C-130 aircrews support remote radar sites

Published Dec. 13, 2012
By Tech Sgt. Brian Ferguson
JBER Public Affairs

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Many would say they haven't used half the math skills they learned in school Why would they? In today's computer age, most don't need to.

However, there is one particular job in the Air Force where a calculation and attention to detail can be the difference between life and death.

When it comes to the safety of the crew, the cargo and the passengers aboard a C-130 Hercules, loadmasters like Airman 1st Class Andrew Thompson reign supreme.

A loadmaster calculates the weight and balance of the aircraft before every flight. Those calculations keep the aircraft within limits and safe to fly.

"During this mission, I oversaw the loading and unloading of the pallets and made sure the load plan was correct," said Thompson, 537th Airlift Squadron. "We can adjust it as needed for aircraft performance, in this case, for the short runways."

The mission recently took the C-130 crew to two remote Alaska radar sites: Cape Romanzof and Cape Newenham.

These sites were set up in the 1950s to aid in detecting aircraft crossing the North Pole. The North Warning System consists of 15 long-range radars and 39 short-range radars. The system forms a 2,983-mile long and 199-mile wide "tripwire" stretching from Alaska, through Canada, to Southern Labrador.

The radar sites cannot operate without these resupply missions, as many of the sites have no roads in or out.

"These site visits are our lifeblood," said Vance Spaulding, a radar site station chief and mechanic. "We depend on these missions for supplies."

Temperatures during the mission were well below zero, making the simple act of standing outside difficult.

"The weather was actually better than I expected," Thompson said. "It was cold, but I actually expected it to be worse."

The crew off-loaded three pallets at Cape Romanzof and two at Cape Newenham. They also picked up one pallet from each location, and transported them back to JBER. As pallets came on and off, Thompson adjusted his numbers accordingly.

Thompson, originally from Stockton, Calif., arrived at JBER in March of 2012, fresh from technical training school. He said the most challenging part of being a loadmaster involves attention to detail.

"I wasn't fresh out of high school. I was living on my own, not having to do super detail-oriented things," he said. "Then I came in to do this job, which is very detail oriented. That has been quite the adjustment, an exciting adjustment, but it has been pretty tough."

Thompson said he did have somewhat of an advantage over his fellow students, because for a short time before joining the Air Force he had been in a flight school, so he was familiar with things like checklists.

"My biggest disadvantage, however, was that I had been out of high school for six years and even then my study habits were bad," he said. "When I began training, they were horrible and they were a constant struggle and still are today. My wife was also pregnant at the time, so that added some distractions throughout the process."

The training a loadmaster receives takes about six to eight months to complete depending on the airframe they are assigned to.

It starts at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, at the enlisted aircrew center of excellence with the first course of aircrew fundamentals. Upon completion, students go to the basic loadmaster course. When they graduate from BLM, they receive their basic aircrew wings and move on to the next part of their training: water survival and combat survival. Once survival, evasion, resistance and escape training is done, they move on to the flying training phase and the time spent at the flying training unit will depend on the airframe. The flying phase of training for the C-130H is roughly five months.

"You could never train for every situation or load that you will have to carry," Thompson said. "Right now, I am trying to gain experience, so that when something unusual comes up I know where to check for regulations that apply and to be able to recognize little details that could cause a problem."

Once a new loadmaster arrives at their first flying squadron, there are only a few tasks for them to complete to become combat mission ready.

"Unlike a lot of other [Air Force specialty codes], our students come to us fully qualified," said Master Sgt. Jason Allen, 537th AS assistant flight chief and former technical school instructor. "They only have to do a personnel airdrop and a couple of flights with an instructor loadmaster to clean up any areas they may be lacking in and to show them the local procedures before we allow them to perform the job on their own. They should be combat mission ready within three months."

"We are constantly training for deployments or upgrade qualifications like instructor, airdrop inspector and special airdrops certifications," Thompson said.

No matter the mission, loadmasters play a crucial role on the ground and in the air.
Allen said the math loadmasters perform on the job is not complex; there is no algebra involved, but there are a few formulas they use to complete certain tasks.

"Some loads may require that we calculate how much restraint the tie-down devices are achieving to ensure we have enough restraint to handle the possible G-forces that could occur during flight or landing," he said.

"If we get a balance number wrong, we would think that the plane is fine for flight, but if the actual balance is making the plane aft heavy, on take-off we could end up with our nose pointing at an angle too high for the plane to handle, and the plane would stall causing us to lose power. No power...no flight," Allen said.

For Thompson, he said the pressure and responsibilities of the job are worth it.

"I love this job because it's such a different atmosphere from a normal squadron," he said. "We train side by side with the officers as they learn their jobs as well. Also, once we're on the plane, our interaction is completely different than on the ground. On the aircraft we refer to each other by the position occupied instead of ranks. I once heard a lieutenant colonel (pilot) tell a lieutenant (co-pilot) not to say 'sir' during critical phases of flight. When I later asked him about it, he told me that when we're in important flying phases, the co-pilot needed to focus on backing him up and correcting him when necessary. If someone is sensitive to rank or position, he might be too intimidated to point out mistakes during flight."

There are also perks for C-130 crew members flying missions in Alaska.

"I get mountain and glacier tours that you can't buy from actual tour companies, so I get to see beauty that very few people could even imagine," he said.