Beating the frag into submission...

"The only reason for time is so everything doesn't happen at once."

~ Albert Einstein

"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who greive, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."

~ Henry Van Dyke

I posted a message on my facebook page a couple of days ago: "Kicked the frag where it hurts!" It was primarily aimed at the guys in my unit here as an announcement that my crew had 'won one for the Gipper,' so to speak. But then someone I know who is NOT part of the military wrote a comment asking for an explanation... and I realized that if you don't know the term, it can sound a little "odd," to say the least.

So here's a bit of background on the whole term.

In the airlift world, we are controlled by an "execution authority," some guy in a big windowless building with lots of computers, who SUPPOSEDLY oversees the "big picture" of airlift. These guys comb the different bases for their requirements, sit down at their magical computers and figure out the best way to have the available airplanes and crews fly around the Theater picking up cargo and people and moving them from one place to another. There are many issues involved in putting this big puzzle together everyday:

• how many airplanes are available today?
• how much cargo is out there?
• where is it located?
• where does it need to go?
• when does it need to be moved?
• How many people need to be moved, - where are they, where are they going and when will they be ready to be picked up?
• How many planes can an airfield hold at a given time, and how do you schedule them in so that you don't have too many there at the same time.

(The worse thing you can have is no room on the ground and a plane running out of fuel overhead, waiting to land)

• most planes will need to refuel sometime during a mission so where is fuel available?
• can you schedule the mission to have the plane land at the right place when it needs more gas?
  
• can you fit all these requirements into a 14-16 hour day so that the crews can accomplish all that you want them to before they run out of regulation crew duty day?
• etc.
  

I don't know how many airlift airplanes are flying around over here these days (and I couldn't tell you if I did,) but suffice it to say that as far away as we are from home and all our supply channels, on any given day there are a LOT of airplanes in the sky moving stuff from one place to another.

How we find out our particular piece of this puzzle is a little slip of paper called the Airlift Fragment, or Frag for short. Basically, it's is our schedule for the day, and it lays out where our stops are, how long we have been scheduled to get there, how long we are expected to be on the ground, what we are expected to picking up and where it's going.

For an airlift crew, this is your contract. It is NOT set in stone, and it may change half-way through the day if something more important comes up, or if you get to an airfield and whatever cargo you think you are going to get either doesn't show up, or was taken by another airplane. However, by and large that schedule of events is your life for the next 10-16 hours.

Things that could change it range from an emergency airevac requirement for someone injured at one of the bases we're transiting or close by, or the retrieval of remains of a fallen soldier, taking him from a forward location to a main operating base where he/she can be transported back home. Sometimes another airplane slated to carry DVs (Distinguished Visitors) breaks and we'll get tapped to step in and move them along on their itinerary. These guys can range from Senators and Congressmen to 2- & 3- generals.

As a crew we try to beat the schedule as much as possible, while fulfilling all the requirements the mission is tasked for. We want to make sure we get everything we are supposed to, and deliver it where its going, but if we can do that in 14 hours instead of 16 1/2, believe me, we're going to try! Especially if we're flying in the wee hours of the morning and have been up since 6:30 or 7 the day before.

Other issues for us are trying to get done quickly and efficiently include things like weather, aircraft problems and mortars which can cause delays on the ground to the point where we get stuck and have to spend a night somewhere in the combat zone in a place that may or may not be friendly, or comfortable. Emergency crew quarters generally mean open-bay barracks, a bunk bed and a blanket. That's the best scenario.

So, as we proceed through our day, flying our mission, we look for ways to speed things up: we call ahead for fuel, and plan our refueling stops so that instead of two gas-ups, we only need one. If we can offload and onload with the engines running, we can land, change cargo and take-off in 1/2 hour instead of the scheduled hour on the ground. Sometimes the bases help you out and let you Engine Running Onload (ERO) at every stop. Sometimes they don't. It's a gamble, but it sure helps when things work out Do this at several stops and you can get pretty far ahead.

Sometimes you can get too far ahead, and the cargo load isn't ready for you. That's when you end up sitting and waiting. Sometimes you find out that there's no cargo waiting for you. This can leave you scratching your head wondering why you are scheduled to go someplace when you're not dropping anything off, and have nothing coming out. In those instances we can use Satellite Communications to that Execution Authority guy, and ask if he still wants us to drop in. More often than not he'll call the base up, verify they have no cargo suddenly, and then tell us we are cleared to by-pass that location. If it's the last one before we head home, it's a nice little bonus.

The other battle we have is with the Execution Authority character... This is the big picture guy who has set things up a couple of days in advance. They love to have their fingers on the pulse, and don't trust the crews flying around to do the job they are tasked for. There may or may not be some validity to that, as I'm sure over the years, somebody or something was left behind because a crew arrived somewhere too early and the cargo people didn't realize what their load was SUPPOSED to be, and let them leave without something/someone. Now we have to ask this guy's permission to leave every location. Most of the time if you are ready to depart early but have a full airplane, they'll clear you to depart. Sometimes they don't. They have this schedule and think the world should revolve around it, versus real life. I generally don't have a problem with that with two exceptions:

1. We are headed back to our HOME base (i.e guaranteed parking), we have our scheduled load
2. We are sitting in the combat zone, and we have a full-load of troops taking them OUT, and they just want us to sit till the scheduled take-off time.
   

(Had to do this once in Baghdad, a place that gets mortared on a rather frequent basis. We were headed to a base outside the combat zone where these guys would catch a ride home. Never could figure out what sense that made, other than the guy/gal in the windowless room trying to make a point.)

So when we "beat the frag like a rented mule" we have accomplished all our taskings and finished our day a couple hours earlier than planned. Believe me, when you do this type of flying day-in and day-out, it really makes a difference to get a shorter day once in awhile.