Days 10 & 11: Let’s go flying
April 8, 2008 | South to Santiago
SANTIAGO, Chile — Monday and today will be spent in the belly of an HC-130. It’s a plane that’s primarily used for search and rescue of downed pilots. The Tuesday mission is the same as today’s: fly to a location (Quintaro or Quintero, Chile), pick up special forces guys, let six jump out of the airplane. Then, seven more. Fly home. Very cool.
The flight is one of many that’s part of Exercise Newen, which I am told means “horse.” The U.S. Air Force is providing air refueling opportunities, the special forces piece I mentioned as well as F-15E and F-16 flying with the Chilean Block 50 F-16s. It ends Wednesday night.
On Tuesday’s mission, I shot plenty of good photos. I have not had a chance to move them off my camera yet. When I do, I’ll post a few here. I’ve also got a ton of good video. Again, had I time to move that video from my camera and do something with it, you’d see some of it here. Alas …
In any case, I’ll be flying the remainder of the day and back around 7 p.m.
