Breakfast was a free feed at the top of the Jolly Hotel – the 30th floor overlooking the heart of the port of Naples with a high castle from 14th to 16th century as the centerpiece. It was a magnificent view. Naples has roughly the same land area as Pittsburgh, but 10 times the people! For the most part, the billings and streets are ancient with no for thought to urban planning. It’s pure chaos and really looks like a fun place to live.
Today’s mission was to fly from Naples to Sigonella to Olbia, Sardinia, and back to Naples – one big triangle around the western Mediterranean.
On engine start, we encountered problems: #2, and #4 starter control valves. After several attempts we realize we we’re broke, and the hunt is on! This time it’s not hard to find – a broken wire – unfortunately maintenance support is sparse at Naples and it takes a while to coax a soldering tool and some solder and flux. Then it dawns on the Navy folks that we may need an extension cord or power generator that reaches out to the airplane to power the soldering iron! They were lots of help.
After we get the wire fixed, we were good to go! We head on down to Sigonella. These flights aren’t boring. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. On the way down another Herk C-130 calls up saying he’s on a low level to an air drop to Sigonella, and that we need to hurry and get out of this way! Daryl‘s reply is that we will land as soon as possible with the prevailing controllers. And of course, the controllers hold us up as long as possible before dumping us over the base. We scream down from for a touchdown and a taxi off the active and over to parking. The Base Ops (ground control) asked us when we will have our engine shut down (after we stop would be a good bet!) before we even clear the taxiway. We shut down about 30 seconds after the Herk’s TOT and I go out outside and see that they ‘no dropped.’ I couldn’t believe it. The parking ramp is about half a mile from the PI, and the time of fall (TTF) from a plane as high as they were dropping (looked about 2000’ AGL) would have to be at least two minutes, which means there is no way they could’ve landed on our spinning propellers.
The Herk came around for a live pass and dropped his jumpers. They were seals or something because they had square chutes and just hung in the air, circling for at least five minutes before finally touching down. More excitement.
On the approach to land, the #3 tac generator gauge had gone haywire. We were on final approach so we just continued the approach and landed. Luckily, with Sigonella being a P-3 base, they have lots of spares on hand as the P-3 uses the same engines as a C-130.
I hit Wendy’s for another cappuccino while maintenance in the loadmaster did their thing. We grabbed lunch and I walked down to the base bank and grab some cash out of the ATM, then exchanged some for Lira at an exchange machine across from the terminal. Then it was off to Olbia.
The route to the north east coast of Sardinia was across Sicily to Palermo and direct to Oblia. Once again, we got rerouted the long way to keep us on airways, so after Palermo it was due west to the south of Sardinia and then up the coast. The weather was terrible at Oblia. We shot a true instrument approach, and I backed it up with an ARA, as there was significant terrain all around the airfield.
We broke out of a driving rain storm right at the last second, and Conrad, who really had delayed his descent to stay away from the dirt, had to really dive at the runway to get the plane down. But he did and we landed fine.
Oblia was a mess. We just taxied down to a wide spot in the taxi way, pulled off and unloaded our cargo. Daryl and I took turns running out into the weeds to piss, then we buttoned up, taxi out and flew back out the way we came in, then headed east to Naples.
Back in Naples, it was another night at the Jolly Hotel; this time we bypassed the house restaurant and went looking for a local bistro that Randy Curcio and Mark had found in their nocturnal wanderings the night before. Needless to say, they couldn’t find it and we ended up in a terrific little pizzeria just behind the hotel. I had a nice pizza with onions, peppers, and garlic, along with a big bottle of red wine. Delicious! Way too much food on this trip! After dinner, it was off to bed and rest for the final day of our odyssey.
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