225 – Place is a territory of Brazil, but they had a ‘Murica flag flyin’.







226 – Finally after three days off we get to go to work.







227 – Hi friends.







228 - Stole this McChord jet to continue on to Africa.







229 - "Bow-na-now-naw"







230 - "Uhhh, rotate soon please? That's the end of the runway."







231 – Where we weren’t allowed to go swimming.







232/233/234/235 – First stop, Cape Verde



















236 - I asked passingly if there was a flightline fire extinguisher available for refueling and engine start, and this is what they started up and pulled out for the occasion.







237/238 – Fancy terminal.











239 - Second hill of the area.



[img] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...g?format=2500w [/img]



240/241/242 – We gotta go!















243/244 - Downtown.

 

Glad you're protecting my tax dollar's, great pics!!

 

Trip 012, Summer 2013, Wisconsin



250 - Never know what the next haul is goin' to be or where. Need some junk shipped from the midwest to a dirt field up north? Can't wait for 40 sorties from little ole C-130s? Let's play with real airlift...







251 - Indiana afternoon.







252 - Short final to Grissom Air Reserve Base.







253 - Randomly got to meet a man named Irwin Stovroff. He is a WWII veteran and ex-POW having spent 13 months in a **** camp after being shot down on his 35th and last mission as a Bombardier with the 44th Bomb Group. Amazing survival story, and I thought it was ironic he was thanking us for our service. We have it easy because of guys like this.







254 – Off to Wisconsin.







255 – Field in sight.







256 – Dirt landing.







257 - Get that four fan trash can out of the way. We got real airlift to do here.







258 - Anyway, no big deal heavyweight dirt landing is a good time. Keep the motors runnin', kick the junk out the back, and let’s get the Hell out.







259 – Ready to roll but another little bird landed.







260 – Hero shot.







261 - LT, get us outta here!







262 - Pit stop in Pittsburgh for some gas and a few little toys to pickup.







263/264/265/266 – Three units need to go up to the dirt strip. They even let me play with the lights and siren on the ladder truck we loaded first.



















267 – Back to the dirt with the firetrucks.







268 – Whoaaaa back!







269/270 - Well it was peaceful and nice 'till we showed up.

 

271 – Engine Running Offload/Onload in the dirt.







272 – Tire safety check.







273/274 - Engine Running Offload/Onload in the dirt.









Me rollin' footage with the pilots cam.

You Tube

Adrianspeeder

 

I see you are working REAL hard there.

 

Something has gone horribly wrong if I have to work with wheels up.

Adrianspeeder

 

...

 

you've made rank fairly fast, BUT I figured you be a Tech SGT by now

 

Yes, Staff before the 4 year mark, and I just crossed the six year mark. Tested for tech first time a few months ago, but since my AFSC changed for the avionics, it was PDG only which changes all the ratios and numbers for making it. We shall see this summer.

Adrianspeeder

 

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.

Stay safe up there and keep the pics/videos coming !

 

...

 

Trip 013, Summer 2013, Wright Patterson OH



275 – Mount up! We got training to go do.







276 – “This is how we fix things on the Russian Space Station...” The vertical adjustment cable snapped, so I repaired it.







277 – Short flight over to the Medivac school house in Ohio.







278 - Going to fly in circles for four simultaneous final exam check ride evaluations. Run by hardcore instructors and examiners for the soon to graduate students.







279 – I don’t know if the dummies are going to make it.







280-1 – One of the particularly evil examiners came up and found me on the flight deck.

“Hey chief, what are you doing?”

“Not much Cap’n. How can I help you?”

“Go to the back of the jet like you are doing something important, drink some water, take this Alka-Seltzer, drop to the floor, and fake a seizure between the two sets of evaluations.”

“I can do that.”

I just wish someone had it on video. Having never used Alka-Seltzer before, I did not expect the violent amount of foam it spewed forth. Still, I pulled off a performance that had two groupings of students abandoning their dummies to try to save this dummy. The second surprise was how quickly they flipped me on my side, push an artificial airway down my nose, unzip flight suit, cut open my shirt, had an EKG hooked up, flashlight beams in my eyes, and a few other things. Finally, one of them realized the evaluators were just standing taking notes and asked, “Wait is this real or part of the test?” It was tough to smile, but I said, “I think you all might pass…”







280/283 – Recovering from my performance in the back, I chilled up behind the copilot as we flew in more circles chasing our shadow while the students were kept in the meat grinder for hours downstairs. The skills they showcased that day would be the difference between life and death on future missions.



















284 – Final exam for myself as well. It isn’t every day that the job title changes. Today it went from, what I absolutely loved doing, a C-17 Aircraft Maintenance Flightline Avionics Craftsman, to what I know I want to do as a full time C-17 Flying Crew Chief. The last two years with these 13 trips was a part time position to get the feel, learn new tricks, go to the school house down at Charleston, sit through a stump the dummy knowledge board, be recommended by the operations group, and the behind the scenes help from everyone that wore a flight suit before me, to say I can make the jump to the varsity team. I am quite thankful for it on this Thanksgiving weekend. Now it is time to pull them belts up tight and boogity boogity boogity lets go flyin’ full time boys!

 

If you get a chance, head down to the Dulles exchange of the Air and Space museum. A LOT more to see. Here is the one pic of just some of what they have.

 

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