Last week was the most frustrating seven days of this deployment. If you recall, over a seven day time period we spent five nights at Liberty Pad for flights that ended up cancelling. The end result was scrubbing a mission. Earlier this week, I presented an alternative course of action to the supported unit. They approved the plan. Today we moved out in the execution phase. The mission from last week was back on - albeit in abbreviated form. Last week we were supposed to begin by flying to a remote place called Camp Korean Village. CKV is due west of Baghdad near the Syrian border. After CKV we were going to Camp Ramadi. My abbreviated plan allowed for making up the biggest part of last week's aborted mission. That meant completing the training at Camp Ramadi. We were very fortunate to find our flight was not on weather hold.
It seemed like a bad case of deja vu. Once again we found ourselves waiting for a flight out of Liberty Pad. Unlike last week, helicopters were actually flying. We would definitely get to Camp Ramadi. We lined up about 2130 to stage for the arrival of our helicopters. Shortly after that we heard the familiar rotor blade chop of CH46's (Sea Knights). Helicopters fly completely blacked out at night. They flip on their landing lights and landing spotlight just before coming in to land. People who fly a lot - like us - learn very quickly to recognize the type of helicopter simply by the sound of the approaching rotor blades. CH46's are flown exclusively by Marines. They aren't the aircraft of choice. These aircraft are Vietnam vintage. They are loud, vibrate badly, and are extremely breezy inside (not a good thing on cold nights). We were hoping to get V22 Ospreys, which are new tilt-rotor aircraft now operating in theater. Ospreys are bigger and much faster. They take off and land just like helicopters but then rotate their blades forward to fly more like airplanes. Last week we had been scheduled to fly on Ospreys but the weather kept cancelling our ride. Now we were actually flying and stuck with the Sea Knights. Fortunately, I did not sit in the "hurricane seat". It was still a chilly ride to Camp Ramadi. We touched down around 2300.
Our ride was waiting for us. Within thirty minutes we were in our CHU's. They were brand new. There was still plastic on my mattress. I held a quick meeting with my team to synchronize the next morning. We really couldn't see much of Camp Ramadi at night. It was easy to see how muddy the place becomes when it rains. The place is primarily run by Marines, as are most operating bases in western Iraq and Anbar province. Marine bases are much more spartan. For some reason, the Marines never seem to take interest in fixing up buildings and facilities. It's as if they came with a short stay in mind and, years later, still have short stay in mind.
We went to bed knowing that our setback of last week was only temporary.
It seemed like a bad case of deja vu. Once again we found ourselves waiting for a flight out of Liberty Pad. Unlike last week, helicopters were actually flying. We would definitely get to Camp Ramadi. We lined up about 2130 to stage for the arrival of our helicopters. Shortly after that we heard the familiar rotor blade chop of CH46's (Sea Knights). Helicopters fly completely blacked out at night. They flip on their landing lights and landing spotlight just before coming in to land. People who fly a lot - like us - learn very quickly to recognize the type of helicopter simply by the sound of the approaching rotor blades. CH46's are flown exclusively by Marines. They aren't the aircraft of choice. These aircraft are Vietnam vintage. They are loud, vibrate badly, and are extremely breezy inside (not a good thing on cold nights). We were hoping to get V22 Ospreys, which are new tilt-rotor aircraft now operating in theater. Ospreys are bigger and much faster. They take off and land just like helicopters but then rotate their blades forward to fly more like airplanes. Last week we had been scheduled to fly on Ospreys but the weather kept cancelling our ride. Now we were actually flying and stuck with the Sea Knights. Fortunately, I did not sit in the "hurricane seat". It was still a chilly ride to Camp Ramadi. We touched down around 2300.
Our ride was waiting for us. Within thirty minutes we were in our CHU's. They were brand new. There was still plastic on my mattress. I held a quick meeting with my team to synchronize the next morning. We really couldn't see much of Camp Ramadi at night. It was easy to see how muddy the place becomes when it rains. The place is primarily run by Marines, as are most operating bases in western Iraq and Anbar province. Marine bases are much more spartan. For some reason, the Marines never seem to take interest in fixing up buildings and facilities. It's as if they came with a short stay in mind and, years later, still have short stay in mind.
We went to bed knowing that our setback of last week was only temporary.
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