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Moving on in My Love Affair with the C-130H

Me preparing to drop supplies as part of Operation Christmas Drop.

Today is a very bittersweet day for me. After 7 years in the active duty Air Force, today is my last day on active duty.

It has been an incredible ride of ups and downs all over the world.  I have met many of the greatest people I have ever known in this time.  I have been mentored and taught by great minds who had so much to share and were willing to take me under their wing to help me become a better officer, aviator, and man.

I have witnessed the selfless sacrifices of countless other military members, and often the more difficult sacrifices of those we leave behind who keep life going while we go to serve others.  It is an awe-inspiring site to take part in actions that serve thousands of people all over the world who are in dire need of help.

The C-130 is a military plane, but the greatest work that it takes part in is the humanitarian missions it performs.  There is no other plane that can get into the places we can and provide the services we do.  It is a strange feeling to watch natural disasters play out in anticipation of the opportunity to go and help those people.

While it breaks my heart to see the last C-130Hs leave active duty this week, I am equally rejuvenated by the fact that I am starting the next chapter of my career as a member of the 192nd Airlift Squadron in the Nevada Air National Guard.  I do find it quite poetic that on the same day that the last C-130H will leave active duty I will also separate from active duty and move to the National Guard.

Swearing in as a member of the Nevada Air National Guard.

As I drove onto the base for the first time today it was a little surreal to me to think that I will stay here in Reno for the remainder of my career.  No matter how weird it may have felt, when I looked out on the ramp and saw their beautiful C-130Hs I felt right at home.

The awesome thing about the two planes I could see from the parking lot is that they are the MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System) birds that are utilized for fighting forest fires all over the country.  This struck me even more with the fires that ripped through California this past week, not too far from where we live.  They are easy to distinguish if you ever see these planes because of the huge orange numbers on the sides of them.

I am incredibly excited to take part in this new mission set to help fight fires, and hopefully prevent as much damage as possible.  I hate to sound like a broken record, but there is something special about being a part of missions that help people in trouble.

Preparing to fly in the Advanced Mountain Airlift Tactics School.

This is not my first time flying in the Reno area as I took part in the Advanced Mountain Airlift Tactics School shortly before I went to Japan.  I actually wrote about it back then if you would like to learn more.  Suffice it to say that it was the most useful flying course I have been through in the C-130 and provided tremendous insights into the intricacies of mountain flying.  Becoming an instructor for that course is just one more thing that I am looking forward to in my new adventure.

One reason I haven’t written much on here for the last year is because I just wasn’t flying much, and the flying we were doing was not really exciting.  While not every flight is meant to be fun and exciting, I am so looking forward to getting back to the flying that made me love the C-130.  Flying in the amazing Sierra Nevadas in some legit mountains is going to provide some great pictures and videos that I look forward to sharing with you in the coming months and years.

Thank you for the support over the years, and please come back to see more about my exciting new adventures.

October 15, 2017 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

A New Year, Some of the Same Thoughts

I’m not really sure where I am going with this post, but I find that sometimes just writing about the things that are on my mind can help me come up with solutions, or at least help me to feel more comfortable with my decisions.

I am at the point in my flying career where a change of some sort must happen and I have some mixed feelings about which direction that I want to go.  It doesn’t matter if you fly in the civilian wold or in the military, change is just a part of the industry, and as technology improves, sometimes we are forced into change whether we want it or not.

In my case The C-130H is finally being entirely replaced by the C-130J in the Active Duty Air Force.  I had previously thought my time in the Herk was going to be over a couple of years ago, but as luck would have it, I got almost another two years, and some of the most incredible experiences I have ever had in my life.  Unfortunately, the end is officially here, and I have to make some changes.

The Air Force is more than happy to retrain me into a new airframe, or more likely just another version of the C-130, but that would most likely mean a move to the Special Operations community, and that is just not the right place for me and my family situation.  The other options leave me in essentially the same position again in a few years as they phase out their navigators, and would ultimately lead to every aviators’ worst nightmare, flying a desk.  There is one opportunity that would keep me on the beloved Herk, and on active duty, but unfortunately bureaucracy has made that not an option.

That leads me to the path that I am likely to take at this point.  The National Guard and Air Force Reserves are still chock full of H-models, and every unit in the country, except maybe Texas, is hurting for experienced Navigators.  After much deliberation with my wife and some trusted advisers, I have come to essentially the same conclusion that Rob Burgon over at TallyOne did as he reached a similar transition point.

Moving to the National Guard allows me to keep flying the plane that I love while also being able to put my family, and our future, first.  If I am being honest though, I can’t help but wonder what opportunities I am leaving behind by making this switch.  There is obviously no way of knowing what the future down either path would bring, but it is in my nature to wonder what could happen.

As I write this, I find myself feeling more and more certain that making the switch is the right move, and that it will pay the greatest dividends in the long run.  I wish I had more to say in terms of certainty and knowing that the whole thing is going to work out as I would like, but then that would not be military life would it?

If I had anything to pass along to others who may be in some sort of similar situation I would say stick with your heart and don’t be afraid to pursue a path that is different from what you intended or that others expect of you.  Listen to those that have gone before and take into account as much information as you can, but at the end of the day you will find happiness doing what you love and are passionate about.

January 1, 2017 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.

The Final Flight of a C-130H: The End of an Era

Tail #2070 served her country well for over 40 years.

Tail #2070 served her country well for over 40 years.

I had a bit of an interesting experience this week that I don’t think most people ever really get.  I had the opportunity to be a part of the crew that took a plane on its very last flight.  With the development of the C-130J it is quickly replacing the older, and better, C-130H.  Yeah, I know, I’m biased.

Many of the older planes have gone to National Guard units around the country to finish out their service lives.  However, there are a couple of planes that have finished their flying lives and need to be taken to their final resting place.

The disappointing part was that none of us knew this was the planes’ last flight, or fini flight, as we like to call them.  Had we known I would have come prepared with my good camera and not left you with these weak images from my phone, but I did what I could.

It really was an honor for me to crew this plane on its last mission.  That aircraft served for 40 years in all corners of the globe performing an incredible variety of missions.  I don’t know any specifics, but it is reasonable to assume that it carried Soldiers and Marines to critical missions that brought freedom to people in all different countries.  It likely carried young men and women that were injured in battle to a hospital that saved their lives.

In the case of those that weren’t so lucky, it likely performed that most sacred mission of returning them to their loved ones draped in the colors that they sacrificed everything for.

This tail flash will never fly through the air again, but her legacy will live on in the hearts of those who flew her.

This tail flash will never fly through the air again, but her legacy will live on in the hearts of those who flew her.

It hurts my soul a little to think about these great pieces of machinery having their careers come to an end, but they served their country well, and in the case of this plane, tail #2070, it will continue to serve on the ground for another couple of years.  You see, we passed it off to one of the Air Force’s test and evaluation squadrons where it will aid in developing various different products and processes that will make the planes still flying safer and more effective.

It really made me stop and think about how cool my job is.  I fly a historic plane that has served our country, and many others, for 60 years now.  I get paid to fly in the footsteps of real heroes.  It is truly a privilege to try in some small way to carry on the heritage that they left us with.

While most people will never have the opportunity that I did, nor will I likely ever do it again, we all have the opportunity to keep their heritage alive by visiting aviation museums, and by listening to the stories of those who flew these amazing aircraft.  Most of us have at least a little bit of aviation history in our own backyards if we only look.

I would encourage you to look around and see what you might find, and please share it with the rest of us because that is the only real way to keep aviation history alive.

October 29, 2014 I Written By

I'm Dave and I am a proud Avgeek. It goes way beyond liking airplanes. It is a passion that cannot be subdued.