We got to do a fun mission to Bala Morghab, with some Italians. It turns out that the area around Bala Morghab has quite a few bad guys, so we have to have gunship support to fly up there. In this case, since we're on an Italian and Spanish base, that means the gunships are Mangusta gunships, made by Augusta. They don't have very many so we have to wait occasionally for the Mangustas to be available. This time, the Italians had a Chinook helicopter that need to go up there too. So it was a 5 ship (or sheep, depending on your accent)...
We had 1000 kg's of ammo, 250 kg's of money, 500kg's of watermelons, 500 kg's of cakes, and some colonel and assorted passengers. We planned our loading of our two helicopters based on weight, one of them has 1000 kg of armor on it so we have to split up the weight differently, since one is so much heavier.
So in typical Afghan style...after we planned for a few hours, they totally blew off the plan and just started loading the birds...with complete disregard for the carefully laid out plan. Among our assorted passengers was a little boy and his grandfather. The little guy was from Bala Morghab and had been flown down to Herat for some medical reason...the Spanish hospital fixed him up so we were taking him home. This is crazy eyes and the little dude.
We loaded up melons and the money and taxied out to pick up our wingmen. Since the Afghans work from about 9:00 to 11:00 ...that's A.M to A.M., yes, two whole hours, our Afghan crew members did not attend the briefing with the Italians. The briefing where they told us they altitudes and airspeeds they were going to fly. We would be in the middle, with the Chinook out front and the Mangustas covering us from the back of the formation. It was awesome...English, Italian, Dari and some horribly broken Spanglish from the Spanish tower controller. What could possibly go wrong? Maybe the Italian Chinook could drag us around at 50 feet and about 50 knots....right next to the LZ (landing zone) where the bad guys are?...just the opposite of what he briefed? Nah....they wouldn't do that right? Then leaving the LZ...flying super slow away from the bad guys? Surely....they wouldn't do that? that'd be like giving them extra time to shoot at you!...um, okay, they did all that. It was awesome, Thank you! May I have another?!
The dust cloud blown up by the Chinook, call sign 'Elephant', going into the FOB
The Elephant (pronounced with an accent...'Ela FONT'...taking off, the other Mi-17 ready to follow.
There were hay bales between us and our wingman, and all around us....it dawned on me about 2 minutes after we'd landed and been sitting there on the ground...what a perfect place for 'Charlie' to be hiding! And pop out and start shooting! Fortunately, there are no VC over here in the 'Stan.
Just another observation...how come we leave the land of Army green camouflage back in the states and put on desert camo and flight suits...but we gave the Afghans the woodland green stuff? I haven't figured that out yet....or where they came up with the 30 minutes that makes them 10 hours 30 minutes ahead of New Mexico?
We had to land in a place called Qa'al-E Now (say 'call Eee Now') for gas, the Mangustas can't go very far on a tank of gas. We stopped on the way to Bala Morghab and the way back...of course on the way back, we had to stop and have lunch too. My favorite moment was watching the Italian crew chief smoking inside the Chinook while it was getting refueled...seemed to fit the rest of the clown show I'd seen.
Graydon and Ahktar share a special moment in the flower garden...the birds were chirping, the sun was out, perfect company, a great time to hold hands!
We landed just after this guy...it's kind of a sketchy neighborhood. You have be careful where you park. Before you know it, your jet is on blocks, missin' an engine and nose landing gear. The runway is a road when not in use by landing or take off traffic. Afghans ride their mopeds up and down it like it's the Bonneville Salt Flats, pinned in 5th on their little Caspien 150's (motorcycles) doing at least 43 miles an hour.
So all in all...it was a good time. The Italian Chinook driver and crew were a little suspect, even the Afghans could tell. But at least landing back home wasn't a total trainwreck, the Spanglish Tower controller kept telling us to report a 20 mile final...you know, tell him when we're 20 miles out for landing, after I'd already told him we were 10 miles out for landing. Even while holding at 100' in a left hand turn off the east side of the runway...at 1/4 of mile, almost out of gas, he told me to report a 20 mile final again. It was awesome...
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