loadmaster « Kingsquared

Hacking the mission

By John, on December 14th, 2011

When I was in my first class on my way to becoming a loadmaster my instructor talked about hacking the mission. I’ve been doing that lately – quite a bit of that lately. I’m over 100 flying hours since I arrived here and I’ve moved over a million pounds of cargo. I’m not at [...]

Rolling with the punches

By John, on November 10th, 2011

This job is a constant uphill battle. Each day we show up and try to do something that 110 years ago seemed like a pipe dream. I enjoy the fight.

The major difference between this job and my last is that we often succeed when everything goes wrong. I haven’t had a mission canceled [...]

I’ve been busy

By John, on November 7th, 2011

I don’t know exactly how long I’ve been gone but it feels like it’s been a while. Sure, I could look at the calendar in the bottom left corner of my screen and do some simple math (my peripheral vision has betrayed me and it’s two weeks) but it makes the first two lines [...]

Here we go again

By John, on October 27th, 2011

I’m off on the other side of the planet for the next few months. I’ll be gone just long enough to miss all of the major holidays. It’s a downfall of my occupation. It could be much much worse (army, marines, navy). If you visit often, you can expect an influx of new material. [...]

On the road

By John, on July 11th, 2011

Weather can ruin hours of careful preparation. We were scheduled to stop in Kansas and pick up some stuff and then fly direct to Germany. We landed, loaded, and fueled only to find that it was too hot to takeoff. We were simply too heavy and the air wasn’t dense enough at that temperature [...]

Nearly done

By John, on March 11th, 2011

It’s been an up and down week. I’ve had two flights this week and the first of the two didn’t go as well as I would have liked. (side note: my training partner had the same guy on his second flight of the week and faced similar problems) The second, while much better didn’t [...]

Round 1 is over – on to Round 2

By John, on October 19th, 2010

Round 1 of training is complete and I still have quite a long way to go in the whole training process. I’ve finished aircrew fundamentals and basic loadmaster. Next on my list are three survival schools followed by the big daddy of them all – initial qualification. I’ve barely been home all year and [...]

I’m making progress

By John, on September 21st, 2010

Since I last made a post the wheels have been put into motion… and they didn’t turn far.

We got our assignment and we don’t have to pack up our bags and move. We’re going to stay at McChord for the next few years. Along with my assignment I got my next pile [...]

One week down

By John, on August 28th, 2010

Training will no longer be an annual requirement. For me it will be something that I live and breathe. My old career field spends a lot of time on simple tasks that we do ad nauseum. The Loadmaster career field demands that each member be fully trained and qualified (current and qualified) on all [...]

Training

By John, on August 25th, 2010

We’re entrenched in academics and its all fairly standard stuff. For the past week they’ve constantly reminded the new airmen that if they fail, they’ll RTP (return to parent). There is no reclassification and there are no second chances. We actually had an airman come talk to my class about failing – he was [...]

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