Plane carrying Shelby and Cramer fired on above Iraq

Al.com ^ | August 30, 2007 | vdmartin

[RDTF]

Agreed, glad they are ok.

[PLMerite]

Now *that* picture is funny!

[Just Lori]

Message to Democrats:

They don’t care what side of the aisle you’re on! They want us ALL dead.

There I go.... trying to reason with them again......

[Just Lori]

Gotta LOVE the Air Force!

[sageb1]

I question the timing...

[Just Lori]

Too bad. Have to join some membership to see it.

[Danae]

Will this wake the IDIOTS UP????????? Damn it, does it take getting SHOT at to get across to them that there are Islamic Extremists out there being ARMED by IRAN to get them to pull their heads out of their politic wallpapered ARSES???? Damn it! Whats it going to take? A DIRECT HIT????

[Danae]

(stomps away from computer muttering)

[maine-iac7]

yep = love the Navy Pilots also - my wonderful son-in-law flew P-3’s out of JAX and BNAS, then was ‘on loan’ for 3 yrs as instructor with the RCAF in Nova Scotia. Now he’s stationed in Corpus/Instructor.

[SFC Chromey]

That may be true in part, but I saw a couple of Gulfstreams sitting inside a hangar at Balad in ‘04. I really find it hard to imagine wtf those were doing there, other than some pampered powdered prince wanted his in flight movie.

[SFC Chromey]

I bet it was a standard take-off landing evasive maneuver like the kinds my pilots did “in case” they may have been bracketed.

[SFC Chromey]

“It was a scary moment,” said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., who said he had just taken off his body armor when he saw a bright flash outside the window. “Our pilots were terrific. ... They banked in one direction and then banked the other direction, and they set off the flares.”

---

The flares won’t do jack for RPG’s! Those only work for the heat-seekers. The banking left/right is good enough to make these boys piss their collective pants though!

[SFC Chromey]

There are several videos available that show enemy firing heat seekers, but so far the vids have been shown shooting Chinooks down, and other slow movers. The other vids showing missiles fired at airplanes have bee extremely poor quality video and you can’t make anything out other than that a projectile of some sort was fired.

[ThomasPaine2000]

You are right... I recall a I flight once took in a C-141 from McGuire to TJ. Sideways in a web seat for 14 hours, with stop at Lakenheath en-route. Aim High... retired AF Chief..

[ThomasPaine2000]

Hi Lori.. I like your sentiment,, I know I do.. 2nd generation Air Force, Retired AF CMSgt.. The “Zoomies” do not get a lot of respect around here sometimes.. Thanks

[NCjim]

Does this work better?

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1256390/M/

[SkyPilot]

Hey Chief, I used to fly those. You're right, not very comfortable.

I remember one time I got so mad at one of our loadmasters. Most of them were great, but this guy was Rip Van Winkle. All he wanted to do was sleep, and passengers to him were a headache.

The way the heat worked on the C-141 was through bleed air through certain vents of course, but there also used to be floor heat. This system, however, was almost completely ineffective. So, when the outside air temp crossing the Atlantic was minus 80 F, you had to crank up the heat. One of the main vents to heat the back was behind the crew deck. That was also were some of the beds were.

I left the flight deck to use the john halfway over Greenland, and I noticed it was freezing back there (and I mean freezing). There was one loadmaster back there, a junior one on a training sortie and a good kid. He was freezing too. I noticed a little girl with a thin blanket around her shivering, and an old man doing the same. I took of my headset (which wasn't plugged into anything at that point) and asked the loadmaster what the heck was going on. He told me his boss (Rip Van Winkle) was sleeping up in the crew loft, but it was "too hot" up there so he had the Flight Engineer crank down the heat.

I was livid. I told the FE to crank up the heat and we had freezing passengers. Sure enough, not 5 minutes later, Rip Van Winkle comes storming onto the flight deck, red faced, and screaming at the Engineer. We let him have it.

All in all, the C-141 was a great workhorse, but it wasn't luxury.

But hey, TJ in Spain had some great soap and other things to buy, right? That base is long gone too.

[SkyPilot]

Hey SFC,

First of all, thanks for serving and for serving in God awful places like you have been.

Yup, the Gulfstream IVs and Vs go in there, and yup, it is usually DV delegations. There are some hubs where the Director of Mobility Forces (DIRMOBFOR) at the Air Operations Center at Al Udeid approve aircraft to go that are not air defense equipped, and others where they are not. Sometimes it depends on who is in charge and who get overruled. Since most tactical intra-theater lift in country is done by C-130s anyway, that is usually the way they travel, and then the seagulls fly out back to Germany in the Gulfstreams or 737 business jets.

Then they usually stop at Ramstein and visit the wounded at Landstuhl hospital. I dealt with it a hundred times.

[ops33]

Some of those aircraft are flight check aircraft used to calibrate and certify radar and ground navigational equipment.

[Beckwith]

Will they now get Silver Stars or something?