Thanks to photographer and all around good guy Rick Vasquez at Stars & Stripes. He let me know that a photo of me holding up a child from the Make-A-Wish foundation. The Air Force did a number of charity events while in Santiago, Chile, and this was one I was involved in as the photographer. Here's the link:
http://www.stripes.com/08/apr08/SOUTHCOM/index.html
On a side note, S&S has really transformed it's operations over the last 10 years. And it's still a great read.
Thanks, Rick!
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Now that I’ve got some distance between me and the Chile trip, I thought I’d offer a few reflections on things. I didn’t necessarily have time or energy to write about these things along the way, and felt they should be mentioned. So, without further adieu, here’s my “South to Santiago” wrap-up and some random notes as well as a few bonus photos:
-- The City. It’s difficult to make a full judgment on the city. Literally, my time was split between the middle of downtown (in an area called Providencia) and the airport with FIDAE and Newen. So, I saw some of the inside of a major metropolitan city. Traffic jams. Smog. Lots of smog. And that’s too bad. The city is stuffed in between a series of mountains. If I could have seen them, I would tell you that they are lovely. :) Admittedly, one day (a Sunday) the skies were fairly clear. Probably because no one was on the road.
There are a number of town homes, condos and hotels. Facilities are mostly modern – in the center of the city. Along the highway we traveled to get to the airport, a huge aqueduct snakes alongside the road. On the edges of the aqueduct live people in tin houses and ramshackle lean-tos. Lots of poor people and piles of garbage. As you get out of the city toward the airport, the neighborhoods are crowded and there’s graffiti everywhere. In any case, I viewed most of this from a van to and from. Mostly, the city reminded me of Los Angeles in both sprawl, climate and surrounding vistas.
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(Photo courtesy Sagar Pathak)
FORT WORTH, Texas -- I've just finished an 11-hour airplane ride from Santiago to here, NAS JRB Carswell, just on the fringes of Fort Worth. I'll catch a flight home from DFW tomorrow. Then take a a few days off.
This TDY had a number of pluses and minuses. The pluses? The location. The missions. And a few others. The minuses? Not being able to release anything until almost eight days after the fact. No sense grumbling about it any longer, however. Worse has happened and ultimately, the photos and video did get released. Unfortunately, none of it will be used. One image used out of about 45. Again, the delay delivering them hampered any chance of publication.
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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.
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SANTIAGO, Chile -- I'm short photos from Day 6 and will have those tomorrow. And Day 7 was mostly spent here writing stories and editing photos. However, I do have a few photos to show you. You can right-click for the full image:
Fighter pilot talks to Chilean high school students.
F-15E taxis for takeoff and a demonstration.
B-1 lands following a demonstration.
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SANTIAGO, Chile -- Santiago is like Los Angeles or perhaps Mexico City. There's a lot of smog here and it's trapped (not like Smaug the dragon from the Hobbit, either). As the city lies in a valley surrounded by high peaks, the smog generated by the millions of cars here gets trapped. So, the only thing that could allieviate that is a good rain. And there's none due. The smog is hell on my lungs right now, especially after the bout with the illness. So, I've got the persistant cough going every day. I need a humdifer and 7,213 Halls cough drops.
FIDAE 2008 rolls on with the US Air Force! Our B-1 bombers have rolled overhead twice in demonstration flights. Our F-15E Strike Eagles, too. Today, the F-16 soared and did it's thing. All great stuff. Our people have shown off their jets and taken them around every airplane we've bought. They are fantastic, especially under the conditions, which are dry and hot. And the air show, really, hasn't started. Usually, the weekdays for any airshow are for press, and other special groups, (like Make-A-Wish, who we hosted Tuesday). The actual show days are expected to bring hundreds of thousands and that will be a big win for us.
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SANTIAGO, Chile -- In case you're wondering, it takes 10 hours and four minutes to fly from Fort Worth, Texas to Santiago, Chile, nonstop on a modified 707 better known as a KC-135. It took me a little less than three hours after that to get sick and be bedridden for a day. But I'll come back to that.
My first full day of work started today at FIDAE 2008, an international air show here. There are scads of international generals, admirals and civilians of power from one soft chair to the next. The weather could not have been more perfect and inside the air show, things seemed to be well organized. The time change is actually one hour ahead of East Coast time and the night we arrived, Chile actually fell back an hour, so we all got some extra sleep.
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