Sunday, February 18, 2007

Flying Red Tail Air

I hadn't been in the back of a Coast Guard C130 since my first summer cruise at the Academy, back in 1981. They stuffed a third of our class in the back for a couple hours' trip from New London to Charleston. There we boarded the EAGLE, for a week-long cruise (and my first seasick experience).

The intervening quarter-century hasn't changed the Hercules a bit...


This last week I had to go up to Anchorage to give a 90-minute presentation to the District's annual Coast Guard Auxiliary Winter Training Conference, and since some 60 Auxiliarists were already being picked up all over the State of Alaska by this dinosaur, I was expected to save the taxpayer's expense and tag along as well. So, the noisy pterosaur pulls up to the Air National Guard hangar at the airport in Juneau (home of former Gov. Frank Murkowski's jet, the one for sale on eBay) in the cold, driving rain. Pretty much the same description for my seat inside the plane, also.

Another blog I have started reading (www.coconutcommando.blogspot.com) describes riding into Bagdad in the rear of a C130 as being strapped into a sewer pipe... loud, dark, round, windowless, cold. My experience can add "dripping fluids onto your head" to that mix.

I do not like moving within a structure when I can't see some external frame of reference... like a window. Two hours airborne, which except for a short stint out of my seat to go up forward, I had no idea if we were about to land, turn, dive, crash, whatever... My seat was below the center wing box structure, so I could watch a quadrant arm that connected two long rods that went out each wing, presumably tying the ailerons together. When the turbo-prop noise decreased, I reckoned that we were descending, and when the hydraulic pumps were screaming more than they already were, I took it to be either the flaps or the landing gear. No announcements, no freindly banter from the flight crew, just a young flight-suited Petty Officer with large headphones on, watching like a hawk to make sure none of the elderly Auxiliarists stepped out of line on his watch.

As uncomfortable as the seat was, I did get to go up front for a few minutes to see the light...


Fortunately, we left the rain in Juneau and it was clear towards Prince William Sound...



Not as plush as sitting in the front of Alaska Air (muchas gracias, MVP de oro), but it got us there...
KML

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I do hope you are saving all of these 'tales' in a journal and someday put all of these writings in a book. It is great reading - you are a wonderful writer and this story made me feel like I was about to lose my lunch as you describe the flight in such detail. Thank God for the awesome pictures to bring me back to reality. Although we know you are a world-traveler and love this stuff - we do say our prayers everynight that you will make it home safe to Julie - because remember you promised her 50+ years.

4:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great work.

10:48 AM  

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