"The past not merely is not fugitive; it remains present." ~ Marcel Proust
Esteemed Readers,
This post could turn into a very long one. I will probably break it up into parts.....
Recently, I picked up a trip that was a military charter to move the 354th Fighter Wing's support equipment from Guam back to Eilson AFB, Alaska. FedEx is a member of the CRAF and as such we often fly military cargoes around the world. The Alaskan fighter unit deployed to Guam to be part of the Cope North exercise.
My first assignment in the Air Force after completing flight training was a 3.5 year tour on Okinawa. We often flew down to Guam for various reasons and I really like that tropical island paradise. So, I jumped at the chance to fly a trip there.
For perspective, the day I left for this trip our most recent snow here in Minnesota had just ended. I spent an hour or so removing snow from the driveway and in front of the mail box. The temperatures were in the teens. Ann took this picture of Velvet/Blond Fang II and I.
I'm over 6' tall and those piles came roughly to my shoulder level.
Commuting to work from Minnesota to Anchorage to start work is often my biggest headache. I like to be in position well before the trip show time to ensure that I am well rested. The showtime for the flight to Guam was at 2 am. My plan for this trip was to leave on a FedEx freighter the night before and turn through our Indianapolis Hub on our new B-777 freighter. Our 'Triple Sevens' have a very nice courier compartment with two built in bunks. Since I was the only 'jumpseater' and the crew would not use the bunks, I would be out very soon after takeoff and sleep away the 5 hour flight up to Anchorage. I would arrive in the early morning and have all day to catch another nap before the 2 am show.
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley". I chose Indy also because the weather was supposed to be bad down in Memphis. Instead, a snow storm hit Indy after I got there - the same snow storm I'd just dug out of at home - silly me.
I met the crew and introduced myself and asked to ride. Since the snow would delay the take off, they invited me to get in the bunk. They would wake me up before push back so I could strap in. The flight was supposed to take off at 0430 am and arrive in Anchorage at 0830 am. When the crew woke me up, I looked at my watch and was shocked. It was 0930 am Indy time.
We finally got deiced and took off to arrive in Anchorage just after noon. I went back to the bunk and put another 4 hours on my sleep clock. I'm still legal for the trip since I will have just over 12 hours of rest in between the commute and the trip show time; but, I do not like cutting it this close.
When we took off from Anchorage for Guam in N593FE the jet was empty because we were 'positioning' it. In fact, we had to use 35K pounds of fuel for ballast to keep our center of gravity within limits. We burned about 150K pounds of fuel just to fly down to Guam.
Here is the route of flight: (Please recall that you can click on these pictures to expand them.)
Commuting to work from Minnesota to Anchorage to start work is often my biggest headache. I like to be in position well before the trip show time to ensure that I am well rested. The showtime for the flight to Guam was at 2 am. My plan for this trip was to leave on a FedEx freighter the night before and turn through our Indianapolis Hub on our new B-777 freighter. Our 'Triple Sevens' have a very nice courier compartment with two built in bunks. Since I was the only 'jumpseater' and the crew would not use the bunks, I would be out very soon after takeoff and sleep away the 5 hour flight up to Anchorage. I would arrive in the early morning and have all day to catch another nap before the 2 am show.
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley". I chose Indy also because the weather was supposed to be bad down in Memphis. Instead, a snow storm hit Indy after I got there - the same snow storm I'd just dug out of at home - silly me.
I met the crew and introduced myself and asked to ride. Since the snow would delay the take off, they invited me to get in the bunk. They would wake me up before push back so I could strap in. The flight was supposed to take off at 0430 am and arrive in Anchorage at 0830 am. When the crew woke me up, I looked at my watch and was shocked. It was 0930 am Indy time.
We finally got deiced and took off to arrive in Anchorage just after noon. I went back to the bunk and put another 4 hours on my sleep clock. I'm still legal for the trip since I will have just over 12 hours of rest in between the commute and the trip show time; but, I do not like cutting it this close.
When we took off from Anchorage for Guam in N593FE the jet was empty because we were 'positioning' it. In fact, we had to use 35K pounds of fuel for ballast to keep our center of gravity within limits. We burned about 150K pounds of fuel just to fly down to Guam.
Here is the route of flight: (Please recall that you can click on these pictures to expand them.)
The flight was boring and routine - I love that. On the map above there is a red waypoint dot north east of Andersen AFB. That represents a little island out in the middle of nowhere - the US used to call it Marcus Island and the Japanese who now own it call it Minami Torishima - "Southern Bird Island". We were cruising along bored out of our skulls. I had my nav display set up to show terrain while the FO had the weather radar up. I noticed this little green dot out in the distance where the terrain rose out of the ocean to a commanding height of 200'. This intrigued me and I found this wiki entry. The 200' tower is on the right side of the island.
Imagine being on that little spot surrounded by hundreds of miles of Pacific Ocean.
Guam itself is a relatively big island. It is the largest island in the Marianas Islands and sits very near the Marianas Trench - the deepest spot in the world's oceans. When we crossed over the trench, we were cruising at FL370. Considering that the trench is roughly 34000' deep, for one short time, we were flying over roughly the same amount of air and water.
Andersen AFB sits at the north end of Guam and you take off over a very steep cliff. The landing is somewhat intimidating as you can see that end of the runway ends in air. There is an old story of two WWII pilots who got drunk, stole a jeep and went speeding down the runway. As they go off the cliff, supposedly one of them yelled: "Gear up!" It's too good a story to expose it to snopes so please don't send me scathing emails correcting it.
More on the runways later. Andersen AFB figures big in two of my favorite personal flying stories.
We got off the jet and left it with a FedEx loadmaster and mechanic to oversee the loading. Normally, our freight is containerized and very easy to load on and off. A fighter squadron has lots of different shaped things to load like power carts, tip tanks, engines and so forth and it took roughly a day to plan out and load the airplane.
I like this picture because it has the two airplanes I've landed at Guam next to each other.
We went to the hotel - The Guam Hilton Resort and Spa on Tumon Bay - a tough place to stay. There are lots of pictures here.
I spent most of the morning lazing on a deck chair, reading my novel, trying not to sunburn my pasty white epidermis and looking at this:
Guam has changed a lot since I was last there in 1982. Some time in the late 80s, the Japanese started regarding it as their Hawaii. Tumon Bay is much like a smaller version of Honolulu. There are big shopping malls, tourist guides and other such touristy stuff.
What I really found interesting is that there is a booming trade in gun ranges. Please recall that Guam is US territory. Japan is big into gun control and Guamanian entrepeneurs make a LOT of money letting Japanese tourists fire all sorts of weapons at indoor gun ranges and clubs. The advertisements are everywhere.
One billboard had a Japanese couple dressed in their wedding gown / tux holding weapons. I can't find it on the net though - more's the tragedy.
My son, George recommended several restaurants to go to. We went to Gyoza Yatai - which George claimed has the 'best gyoza in the world.' Given that he spent the last 3 years in Japan flying around Asia, we took this as a must see.
Imagine being on that little spot surrounded by hundreds of miles of Pacific Ocean.
Guam itself is a relatively big island. It is the largest island in the Marianas Islands and sits very near the Marianas Trench - the deepest spot in the world's oceans. When we crossed over the trench, we were cruising at FL370. Considering that the trench is roughly 34000' deep, for one short time, we were flying over roughly the same amount of air and water.
Andersen AFB sits at the north end of Guam and you take off over a very steep cliff. The landing is somewhat intimidating as you can see that end of the runway ends in air. There is an old story of two WWII pilots who got drunk, stole a jeep and went speeding down the runway. As they go off the cliff, supposedly one of them yelled: "Gear up!" It's too good a story to expose it to snopes so please don't send me scathing emails correcting it.
More on the runways later. Andersen AFB figures big in two of my favorite personal flying stories.
We got off the jet and left it with a FedEx loadmaster and mechanic to oversee the loading. Normally, our freight is containerized and very easy to load on and off. A fighter squadron has lots of different shaped things to load like power carts, tip tanks, engines and so forth and it took roughly a day to plan out and load the airplane.
I like this picture because it has the two airplanes I've landed at Guam next to each other.
We went to the hotel - The Guam Hilton Resort and Spa on Tumon Bay - a tough place to stay. There are lots of pictures here.
I spent most of the morning lazing on a deck chair, reading my novel, trying not to sunburn my pasty white epidermis and looking at this:
At this point, esteemed reader, I invite you to go back to the first picture in this post. As Ms Etheridge, my high school English teacher used to say: Compare. Contrast.
Guam has changed a lot since I was last there in 1982. Some time in the late 80s, the Japanese started regarding it as their Hawaii. Tumon Bay is much like a smaller version of Honolulu. There are big shopping malls, tourist guides and other such touristy stuff.
What I really found interesting is that there is a booming trade in gun ranges. Please recall that Guam is US territory. Japan is big into gun control and Guamanian entrepeneurs make a LOT of money letting Japanese tourists fire all sorts of weapons at indoor gun ranges and clubs. The advertisements are everywhere.
One billboard had a Japanese couple dressed in their wedding gown / tux holding weapons. I can't find it on the net though - more's the tragedy.
My son, George recommended several restaurants to go to. We went to Gyoza Yatai - which George claimed has the 'best gyoza in the world.' Given that he spent the last 3 years in Japan flying around Asia, we took this as a must see.
It was certainly the best I've ever had and I've had a few.
After Gyoza Yatai, we went back to hotel to discover a genuine Hawaiian Luau ongoing for the Japanese tourists out on the back deck. There were dancers with leis and fire twirling and hip shaking grass skirts. Let us not dwell on the fact that Guam is thousands of miles from Hawaii and may or may not share the luau tradition. We had a beer, and enjoyed the Japanese enjoying the dancers.
Then we went to bed. We'd been up by then for about 28 hours.
I'm going to post this now as it's gotten long. Next post will discuss Guam's Brown Snake infestation and the Brown Snake Inspection and some flying stories.
On that anticipatory note, I remain,
Dad / Geoff
After Gyoza Yatai, we went back to hotel to discover a genuine Hawaiian Luau ongoing for the Japanese tourists out on the back deck. There were dancers with leis and fire twirling and hip shaking grass skirts. Let us not dwell on the fact that Guam is thousands of miles from Hawaii and may or may not share the luau tradition. We had a beer, and enjoyed the Japanese enjoying the dancers.
I did not take this video.
Then we went to bed. We'd been up by then for about 28 hours.
I'm going to post this now as it's gotten long. Next post will discuss Guam's Brown Snake infestation and the Brown Snake Inspection and some flying stories.
On that anticipatory note, I remain,
Dad / Geoff
2 comments:
Heck of a post. Hat is off to you.
Glad you enjoyed the gyoza, and also did not get tidal waved there.
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