felt like the sensation of the initial drop of a roller coaster, but it was pretty pronounced. We went through a few steep declines, corkscrewing merrily away (I kept thinking about “The In Laws”—“serpentine, serpentine!”. We pulled some heavy g’s. A couple of times I could feel blood rushing from my head in directions I couldn’t quite determine and I got slightly dizzy. At one point we banked so heavily that I could see the lights of the city below rush past the window—I think we were past the point of being perpendicular to the ground in that turn. In one sense it was all somewhat fun—but given the reason why we were flying so aggressively, that more than killed any sense of enjoyment. Then there was the landing. There was no doubt, not the slightest question whatsoever when we hit the ground. It was like a lion hitting a gazelle—swift, strong, and decisive. That landing made even the roughest commercial landing I’ve experienced feel like a feather landing on a pool of water. From there we taxied towards the “terminal”, exited the plane and walked inside. I then asked for a seat on a helicopter to my destination, and was told to sit and wait for about 3 hours, and there was no guarantee of a seat—more waiting. I waited. Then, with little warning, the man at the desk called for passengers going to LZ Washington to line up immediately. I threw on my gear, lined up, and we walked out to the landing strip. Two Blackhawks were sitting there in the dark, and then took off. The man who marched us out to the runway said those birds were off to another destination, and he didn’t know until we got out there. Apparently, when helicopters come in, it’s not always immediately clear where they are going next, and the ground crew has to play a bit of a guessing game—wasn’t exactly sure why, but didn’t really have the opportunity to ask. We stood outside for about 10 minutes, and then two more birds approached. They landed, people offloaded, and then we were escorted on board. Of course, once I sat down, all 8 seats were full, so I had to cram my suitcase in between all of our legs and then hold my backpack and gear bag in my lap. We quickly took off with the other bird following along, and we flew in a path I certainly couldn’t follow in the dark. It seemed like we went in a big circle and landed almost where we started (I later realized this was pretty much the case). We stopped at Landing Zone Liberty, where the second bird picked up a passenger. We took off again, and I still couldn’t quite determine our direction or distance before we landed at LZ Washington, although the flight only took about 7-8 minutes by my estimate. I will say that Baghdad at night is a pretty unremarkable sight—at least the area we covered. A few lights here and there, no discernible landmarks or characteristics—but what was I expecting anyhow, Paris? I entered the trailer at LZ Washington, and one of the staffers there called CPIC to have someone pick me up. About 10 minutes later a specialist arrived and drove me to the office—it was approaching 1am and the streets were empty, and frankly rather haunting. Only a few security personnel were out, and otherwise it looked deserted and depressing. We entered the CPIC checkpoint, I went through security (all of the security workers there are from Peru, and I didn’t get a chance to get that whole story). The Lieutenant on duty showed me to the bunks in the media lounge, I took a quick shower, checked email, and crashed. Welcome to Baghdad.
