It's a long way there... and back again

Today was one of those missions that is hard to categorize. It started with a two-hour delay, because we were suddenly tasked with an aeromedical evacuation mission. Our stops were Kandahar and Bagram, Afghanistan, and on the last leg, we were supposed to pick up a patient in Bagram and bring him back to our base for transport or treatment..(they never really give us much details on these things...)

So while they assembled an alert Aeromedical Evac team to fly with us, we waited. Then we went to the airplane, loaded all their gear, and found out after it was all on, that their mission was scrubbed (the patient either died or was transported by other means [hopefully the latter]) and they no longer needed the aeromeds. So..... we sat and waited some more while they offloaded all their equipment and stuff.. and believe me, when the aeromeds travel, they travel heavy... which, if you're a patient, you'd appreciate.

We finally took off, and in spite of all the delays for loading and unloading equipment, we were actually 15 minutes earlier than scheduled (AFTER the two-hour slip). Not bad.

The flight over to and through Pakistan was pretty uneventful, but as we entered Afghanistan, we encountered thunderstorms and seriously wondered if we'd be able to get through to our destination. Fortunately, fate was in our favor once again, and as we flew north, the skies pretty much parted right when we needed them too, and we slid right between thunderstorm cells, easily making it into our first stop at Kandahar.

We downloaded some passengers, uploaded a couple more, including the world's best behaved police dog, and headed north to Bagram. Our cargo included one of the Aero-medical crews we've flown with previously. They had been lucky enough to get selected for re-positioning up to Bagram for a couple of weeks supporting C-17 operations that have shifted out of Germany due to the Volcanic ash issues affecting Northern Europe. Hopefully they will be back to our base before we depart for home as we've developed a good working bond with these guys and will miss flying with them.

The approach and landing into Bagram was pretty uneventful, despite the worsening weather which produced low visibility and even lower ceilings, not that that is a bad thing... Remember bad weather usually means better cover for our approaches and landings. If it's raining, so much the better. Guys with missiles probably don't feel like standing outside in a downpour waiting for airplanes to fly by... (at least we hope not!)

We downloaded our cargo, and as the heavens opened, providing a nice steady downpour, our load team uploaded a jet engine for transport back to base.

The flight home was actually very smooth. No weather at all enroute, just a nice, steady headwind that turned our 4-1/2 hour trip into a 5+hour excursion.

All in all, a good, uneventful mission with few surprises and little to report. Hope we get a whole bunch more over the next couple of weeks!