Hercs air-drop supplies on a wing and a prayer
PAUL KORING From Monday's Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061030.wxafghan30/BNStory/Afghanistan/home
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — 'This is not how it's supposed to be," the voice over the cockpit intercom crackled yesterday.
Tension builds as the big Canadian Hercules is forced to loiter in the air, announcing its presence, wheeling around, waiting, waiting, while a pair of helicopters clear the drop zone at a remote base where fierce fighting between U.S. forces and Taliban this weekend killed 70 insurgents.
On board are 10 tonnes of food, water and humanitarian aid supplies.
But instead of the planned quick surprise dash, dropping low into the valley and letting the heavy pallets of much-needed supplies rumble out the back of the Hercules to parachute to the embattled base, the four-engine transport plane is in a holding pattern.
Every minute uses fuel, which is now low. Every minute betrays, to the Taliban, the return of the big target that made an identical drop in the same place a day earlier.
Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets are a danger. At the low, slow, drop heights, so are AK-47s. Hercs come back from missions like these with holes in them. A few bullets in the wrong places and they don't come back.
"We're constantly thinking about the threat, constantly looking," Captain Mike Houle, the 28-year-old co-pilot, said, looking for a shepherd on the ground to suddenly lift a weapon, or the telltale streak of a missile.
Tactical flying -- hauling big aircraft around at low levels, hugging the terrain, dropping down into valleys, just clearing ragged ridges, takeoffs that throw the big plane into tight turns or stomach-churning steep dives that end in deliberately hard landings -- is all part of the little-known role Canada's Hercules play in Afghanistan.
Captain Gary Moore, 45, the aircraft commander, is on his sixth tour. Yesterday, he was irked by glitches and delays; they all added to the inherent risks. But calculating the risk also depends just how dire the situation is on the ground. "We're not dropping bullets to guys running out of bullets," Capt. Moore said. But they could be.
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PAUL KORING From Monday's Globe and Mail
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061030.wxafghan30/BNStory/Afghanistan/home
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — 'This is not how it's supposed to be," the voice over the cockpit intercom crackled yesterday.
Tension builds as the big Canadian Hercules is forced to loiter in the air, announcing its presence, wheeling around, waiting, waiting, while a pair of helicopters clear the drop zone at a remote base where fierce fighting between U.S. forces and Taliban this weekend killed 70 insurgents.
On board are 10 tonnes of food, water and humanitarian aid supplies.
But instead of the planned quick surprise dash, dropping low into the valley and letting the heavy pallets of much-needed supplies rumble out the back of the Hercules to parachute to the embattled base, the four-engine transport plane is in a holding pattern.
Every minute uses fuel, which is now low. Every minute betrays, to the Taliban, the return of the big target that made an identical drop in the same place a day earlier.
Shoulder-fired anti-aircraft rockets are a danger. At the low, slow, drop heights, so are AK-47s. Hercs come back from missions like these with holes in them. A few bullets in the wrong places and they don't come back.
"We're constantly thinking about the threat, constantly looking," Captain Mike Houle, the 28-year-old co-pilot, said, looking for a shepherd on the ground to suddenly lift a weapon, or the telltale streak of a missile.
Tactical flying -- hauling big aircraft around at low levels, hugging the terrain, dropping down into valleys, just clearing ragged ridges, takeoffs that throw the big plane into tight turns or stomach-churning steep dives that end in deliberately hard landings -- is all part of the little-known role Canada's Hercules play in Afghanistan.
Captain Gary Moore, 45, the aircraft commander, is on his sixth tour. Yesterday, he was irked by glitches and delays; they all added to the inherent risks. But calculating the risk also depends just how dire the situation is on the ground. "We're not dropping bullets to guys running out of bullets," Capt. Moore said. But they could be.
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