349th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
12/8/2014 - TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- The first thing you need to know about a C-5B Galaxy channel mission: everything is really big.
The plane is huge, distances are vast and even the sound is enormous.
As the mission begins, four TF-39 turbofans belt out their oversized metallic howl, accelerating more than 600,000 pounds of aluminum, jet fuel and precious cargo to takeoff speed. Maj. Nick Amenta, the aircraft commander with the 312th Airlift Squadron, pulls the yoke, the jet takes to the air, and departs west from Travis Air Force Base, Calif.
"We resupply the Pacific with high priority cargo and move passengers. The C-5 is very good for this because we have so much capacity," Amenta said.
The call sign for this particular mission is Reach 410, a five-day scheduled loop from California to Asia and back, in August of 2014. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, is the first stop in the 29,000 mile journey. This is just one of more than 500 Air Mobility Command missions flying every day, touching every continent, crossing every ocean.
This Air Force Reserve crew of 15 will take one small piece of this global mission. A crew of fifteen seems huge by the standards of modern aviation - the size of B-36 Peacemaker bomber crews in the Cold War -- but like everything about the C-5, it's just the size it needs to be.
In every crew position, pilots, engineers, loadmasters and crew chiefs, there is an array of skills and experience from very new to very seasoned.
Behind the pilots, sits one of the most seasoned aviators in the Air Force, Senior Master Sgt. Timothy Nichols, flight engineer evaluator.
Nichols' scans the activity on the fight deck with the calm wisdom of more than 12,500 hours of flight. Under his instruction is Staff Sgt. Daniel Massingill, flight engineer in upgrade training.
Massingill is calculating the time needed to climb from 28,500 feet to a more efficient 30,000 feet. Nichols makes him go over his numbers again, confirming the result, which is then conveyed to the pilots.
"I'm training the next generation of flight engineers. That's why I beat these guys up so much. They need to know their stuff," Nichols says. A subtle nod of the head indicates he's satisfied with the progress.
The other flight engineer in training is Tech. Sgt. Francisco Guerrero-Vasquez. At 25, he's the youngest of the crew and the newest on the airframe. It's a big change from his days as an active-duty crew chief on single-engine A-10 Warthogs and F-16 Flying Falcons.
"The C-5 keeps you on your toes, but that's fine, because I like staying busy," Guerrero-Vasquez said. He also likes the camaraderie of the crew, "It's like a big family; this is a team airplane."
And like every other C-5, the airplane is also a seasoned veteran of the last three decades of Air Force history. This particular C-5B, Aircraft 86-0024, rolled out of the factory in 1988. It quickly lost its "new jet smell" when it deployed for Operation Desert Shield two years later, flying mission after mission at its 840,000-pound maximum takeoff weight.
Nichols points to a well-worn, many times painted spot on a flight deck panel.
"It's like tree rings: there's Desert Storm, there's Bosnia, there's Afghanistan ..."
When the plane touches down at Hickam, passengers and cargo off load, fuel goes on and fresh cargo and passengers come aboard. This is going to be a "quick turn," meaning no overnight stay. This augmented crew won't rest their heads in billeting until they reach Japan.
As the sun drops towards the horizon, 100 miles north of Midway Atoll, thunderstorms and squalls drift below. The vast, inhuman scale of the world's largest ocean looks like something out of science fiction. But real history was once made in these waters.
In June 1942, the U.S. Navy turned the tide of World War II's Pacific Theater when it decisively defeated the Japanese imperial fleet in the Battle of Midway. There's no sign of the five aircraft carriers resting on the bottom of the sea, only a seemingly endless panorama of sea and sky.
In the nearly windowless troop compartment, 73 passengers rear-facing seats are missing the epic sunset. Master Sgt. Adam Goldsberry, loadmaster, tends to the passengers' safety and comfort.
This is a big trip for Goldsberry, as he doesn't get to fly overseas as often as he once did. He's studying business management at San Francisco State University. Back in the squadron, he's become the resident expert for processing orders and travel vouchers.
"I really enjoy the chance for interacting with my squadron members in my primary AFSC and helping passengers," he said.
"Sometimes you have to help small children clear an ear block during the ascent. A pacifier or a bottle will usually do the trick," Goldsberry said.
At the end of a very long first day out, Reach 410 arrives at Yokota Air Base, Japan. Senior Master Sgt. Dianne Valdez, the senior loadmaster on the trip, miraculously looks cheerful as she helps Space-A passengers disembark into the rainy, humid darkness.
Asked about her source of energy after almost 14 hours of flight plus ground time, she simply smiles and says, "I love flying."
When Valdez said that, her career flight-time odometer was just 130 hours shy of turning over 10,000 hours in the air. That gigantic achievement grew from a tiny acorn of serendipity. A friend had talked her into speaking with an Air Force Reserve recruiter.
"I looked at jobs they had open. 'Loadmaster' sounded interesting, so I said, 'I'll go with that.'"
The 19-year-old Valdez had never been on an airplane before.
After 30 years flying with the 349th, it seems to have worked out pretty well.
"It suits me; there's work to do," she said. "You have successes every day, little things like ensuring Space-A families are seated together."
The next morning, the C-5B provides everyone with another opportunity to find successes: the aircraft is broke.
"The C-5 has huge capacity, but is hugely complex. It has systems you don't even have on other airplanes," Nichols said. "The law of odds says something is going to break sometimes."
Tech. Sgt. Gregory La Francis and Senior Airman Isiah Crosby, crew chiefs from the 349th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, discuss the problem with the flight engineers.
Decades of mechanical C-5 knowledge address the problem from multiple angles and come to an assessment: it's either 45 minutes, which would be good, or several days, which would be really bad. Swapping out a toaster-oven-sized part will determine which one. Fortunately, Yokota supply has the part in stock. Seconds after the part is installed, the crew gets the good-to-go and everyone instantly switches back into takeoff mode.
La Francis and Crosby look stoked. Crosby explains why the work is so rewarding.
"On the road, it's go, go, go. You get to exercise your full potential," he said.
Crosby was working in a credit union in the San Joaquin Valley and didn't feel he had the opportunity to explore his full potential. He joined the Air Force because he felt he had more to offer life than sitting at a desk.
"Wish I'd come in sooner," he said.
Capt. Jordan Kalish is another member of the crew who saw the huge opportunity the Air Force provided. His family has no history with aviation, but he knew he wanted to fly.
Kalish joined 349th AMXS as a C-5 crew chief at age 17-1/2. He turned wrenches for six years while earning his bachelor's degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. From there, he was able to compete for a commission and a slot in flight school.
Today he's an Air Force Reserve instructor pilot. On the civilian side, he flies 737s for Southwest Airlines.
"Most people don't know how to connect the dots. They need to know it's possible to advance if you're willing to put the work in."
Osan Air Base, Korea is another quick turn.
The 121-foot by 17.2-foot cargo box -- just slightly longer than Wright Brother's first flight -- is packed full with the maximum 36 pallets of cargo.
Over the drone of generators and whine of turbines, K-loaders do the monster mash in the rainy dark; old cargo goes off, new cargo come on. The loadmasters practice their Tetris-like art by arranging the pallets just so.
"Besides weight and balance, and floor loads, we have to consider which pallets are coming off at the next destination and which ones are going through to a future stop," said Senior Master Sgt. Justin Toomsen, loadmaster evaluator.
At the start of the duty day at Kadena Air Base, Japan, the sun is high in the sky, but it's the middle of the night back home in California. Everyone is tired, even though everyone got a full night's sleep.
"The fatigue is cumulative. First day out you can do a long day, then it catches up with you," said Master Sgt. Gerard Garrotte, flight engineer.
"Everyone has to practice good Operational Risk Management. It's a lot of responsibility. You have to decide what presents a risk, what's worth holding up a mission," he said.
Just as an army marches on its stomach, so does an aircrew. Collectively, the crew seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the hours and offerings of every Exchange and commissary in the Pacific. The supplies go into the refrigerator to be cooked in flight in the galley.
Amenta buys fresh ingredients to make a vegetable guacamole dip from scratch. "It's not hard to eat healthy on the road, but you have to plan ahead."
There's a lot of down time on a channel mission, but none of it is wasted. Pilots, engineers, loads, crew chiefs, each with their own circle of responsibility, teach the next generation. Some of the training is formal; more is by osmosis and example.
While planning the final leg of the mission, Amenta gives 1st Lt. Meaghan Cosand some advice about being an aircraft commander:
"As an AC, you have to think about tomorrow. Aside from putting out a few fires, today will take care of itself."
Tomorrow comes uneventfully with a text-book-perfect landing back at Travis. The mission ends close to the time that was programed weeks before at the Tanker Airlift Control Center in Illinois.
Compared to the humid summer heat of the south and east Pacific, the Delta Breeze has a chilly edge. Everyone is happy to be home. It's time for the bag drag to the crew bus, and return to the squadron. A week later, some of the same crew members will be on the road again.
Epilogue:
Three months after the flight of Reach 410, C-5M Super Galaxies are rapidly replacing the B-model galaxies. The modernized jets are delivering higher reliability, greater efficiency and even more capacity than before. However, the unique banshee howl of the TF-39 turbofans has been replaced by the ordinary airliner sound of the new generation engines. Aircraft 86-0024 is scheduled for M-model conversion in December.
Oct. 16, 2014 on a Pacific Channel mission, Senior Master Sgt. Dianne Valdez, surpassed the milestone of 10,000 flying hours. Her cumulative flight time is the equivalent of 1.14 years in the air, all of it as an Air Force Reservist assigned to the 349th Air Mobility Wing at Travis Air Force Base.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment