Deployment by the numbers

So anyone who knows me knows that I like numbers. I like math, I think in terms of numbers, and one way that I like to sum up things I've done or experiences I've had is with numbers. So, now that it's over, here is my 2014 MC-12 deployment to Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan, by the numbers.

Number of days between when I left and returned to California: 190
Number of hours between when our flight left Baltimore and arrived in Bagram: 93
Number of flight hours from Sacramento to Bagram: 23
Number of meals eaten at the DFAC: 230
Number of miles walked to and from work: 147.7
Number of workouts: 203
Number of IDFs: 43
Number of weather recalls: 7
Number of sorties cancelled for weather: 12
Number of days spent working the scheduling desk: 33
Number of MCs flown with: 30
Number of sensors flown with: 31
Number of TSOs flown with: 25
Number of diverts: 1 (to Kabul)
Number of EPs: 1 (pressurization failure)
Number of new books I read: 26
Number of combat sorties: 103
Number of combat hours: 476.7
Number of tails (different MC-12 aircraft) flown: 21
Number of countries visited: 13 (Germany, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Greece, Italy, England, Iceland, Greenland, Canada)
Number of legs in the ferry flight back: 14
Number of hours on ferry flight back: 47.2

Overall the delpoyment was a great experience. I flew a lot, I learned a lot, I grew and changed a lot, and most importantly I met some incredible people. It feels quite strange being home but I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone back here.

I do want to take a moment to thank everyone for your support, your thoughts, your packages, your messages, and your prayers. They meant the world to me and I would not have made it through the deployment without them.

Ferry flight from BAF to BAFB-- Days 8-11

DAY 8-9: 11-12 July

I got up early and went for a run through Goose Bay. It was so nice running outside where I didn’t have to worry about the dust and toxins that I was breathing into my lungs. I ran along a nice gravel path through the woods and it was glorious. We then headed back to the airport to get headed to Portsmouth. We flew “push it up” speed because we had loads of extra fuel so we made it to Portsmouth pretty quickly. I flew a visual approach over beautiful New England landscape and we landed and arrived at our hotel with no issues. The hotel was great and they had a table reserved in their eating area, pitchers of beer, and food for us. We sat for a few hours there and planned to head out to the recommended restaurant in town but by the time everyone went upstairs to change and get ready to go, we were all so exhausted that everyone passed out without fail!

We're flying over AMERICA!!

The next morning was an off day and because of all the traveling and time zone changes, I woke up around 4 am. I spent most of the day lounging around the hotel, got in a workout, got my phone working again so I was able to talk to a couple people, talked to Dan and Eric back in Afghanistan, and just generally chilled out. In the evening I met Jay, Brent, and Gobbo at the Thirsty Moose, a recommended restaurant that had about 100 beers on tap. I had a really good Belgian beer that was stored in bourbon barrels so it had that whiskey taste to it (and a resultant super high alcohol content) which was really good, as well as a pizza, also good, but we called it a night pretty early to get back and get some good sleep before a long day the following day.

Portsmouth, NH

DAY 10: 12 July

Our last two-hop day started out questionably as there was a line of thunderstorms stretching from Colorado to about Ohio, and our route of flight took us directly along that line of storms. Based on the weather forecast we hoped to get to Scott, quick turn, and get out before the worst of the weather reach there, and by doing that, we would arrive in Colorado after the worst of the weather had passed through.

It was a tight plan but as we started flying the weather turned out to be better than anticipated. We had to dodge storms along the route but getting into Scott was pretty easy and the weather allowed for a visual approach.

We were on the ground for only about 1.5 hours in Scott and we quickly took off again to Colorado. We were fighting headwinds the entire way, as well as dodging more storms, and we were greeted to a typical Colorado summer afternoon with large thunderstorms in the area but we were able to avoid all of them and get down on the ground. We ate dinner at the restaurant attached to out hotel and went to sleep, everyone ready to get home the following day.

Thunderstorms across the midwest

Welcome to Colorado

Peterson AFB

DAY 11: 13 July

Getting out of Colorado proved to be a slight problem. Because of the terrain in the area, we are only able to take off to the South, but due to winds, the airport was using the north facing runways. We had to argue with the controllers to allow us to depart opposite direction and they were remarkably unhelpful! But once we got off the ground it was a pretty easy flight to Beale. We were greated on the ramp by members of our squadron, family, friends, and beer. Bri and I then went to workout, she drove me home, and we met up with Jose to have some beer and pizza at Chicago Fire in Sac. All in all, an incredible journey, a great trip, and I’m so thankful to be home.

LAST DAY!!!

Flying over the Sierra Nevadas

And there's Beale

Reunited with the roommate, but with beer in hand this time!

The trip!

Ferry flight from BAF to BAFB-- Days 4-7

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DAY 4-5 : 7-8 July

We woke up in Sigonella and after taking off past the beautiful Mt Etna we continued our way across the Med towards England. We flew over Italy, France, and across the Channel, flying over the White Cliffs. Upon arrival in Mildenhall I ditched the group and went to meet up with Soupy, Kim, and Liss in London. There was a bit of a debacle with my rail tickets because the station in Ely didn’t accept American credit cards and my new debit card is still in California. So I had to get off the train in Cambridge, purchase tickets, then get back on the train. Thankfully I met Kim at Kings Cross far too easily and we made our way to a pub near where Soupy works to catch up a bit before Soupy and Liss met us after they got off work. 

Mt Etna on the departure

Etna and the coastline

Southeast coast of England

It was so amazing to catch up with them. Its always such a blessing when you haven’t seen someone for a long time and yet, after being together for about 5 minutes, you immediately feel like you were never apart. I stayed with Soupy and Liss at their place in Brixton overnight and in the morning I headed back to the train station to catch a train to Cambridge to meet up with Anthony and Becca.

I wandered around the city a bit while waiting for them and I was struck by how similar Oxford and Cambridge are. You would have a hard time differentiating them if you didn’t know them particularly well. Of course Oxford is abundantly superiour, but it was nice to get to see a bit of Cambridge. I met up with Anthony and Becca and we got to catch up while eating at the Anchor, the Cambridge equivalent of the Head of the River. We then walked along the Cam to Anthony and Ben’s place and hung out a bit before Anthony brought me back to base to prep for the next day’s flight. I worked out, watched Brazil get absolutely torn apart by Germany, studied the oceanic crossing procedures for our next few flights, talked to some Bagram folks, and then called it a night.

Kings College, Cambridge

Cambridge

DAY 6: 9 July

After looking at our fuel plans and timing estimates, we decided to skip the leg from Mildenhall to Prestwick and just continue straight through to Iceland. Its good that we did because of snafus with our flight plan we were delayed for 2 hours on the ground at Mildenhall and we were all significantly on edge before we even took off. Once we got airborn we flew over the Scottish Hebrides and out towards Iceland. The other aircraft had some radio issues over the sea and it affected our ability to get clearances and whatnot, but we finally made it to Iceland, where we had to shoot the approach to mins and broke out of the weather only about 30 feet above the minimums.

It was cold, rainy, and windy but we walked about 10 minutes from our super nice hotel to a seafood restaurant right on the bay and enjoyed a really tasty dinner while watching the first half of Netherlands-Argentina. I barely made it through the second half and penalties before crashing and sleeping straight on through until it was time to wake up and head out towards Greenland and Canada.

Over the Hebrides

On the water in Iceland

DAY 7: 10 July

The flight from Iceland to Greenland was beautiful. The Greenland terrain was gorgeous and we would catch great glimpses of it through patchy white clouds the whole way. The terrain on the approach was really cool as well, and for much of the approach we were flying lower than the terrain within just a few miles of us. It was a good thing that we were VFR the whole time because knowing that stuff was around us and being in the weather would have been nerve-wracking.

Over Greenland

Glacial lakes in Greenland

On the ground in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland

We ate lunch in the café at the airport and before we headed off we had to come up with some contingencies because the weather forecast for Goose Bay (or next stop) was pretty bad but we were tight on fuel and therefore didn’t have a lot of good divert options. We came up with a plan and chose to press, but the weather turned out to be much better than anticipated and while we did have to dodge some thunderstorms once we got over the land we didn’t have any issues getting into Goose Bay.

However, when we did land in Goose Bay we discovered a bit of a problem. We had some stuff on the aircraft that we were told would be removed before we left Bagram but was still there. So that became a whole thing with loads of phone calls and conversations and figuring out what we were going to do with all that. After several hours on the ramp sorting that out we finally made it to our hotel. Except that we were taken to the wrong hotel where they didn’t have any rooms for us, so we had to get to the right hotel. It was a long and slightly stressful day but it was nice to know that when we landed the next  day we would be back in the US!

When we landed in Canada

And 5 minutes later as the weather rolled in

Ferry flight from BAF to BAFB--Days 1-3

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DAY 1: 4 July

After a few days of adjusting my schedule about 12 hours and readying/studying/learning how to fly an aircraft in a location other than California or Afghanistan, I reported to the squadron for an early morning departure for our trip home. We left on the 4^th of July and the prospect of ending the day outside of Afghanistan made it feel like Independence Day indeed. It started out inauspiciously with an aborted start resulting in a really high turbine temperature. We got that sorted and began the trip out of Bagram down to Kandahar. I was sitting back in the TSO seat for the first leg and it was strange flying out of Bagram as a passenger. I can’t say I was sad to see Bagram out the back window, but I definitely will miss all the people that I met on this deployment and I hope that our paths will cross again, but in a much better location and far better circumstances the next time around.

Last view of BAF out my window

BAF from the air

Our sister ship at KAF

 Our first leg to Kandahar was really easy and we landed at KAF to refuel and quickly turn the jet around to head off to Al Udied. In order to get to the Died we have to pass through parts of Pakistan and the Persian Gulf. There are loads of aircraft taking this route every day and it is done through a process of procedural control where there is a particular way to fly this route and, without any radar or ATC, every aircraft follows the same procedures and controls themselves. We jettisoned our flares over the gulf and then when we landed in Al Udied it was 45 deg Celsius. By the time we were ready to take off again it was all the way up to 50 degrees. How could you possible spend an extended amount of time in that horrible place...

Over the Persian Gulf

Flying into the Died

It was finally my turn to fly and so I took off from Al Udied for our last leg to Kuwait. The best part of the leg was hearing my Basic Training roommate Vicki on the radio. Her 135 was coming back in to Al Udied after her mission that day and it was great hearing her over the radio. The flight was smooth until we came in for landing. The field didn’t have any instrument approaches because all of the NAVAIDs were out and so we had to fly visual. That’s not much of a problem is you know the field and the area but they descended us to 5000’ AGL about 40 miles out and so we couldn’t see the field to save our lives. Finally there is a town on the approach corridor that you’re supposed to avoid overflying so we were swerving around on final to avoid that. Finally there was a cable on the runway that my MC couldn’t see so he was coaching me to land before it and I had to ignore him and land past where I knew the cable was despite what he was telling.

We got on the ground eventually and waited for our ride in the hot hot sun for quite a while. When it finally arrived it took us to lodging and after some disorganization we got our bedding, got into our tents, and made our way to chow. The chow hall was way nicer than the Bagram DFACs and it was a nice introduction back into the real world. Not quite there yet, but better. After dinner I went online and got to actually talk to Vicki and confirm it was indeed her, talked to a few other people, and then headed off to bed for an early morning wakeup and the next leg.

Tent City at Ali Al Salem

Ali al Salem

DAY 2: 5 July

An early wakeup in Kuwait was required to help beat the heat so we took off before the temp grew too high. Which was good because we were ready to get out of the Middle East. The approach into Jordan was pretty cool, with rising terrain in front of the airfield guiding use down and in for the landing. We didn’t stay on the ground too long because we needed to ensure that we fit into our launch window because getting clearance through Israel can apparently be a real problem.

We took off from Jordan and almost immediately crossed the border into the West Bank, flying past the Dead Sea to our south. We flew over Jerusalem and Tel Aviv and while I wasn’t talking on the radios throughout the leg my MC did allow me to steal the final radio call on Tel Aviv Center so that I could wish the controller “erev tov ve Shabbat shalom.” She was surprised to hear the American voice speaking Hebrew for sure.

Flying over the Dead Sea

We then got out of the Med and had a whole lot of blue between us and Crete. Once we got past all that water we flew along the north side of Crete with the island to our South. NAS Souda Bay is on the side of a large bay and the whole approach (for which there was no RADAR and no valid instrument approaches) was along the bay over the water. We didn’t come over land until about a mile final and it was an absolutely beautiful approach.

Approach into Crete

It took us a while to get everything sorted, change into civilian clothing (because we weren’t allowed offbase in uniform) and make our way down to Chania, the town in which we were staying. By the time we got there we were starving and we got a restaurant recommendation from the hotel staff and walked down to the Russian Port. We had a great dinner, I had lamb in tomato sauce with raisins and yogurt, and a nice Greek beer. It was a great “first meal” post deployment and the restaurant was really nice. After dinner we wandered around the port area then sat on the water for another drink before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Greek Orthodox Church in Chania

Venetian Port in Chania

Greek meal and first beer!

DAY 3: 6 July

Because we had a short leg today we took our time in the morning and had a few hours between when I woke up and when we needed to leave. I wandered down to the port and stumbled upon a Fort overlooking the water. The port area was earily quiet after the business of the night prior but that’s unsurprising due to it being a Sunday morning. Everyone was either hungover and inside, or in church, so the morning was quiet and I just wandered around exploring a bit. We had breakfast at the hotel before heading back to the base. We arrived to learn that our Flight Plan had been kicked back because of an error, and we corrected it but it got kicked back two or three more times because of silly little issues. When we finally got off the ground we flew, again over the water the whole way, into Sicily. We made the visual approach into Sigonella and had a bit of a “landing competition.” I put the aircraft down EXACTLY where the MC asked me to.

View overlooking Chania

View from Firkas Fortress

Lighthouse in the port

Terminal at Sigonella

View of Mt Etna

We again took the recommendation of the hotel concierge and were rewarded with an amazing Sicilian meal. It was a multi-course meal that was incredible! It began with bread and red wine, then the antipasti course had a bunch of unidentifiable but amazing choices. Next was a bruschetta platter, followed by some pasta in both alfredo and meat sauce. The next course was a plate of meat with some veal and sausage with potatoes. Finally the dessert arrived as a bowl of fresh fruit, including pears, plums, cherries, and apricots, and a plate of incredible canolis. We were all stuffed by the end but it was the first genuinely satisfying meal I’ve had in 6 months and the fact that it was eaten with Mt Etna in view was just the icing on the cake.

We got back to the hotel and after chatting with a bunch of people back to BAF and talking with Mom and Abba without ruining the surprise I went to sleep in an amazingly comfortable hotel bed. 

Rain, rain, go away

So over the past few days a massive storm rolled across Afghanistan, bringing thunderstorms, lightning, icing, low ceilings and visibility, and 3 days straight of rain. Around here, that causes some interesting drainage problems. The parts of base that are paved are done so extremely unevenly, and the rest is a combination of dirt, gravel, and golf ball sized rocks that cover the ground. So, the following photos are an example of what happens.... Welcome to Lake Bagram, I hope you brought your swimsuit!

However, when the sky actually clears, we do get some pretty beautiful sunrises...