Thursday, October 9, 2008

Riding in Style

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to post about my ride from LZ Tom to the farp. Well here it is...

100_1590 That would be a CH-47 Chinook. As you can imagine I was pretty excited about flying in this. Sure beats driving. This was my first flight in a military helicopter and it was actually very comfortable. It was about a two hour drive from LZ Tom but it only took us about 45 minutes to fly it.

100_1600  Here is me and my battle buddy, PFC Mackin. If you are wondering that's a farp helmet that he is wearing. You can hook that up to the helicopter and talk to the pilots.

 

100_1610  Here is the other aircraft hooking up to some fuel blivets so it can sling-load them to the farp.

 

 

 

100_1616 This is the crew chief of the Chinook I was in helping to hook up to the fuel blivets that our aircraft was sling loading. Yes, we were hovering at the time, yes he was wearing a harness so he wouldn't fall out, and no he didn't fly the whole way there like that.

100_1603 These are just some views out of the back of the Chinook.

 

 

 

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I think that is about it for the events of my field exercise. I have more stories from it but those are good for random posts.

7 comments:

Terri said...

Oh how cool. I love flying but not sure if there was an open area beneath me - even if I was harnessed in!

Heather said...

Wow! Looks like you had a great ride over to the farp! Mom would not have done well with the crew chief hanging out of the helicopter; she would have been telling him to get back into the helicopter and stay away from the edge!

Cheri said...

Terri just had a dream about us flying in helicopters- Arianna and I fell out!
You make sure if you are by that open area you stay harnessed- yes that's an order!!

Robert said...

I am SOOOO jealous!

Mari said...

Yes - I do have that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I look at some of those pictures. I don't like the guy hanging out of the helicopter and the idea of flying with the back open doesn't thrill me either!

Unknown said...

I knew it, I just knew you got to ride in the helicopter!! That must have been amazing!!! Love the pictures... Your mom is having a fit you know!! LOL

Laura said...

If you do ever have the job of hanging out - just don't post the pictures or tell Mom right?