Mass CDS

Our mission today was to go do an airdrop; this was what we were waiting for! Doing what the C-130 does best, throwing junk out the back! As we taxied for takeoff we got a call that we needed to divert to Salerno and pick up another fallen solider. When we landed it looked like most everyone on the base made their way to watch us upload and take off. It was again a very humbling sight to see everyone saluting our plane as we lifted off in front of them from this tiny gravel strip in the middle of a war zone.

When we arrived a little behind schedule because of our extra stop everyone was there to help get us loaded for our drop. We were dropping 16 CDS bundles, it’s little things that just slide out the back and have a chute on them. 16 is the most that we can drop at once so it was a full load.



Half of the CDS is loaded


Rob and Dan hard at work as I walk around and take pictures =)


24,000 lbs of fuel ready to go

This was one of the highlights of our trip. It’s not often that we really get to do what it is that we train to do but here we were being called up to fly into so strange crazy place on NVGs (night vision goggles) and drop off needed supplies. Nothing felt better then hearing the strike report “PI” Now I don’t know if the drop really was a PI (point of impact, meaning that we put the stuff within 25 yards of where they wanted it) or not but when the dude on the ground is happy with how I gave him his stuff I am happy that I got it to him!

Because of some delays in getting the drop off with our extra first stop we ended up cutting the last stop of our day because of time. We were supposed to go back to pick up that Humvee that we did not get yesterday.