And his skill matched his knowledge. He had once been dispatched to fly to the large regional air show in Birmingham, his mission being to place the jet on public display. Arriving at the show site, he put the big Starlifter through such a graceful suite of maneuvers that the air show officials marveled and awarded him the esteemed arrival show trophy. Incredibly, he had outshone some of the world's newest and most sophisticated fighter planes.
To Tom the brotherhood of fliers is not all-inclusive. He cares little for those who settle for mediocrity or less than absolute dedication to the profession. He's especially disdainful of those who use wings purely for monetary or political gain. Those people are like putrid smoke in the pilot lounge, driving him out into the purity of the flight line.
I tell the crew to hold the bus while I greet Tom. He is inbound and I'm outbound. There's not much time, but we catch up with one another as best we can, and he is eager to tell me about the mission to Riyadh he flew a few days back. It seems that Tom's devotion to the brotherhood was severely tested on that trip. He faced what might have been a dilemma for some of us but not so for Tom. Fellow pilots were in trouble. He knew what to do.
The airlift control element (ALCE) staff were people under tremendous daily pressure. The flow of the huge jets was unceasing. The ALCE controllers had to see that the jets were parked, unloaded, serviced, fixed if they were broken, and turned back uprange as soon as possible. They worked twelve-hour shifts, around the clock. They were blamed by their superiors when things didn't flow well and were subjected to the grumbling of aircrews when servicing went afoul. Few people envisioned an airlift operation of this magnitude. There was not enough forethought, knowledge, or hardware to handle this smoothly. Mindsets were not prepared for it. The controllers had to innovate and experiment. When they guessed wrong or miscalculated, they caught flack. Nerves were strained to the limit, and as the months went by, the fatigue, the endlessness of the operation, and broken promises of relief brought on despair. Of all the people in the Persian Gulf operation, none were driven so severely and continuously as those who anchored the receiving end of history's greatest air logistical tail.
And there was no outlet for their tensions and frustrations. There was no officer's club or NCO club at which to unwind. There was nothing to do or see around town. Indeed, much of the time people were restricted to the installation. It was a lousy existence, especially for fliers, which is what they were. The ALCE jobs required pilots, loadmasters, and engineerspeople who wanted desperately to be doing what we were doing.
The commander of the Riyadh ALCE had found two of his pilots drunk, or at least he suspected that they had been drinking. Alcohol is illegal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and our military leaders had declared that U.S. forces would honor the host country's laws. Officially, booze was taboo. Many commanders looked the other way, but some took the policy seriously
It wasn't clear where the guys had procured the booze. They certainly couldn't buy it in Saudi Arabia or on the military base. But occasionally aircrews coming down from Europe would carelessly put a six-pack of beer or a bottle of some sort of firewater into the aircraft's cooler. I know this happened again and again with my crews, and I had to severely discipline them for being so negligent. I considered it my duty to inform the ALCE discreetly when I found alcoholic contraband on my aircraft so that it could be properly confiscated. And I always marveled at how such disclosures seemed to result in quick fuel service. Still, it was possibly from such stocks that the two pilots had chosen to release their tensions.
Tom knew nothing of the circumstances. Maybe the men had been drunk on duty, or maybe they had been caught having a casual one in their tent. But it was clear that they were being made an example of. Upon his arrival, a colonel had presented Tom with two ampoules of blood and ordered him to take them back to Germany for analysis of alcohol content. The colonel had made arrangements for a medic to meet the aircraft. Tom signed for the samples and assured the colonel that he would deliver them expediently
The unloading and fueling completed, Tom and his crew started up and departed for the long trip back uprange to Germany. After climb-out he asked if anyone on the crew had any experience in the care and handling of biological specimens, but no one had had any such instruction in the course of their training. Tom reasoned that since humans are warm-blooded creatures, then blood samples must naturally be kept warmwho could argue with such a deduction? So he placed the tubes on his glare shield, where the intense high-altitude sun could keep the blood fresh. But soon night fell across the skyscape and Tom began to worry that the blood would become chilled. He then ordered that the oven in the plane's galley be warmed up to about 300 degrees and placed the tubes therein for the duration of the long trip.
The medic waited as the plane blocked in at the German base, and Tom presented him with the two ampoules full of a baked brown crusty crud. He shrugged at the puzzled medic's proclamation that the samples were useless. He had done his best. And of course he had. He had, in fact, succeeded. The careers of two brothers had been saved. It was no big deal to Tom, just a simple act of loyalty
Twelve.
Herculean Dreams
We are waiting for takeoff clearance at an airfield in the tiny United Arab Emirates. We have delivered several tons of fresh vegetables, air conditioners, aircraft parts, and mail to the C-130 unit based here. This place is a long way from Kuwait, but I guess the fighters, with their much shorter endurance, get priority on the closer bases. The C-130s here are flying a few intratheater airlift hauls and some training flights. But mostly they wait. I'm exceedingly glad that my stay in this place has only been two hours. Yet I'm envious of these guys in a way that only those who have flown the '130 can know.
I've grown to love this old jet I'm strapped to. I didn't at first. It was the biggest thing I had ever flown, and its vastness intimidated me. But with airplanes, familiarity breeds affection, not contempt. And as a seasoned colonel once counseled me, "Son, whatever airplane you're flying is a good airplane." Translated, I believe that means "Do not covet another pilot's plane, but delight in what you have been given." Makes sense.
But as I watch the flight of three C-130s glide overhead and pitch out, fighterlike, I remember what it was like. And I'm not alone in such musings. All of us who flew itpilots, flight engineers, loadmasters, allremember the happy times we had in the Herc.
It seemed big then. Certainly anyone standing near it wouldn't regard it as small. But the most striking feature of the '130 is its props. Each of the four turboprop engines spins a propeller with four broad paddles. The ponderous props are governed to spin at the same rpm, regardless of whether flying or just sitting on the ground. Only the pitchthe "bite" of air taken by the bladeschanges. This results in the curious propensity of the '130 to be noisier just sitting on the ground at idle power than when flying. You can hear the distinctive drone of a '130 across a great distance, and sweet music it is. But when the noise ceases, the pilots have either shut down or advanced the power to takeoff.