This is a critical mission for the Hawaii wing, they are tasked with being ready to launch within 1 hour of being alerted and according to an article on the Civil Air Patrol media site, they were able to meet that goal.  Hawaii Wing Commander Col. Roger Caires said “I am proud of our members, they again met the standard of being ready to launch within one hour.”

Hawaii News Now posted this article with a really good video of Civil Air Patrol crews in action.

As more information comes in regarding the Civil Air Patrol response, I will keep you updated.

The first stop on our tour was the Command Post/Base Ops.  We had a chance to speak to Captain Kevin Thorsell who is assisting in what the Air Force calls “Stage Management”.  Stage Management coordinates the aircrews flying out, alerting them, briefing them and launching them.  Since the relief operations started, the team at Charleston has launched more than 140 missions.  This is above and beyond their normal ops tempo for OIF OEF.  The kinds of things they are moving range anywhere from water and MRE’s to vehicles and people, as the Captain said, “…That’s what the C-17 does, we carry everything.”  Charleston’s primary aircraft is the C-17, and currently they are operating 15 jets in support of relief operations – at the peak, they were flying 25 jets at one time.  Charleston aircrews aren’t the only ones flying these missions, because of the significant increase in ops tempo, AMC has brought in crews from all over the country, one of Capt Thorsell’s jobs is to ensure that those crews have everything they need, and are taken care of when it comes to some of the creature comforts.  A typical day in the life of an aircrew assisting in this operation begins with the alert, at that point they get rolling and have 3 hours and 45 minutes to be wheels up.  Once they’re alerted, they will typically prepare for the day, including getting whatever food they need – they’ll arrive at the Command Post and start receiving their mission briefs.  This includes an intel and tactics brief and flight planning, from there they “step to the jet” and take off.  A typical day can last up to 16 hours, but they can last as long as 20 hours.  Crews have to have at least 15 hours of rest time before they are “legal for bravo”, legal for “bravo” means that they can be alerted anytime in a 72 hours period for launch on their next mission.  A normal crew consists of 2 pilots and 1 loadmaster, because of the longer duration of these missions they’re using augmented crews which consist of 3 pilots, 2 loadmasters, possibly a crew chief, and 2 Phoenix Raven security forces airmen.

Our next stop was the Air Terminal Operations Center (ATOC), which is located above the Aerial Port.  The Aerial Port (AP) is the hub for all cargo in and out of Charleston AFB.  The AP is responsible for in processing all cargo, sorting it, palletizing it, load planning, and loading it onto the aircraft.  Master Sergeant Michael Davis is the superintendent of the ATOC – this includes the load planning section and the ATOC itself.  Once of the things I was most curious about was how significant was the increase in ops tempo was for the AP and how they’ve handled it.  MSgt Davis explained, that the ops tempo has “really increased in general with the Haiti relief”.  Because most of the cargo is being picked up at other bases, the role of the ATOC has primarily been one of crew logistics support, making sure they have all the supplies they need for the missions.  Charleston has sent cargo downrange to support the relief operations as well – they have sent everything from medical supplies to water.  In fact, the primary cargo they are transporting to Haiti right now is water.

Overall the impression I got of the operations out of Charleston was good, they are very well organized and are working hard to provide support to the people of Haiti.  This is a great example of the Air Forces ability to have global reach, a capability that I think is critical to maintaining our Air Superiority, whether that means supporting combat operations, or providing critical resources in times of disaster.

I leave you with a shot of water on pallets to illustrate the types of loads they’re moving out of here.

The EMEDS system can be delivered to a site in 2 C-17 aircraft and can be deployed in a very short time. Currently, the Air Force has deployed a number of medical resources including a number of EMEDS teams and as of Sunday, has also deployed an EMEDS-plus-10, which has a 10 holding bed capacity. The concept of the EMEDS is to flow patients through the system quickly for stabilization for evacuation. Within the week, they will upgrade that to an EMEDS-25 system in order to accommodate even more patients.

The Col also indicated that Air Force medical staff will be assisting on board the USS Comfort. I asked the Col if they would be sending any of their personnel to assist directly in any of the native Haitian hospitals, he said:

“At this point in time, we don’t have any plans to do that. That doesn’t mean that we will not be partnering with those folks, based upon wherever we decide to place those assets. And we could certainly be working very closely, hand-in-hand, and possibly, wherever we set up operations, in bringing some of the Haitian medical folks into our facility and working with them. Again, taking lessons learned from Indonesia, what you’re suggesting is exactly what we wound up doing in Indonesia. We set up that operation right next to an established hospital that was still functioning.”

I asked the Col where patients were being evacuated to, he said:

“In terms of where the patients are moving to, that has covered a number of locations. A couple of the patients were originally moved out to Guantánamo. There have been some patients that have moved back to Miami. The request from the government of Haiti was to actually try and build a bridge to Miami. That is being looked at as a capability and a destination right now. Some of that, of course, will certainly depend upon where our civilian medical systems will be able to accommodate the receipt of an influx of patients, if a large number of patients do begin to move.”

Photo provided by DefenseMilitary.mil.  US Air Force (USAF) Technical Sergeant (TSGT) Dewaine Olson (left foreground), Medic, 43rd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron (AES), Pope Air Force Base (AFB), North Carolina (NC), and other 43rd AES personnel set-up their living area and work center at the Port-au-Prince International Airport (IAP), Port-au-Prince, Haiti (HTI), while participating in support of a multi-national peacekeeping operation.

The images captured by the Global Hawk are being compared to those captured during a bar camera mission that was executed this past June.  It’s important for aid workers on the ground to have relevant historical images to compare the current images to.  Most of the images captured yesterday were of what appear to be destroyed buildings.  The Col indicated that it’s difficult to see if some of the buildings in the images have been completely destroyed, even when comparing them to historical references.

The Global Hawk will launch again this morning and spend a total of 16 hours on station and will capture more than 1000 images of critical infrastructure.  The Col indicated that the use of Global Hawk in this manner is somewhat unprecedented, but the Air Force is committed to providing whatever resources are available and necessary to accomplish the mission.  The Col also mentioned that he assumed the Global Hawk would remain in it’s current role in Haiti until it was deemed no longer needed by the President.

As soon as the images captured by Global Hawk become available, I will post some of them here and post a link to the complete catalog.

UPDATE:
Here’s some of the first publicly available RQ-4 Images of Haiti:

An aerial view of earthquake victims gathering in a soccer field in Haiti from a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aircraft Jan. 14. Aerial images are providing U.S. military planners valuable situation awareness as they coordinate U.S. military support to the Haiti relief effort. (Release by U.S. Southern Command)

An aerial view of the damaged National Cathedral in Haiti from a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aircraft Jan. 14. Aerial images are providing U.S. military planners valuable situation awareness as they coordinate U.S. military support to the Haiti relief effort. (Release by U.S. Southern Command)

An aerial view of the damaged Presidential Palace in Haiti from a U.S. Air Force Global Hawk unmanned aircraft Jan. 14. Aerial images are providing U.S. military planners valuable situation awareness as they coordinate U.S. military support to the Haiti relief effort. (Release by U.S. Southern Command)

.

Any Future images can be found on the SOUTHCOM website in the photo gallery.

Another critical part of the overall relief effort is the transportation of all of the items necessary to support the ongoing relief operations.  Air Force Air Mobility Command is currently providing several of its C-17 and C-130 aircraft along with a number of its personnel to support this mission.  You can read all about the full effort of AMC and the 618th Tanker Airlift Control Center here.

Some other missions include:

• Deployment of Special Operations C-130′s
• Deployment of Special Operations Airman from Hulburt Field in Florida
• Deployment of C-17 aircraft from California

I’m currently working with AMC to see if I can get myself on a flight down there to cover the response first hand.  I will keep you updated as to my progress.  Also, for the latest updates on the USAF efforts to support the relief operation, I would follow @USAFPressDesk on Twitter.

One of the reasons I was so excited about this portion of my trip, besides another opportunity to fly in a C-130 (this was my first time in a “P” model) was this slide from the wing briefing I received earlier in the day:

“The Combat Shadow flies clandestine, or low visibility, single or multi-ship low-level air refueling missions for rescue or special operations helicopters, and infiltration, exfiltration, and resupply of rescue or special operations forces by airdrop or airland including politically sensitive or hostile territories”

In other words, these guys are some of the most bad-ass Hercules drivers there are.  Think: low, fast, in the dark and potentially hostile.  Those are the kinds of missions they fly in support of CSAR (Personnel Recovery) operations.

My flight began, as most of my experiences have with the Air Force, with a briefing.  Now, I feel comfortable saying that I’ve seen my share of briefings.  Between my trip to fly with the Hurricane Hunters and all of my time in the Civil Air Patrol, I’ve seen all kinds.  I have never been more impressed or interested in a briefing in my life – these guys are 100% professional and probably the most buttoned up I’ve ever had the “pleasure” of experiencing.  There clearly was an agenda, and the entire thing had a flow and pace that I hadn’t experienced before.  Each section of the flight crew gave their portion of the brief and everything had been written out on the white board before we got started.  They briefed on every aspect of the flight, who should be where when and any additional safety considerations.  The Lt Col who ran the briefing conducted it as if he was conducting a major symphony orchestra.  Needless to say I was so impressed, that the briefing has been the one story I have told everyone that I’ve talked to about this trip.

That’s not to say that the flight wasn’t exciting – quite the contrary – it was one of the most exciting flights I’ve ever been on and that’s saying a lot after my limited acro experience with the Lima Lima Flight Demonstration Team this summer.  Like I said: low, fast and in the dark.

We launched after dark, the in aircraft safety briefing included some talk about air sickness and distribution of sick sacks.  I’ve never been air sick before and I didn’t get sick this time, but it always give me pause.  Anyway, we were briefed on where we should be when and who would give us the thumbs up when we were cleared to move around the aircraft.  I was issued a set of training NVG to use for myself and I was actually able to get some interesting iPhone shots using them.

After our first take off, we circled out over the bay for a while to let some inbound traffic headed into Moffett Field land.  Once they were on the ground, we began our fist low level 10 mile final.  I was given the chance to experience this first landing from the flight deck.  This was pretty exciting, I got to experience the landing via the FLiR display that was immediately to my right.  It was one of the most flawlessly executed C-130 landings I’ve ever experienced – and it was lights out via NVG.  Once we were on the ground, the flight crew in the cargo area did the first of a few infiltrations of the Pararescue Jumper on the 4-wheeler.  I didn’t get to see this one as I was still on the flight deck waiting for the takeoff.  One thing I noticed about the takeoff compared to my flight with the Hurricane Hunters was, with the HH’s I felt like we took off in a lot shorter time and with a more significant climb rate than this particular flight, but I could be wrong based on the fact that it was night and not as easy to see the angles – it just didn’t feel like the “bat out of hell” take off I had experienced before.

Once we were in flight again, I made my way back to the cargo area.  We were already inbound for a landing to pick up our PJ.  I got to see the entire process in reverse basically.  We landed, one of the loadmasters made his way down the ramp to signal to the PJ that we were ready for him.  This whole process was a lot less exciting than I had anticipated – in fact it was better that way – methodical and well thought out, not “movie action” style like I had imagined.  The PJ approached the ramp in reverse and was guided in by the loadmaster – slowly.  Somehow in my head I imagined him racing in and coming to a screeching halt as we rolled down the runway just about ready to lift off.  Thanks for that Hollywood.  I guess what I learned from this is that safety is king in everything these guys do – everything is done with a sense of urgency and importance, but never at the expense of safety, I’m assuming this is even more so in a training environment.

Once we had loaded the PJ and 4-wheeler and it was secured, we began our take off roll again.  We climbed out, circled around, and did the whole dance again – we land, the loadmasters lower the ramps, the PJ rolls out of the cargo area, he signals when he’s clear, the loadmasters stow the ramps and we take off again.  We did this a couple more times and finally we left the PJ behind for some general night flight training.  This included a number of additional approaches and some general low and fast nap-of-the-earth flying.

Unfortunately our flight was cut somewhat short due to an equipment issue, but overall, I have never had the opportunity to fly with a more professional group of pilots and crew.

One interesting side note: we had a bird strike in flight (I’ve added the picture below), I didn’t knwo this at the time, but the take a sample of the “material” and send it to the Smithsonian for analysis.  Very cool.

Next week I’m going to tell you all about my time with the 131st Rescue Squadron – the Pararescuemen of the 129th Rescue Wing.

Because I learned so much about each of these units, I’m going to break each one into a separate post, beginning with the 130th Rescue Squadron and my flight on the MC-130P.  I’ll be adding a new post each week beginning today.

Have you had an experience with any of these units?  Have you had a chance to fly in a C-130 of any kind?  Leave your story in the comments.

As a part of my effort to showcase the efforts of units like this one, I will be visiting the 129th Rescue Squadron this November.

Check out the article over at Danger Room.

A little background on the General, he has over 5,400 total flight hours and more than 800 combat hours.  He’s flown a countless number of airframes including the F-111, the F-15C and E, and the F-117.  General Feest holds a number of claims to aviation fame, he is the first person to ever reach 1,000 hours in the F-117 and the first person to fly that aircraft into combat.  He is also purported to hold the most combat hours in the F-117 (more than 130 hours) having been the first person in Desert Storm to drop a bomb in Iraq from an F-117.

I had the opportunity to speak with the General on the Friday before the Air and Water show.  I wanted to know what he thought of the discontinuation of the F-22 program.  He was solidly in the camp that the discontinuation of the program will put us in the position of having to “make do” with what we have.  The General said:

“You’ve heard many people say, ‘more is better’, I tend to agree.  Because right now, out of those aircraft that we have, many are for training, many are for testing.  When you take those aircraft out of the mix and then you take the ones that are down for maintenance, it doesn’t leave enough to fight maybe two major conflicts, or even one.”

I then asked the General to address how this might effect the Air Sovereignty Alert mission. He didn’t feel that it would have much effect on that mission mainly because the fleet of F-16′s is still viable and will be well into 2020′s based on the later blocks of aircraft.  As to the recent assertion that the Air Force should consider looking at the F-18 he said:

“We’ve not trained in the F-18, it’s a Navy Aircraft.  It would take a lot of effort to transition into that because we don’t have the supply lines, the depots.  We have nothing setup in the Air force for the F-18, so I’m not sure that would be the right decision, but I’m sure our senior leaders will come to some kind of decision to keep the guard viable because as everybody knows, we need them.”

I wanted to find out more about the F-35 training program.  One of the key issues with and aircraft like this is the fact that it’s a single seat aircraft, this makes training a little bit more complicated.  I asked the General how they plan to address this issue:

“Our main task will be training brand new UPT graduates, SUPT graduates, putting them in the Joint Strike fighter as we had to do for the F-22.  The key there will be a great simulator because these aircraft are single seat, so there first flight is solo.  We have to make sure that the students have experienced a high “G” environment, so we have to make sure we give them some kind of training in high “G’s” with an instructor in the airplane before we send them out by themselves.”

I asked the General about the recent retirement of the last remaining T-37 aircraft and what they were looking at for future training aircraft:

“Two weeks ago we retired the last T-37′s, they left Sheppard Air Force Base, so now all of our pilot training bases have T-6′s.  The T-6 is much more advanced than the T-37.  The T-37 did it’s job well but now we have a glass cockpit and more advanced avionics in the T-6.  From there in pilot training we have different tracks, the T-1 track for heavy aircraft pilots, the helicopter track and we have the T-38 track. The T-38 has been upgraded to the “C” model, so it also has a glass cockpit with GPS and it has a HUD and it has more advanced avionics than the original 38.  So a great platform as well to get these future 5th generation pilots ready for their fighters.  Now, the T-38 is getting old, it will retire by 2018 we think, without any repairs done to it – or any modifications – we are putting new ejection seats in them still.”

He went on to explain the new T-X program:

“Our plan is to get a new ‘T-X’ trainer aircraft by 2018.  It’s called the T-X, right now the AOA, Analysis of Alternatives is being done to determine what requirements we need in that aircraft because we’re going to have to look at requirements and look at cost and see what we can get.  The T-1 is set to retire in 2025, I think in today’s environment with the economy and the budgets we have we probably will not be able to get 2 replacement trainer aircraft, so I think what we set for the requirements for the T-X, it will need to do both.  Then we can look at how we do pilot training when we get that aircraft.”

He went on to say that his boss General Lorenz has made it the highest priority to move up the T-X program in order to ensure that the aircraft is in place by 2018.  A specific airframe for this program has not been selected, 2 RFI’s have gone out to contractors – once that process is complete, and RFP will be issued and they’ll see what’s available.  Ultimately the selection will be based of course in their requirements and ultimately where the budget dollars fall.  One of the features they’re looking for is in air refueling, this isn’t a make or break option, but it is something they’re looking for.  The T-38 is a supersonic training platform, the General indicated that if supersonic comes in at a cost that they can afford, of course they’ll take it, but it may be something that’s given up for something more advantageous like synthetic radar for example.

A controversial subject among pilots in the Air Force and Pilots in general, is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV.  It’s been the subject of some interesting cartoons and even a song by the band Dos Gringos.  I asked the General his opinion on the UAV as a platform, speaking as a pilot with more than 5,400 hundred flight hours:

“First of all, I think it’s the wave of the future and some people say, well, pilots are going to go away – maybe – many many years from now.  I don’t think I’ll see it in my lifetime, it may happen, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  If we can send a drone or UAV or UAS into a high threat environment, and I’ve been in them with the 117, I would rather do that than risk somebody’s life.  The pilots are there for different reasons, we need pilots in aircraft to make decisions when there’s emergencies.  Obviously being there looking down at a troops in contact situation, let’s say in Iraq right now, it’s much easier when there’s a pilot actually at the controls looking down seeing what’s going on, not looking through a soda straw type of thing to see that ‘Hey there’s friendlies over here, I may not want to drop this weapon over here, I want to wait till they get out of the way.’ things like that. So it’s all going to be based on the scenarios, but I think the UAS system is here to stay, I mean I’m glad it’s here to stay.”

We went on to discuss the training of UAS pilots and Sensor Operators.  They’re standing up the Sensor Operator Training at Randolph Air Force Base starting in October.  I’m hoping to get down to Randolph in December to showcase this training.  The General felt that the younger generation of potential Air Force pilots were excited to be a part of the UAS program:

“In a room of 100, when I asked them who would like to fly the UAS, half the people raised their hand.”

This was very surprising to me, almost all of the future Air Force Pilots I have spoken to have been sharply against flying the UAV, one even saying he would rather not be a pilot if he was put into a UAS slot.  Right now, they’re taking 100 SUPT graduates a year and putting them into the UAS program – specifically the Predator.  I asked the General to address the fact that the Army flies it’s UAS systems using enlisted people, while the Air Force continues to use officers:

“Our doctrine is different, our mission is different.  If you look at the airspace we control, we send the UAS systems out much farther, I think the training is different for us, whereas the Army is there to protect the BCT’s, Brigade Combat Teams.  So what they’re doing with there’s is a different mission.  I’m not saying in the future, I think it would be a great idea to merge some of this training. It should be joint, I mean the Navy is doing the same thing and so are the Marines.”

I asked the General about how technology has impacted the Pilot Training Program recently and he addressed a very interesting example:

“The C-17 pilots to 43 sorties in the sim and they get to go out and fly one ride and then get their checkride.”

So essentially you have a pilot who’s spent the majority of his time in the airframe having never left the ground.  AMC, the “customer” for this training, says they’re very pleased with the results they’re seeing.  The cost savings based on fuel alone has got to be huge.

I got to spend quite a bit of time with General Feest, one of the things that struck me about him was his very down to earth nature.  I’ve met a number of flag officers in my time and more than my share of fighter pilots, at no time did the General ever come off as anything other than a regular guy from Wisconsin.  He made a point to say that he was so happy to see the level of support that the nation is providing to our troops and how valuable that really is to them.