Road Trip, C-130 Style

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Mark "Buzz" August
  • 37th Airlift Squadron director of operations
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  The 37th Airlift Squadron sent two C-130 Hercules, three crews, and 30 maintenance personnel back to the U.S. April 17 for a two-month training mission. While U.S. Air Forces in Europe airlift crews gain exceptional experience working in the European Command, African Command and Central Command theaters, they miss out on some unique training opportunities to hone their combat skills. 

As the days get longer in Northern Europe, opportunities to work with night vision goggles become increasingly rare as most European nations have a quiet-hour restriction for military aviation that starts before the sun sets. Additionally, the high density of air traffic in Europe limits the location of training routes and the number of drop zones. A trip back to the United States is the perfect way to break out of a rut. 

From April 17 to June 12, the two 37th AS C-130s will transit five bases - Pope AFB, N.C.; Little Rock AFB, Ark.; Dyess AFB, Texas; Yuma NAS, Ariz.; and Nellis AFB, Nev. The trip is also broken up into three phases to allow for crews and maintainers to fly from Europe and swap out the TDY personnel. Maj. Andy DeLello, 37th AS instructor pilot and mission commander, will stay on for the entire trip. 

"We will be flying in coastal areas along the East Coast and then transition to desert flying in the Southwest," said Major DeLello. "It is a great experience for all of us to train at different airfields in vastly different environments to maintain the highest proficiency level possible and sustain our state of readiness." 

Two of the locations are not typical C-130 bases and offer some of the best training on the trip. At Yuma, the crews will work with the experts from both the Air Force and Army on the Joint Precision Airdrop Delivery System. The crews will drop from altitudes 20,000 feet higher than permitted while training in Germany. Instead of using training loads, the aircrew will also drop actual GPS-guided parachutes for the first time. 

Transitioning to Nellis AFB, the crews will shift gears into a large formation supported by Air Combat Command assets. Part of the USAF Weapons School course for C-130 and C-17 Globemaster students, 15 C-130s from Pacific Air Forces, USAFE, and Air Mobility Command will join their mobility brothers from the C-17 with F-15E Eagle, F-16CJ Falcon, AWACS and space assets to simulate an airborne operation in a high-threat environment in the same airspace used by Red Flag. This unique opportunity to work in a high-intensity environment with the Air Force's air and space experts and the number and types of aircraft simply can't be equaled in Europe. 

Training opportunities like these take considerable coordination, in-depth planning and frequently some fortitude to put into motion. Now already on the road at Pope AFB, the crews and the maintainers are already reaping the benefits. By the time the trip is over, the experience and the training will make the 86th Airlift Wing a more capable contingency response force in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.