FIDAE has officially ended, and now begins the NEWEN Exercise (which I’m told means “Force”in the Mapucho dialect). It’s a collaboration between the US Air Force and Chilean Air Forces and has three parts to it. The first is a joint air to air exercise pitting the Chilean F-16’s as the Blue (good guys) Force against the USAF F-16’s & F-15E’s as the Red (or bad guys) Force. In the second part of that mission, the Chileans will practice aerial refueling’s from KC-135R’s and KC-10’s. The third part of NEWEN is the AeroMedical Mission; Combat Search & Rescue (CSAR) of a downed pilot and Personnel Recovery (PR) from a mass casualty event.

So today I was scheduled to fly in the 0900 HC-130P AeroMedical practice mission. 300′ AGL (above ground level) low level to the coastal town of Quintero, short field landing, hot load the Chilean & USAF ParaRescue Jumpers (PJ’s), climb to 10,000 feet, execute two HALO (High Altitude Low Open) jumps, and then high tail it back to Santiago. 4 hours at the most. And once we landed, back to the hotel to change and then I was off to a 7pm dinner at the Ambassadors house. Sounds like a good plan huh?

Well, as will all things military, there was a miscommunication in the time the flight was scheduled to leave. We were up and at the airport by 08:30 as were were told to be, and by 0900, there were no pilots. The plane was still buried behind a half dozen airshow aircraft, and there was no easy way for it to get out. And then we were told the flight didn’t leave till 1530. So we had some serious time to kill. Luckily one of our drivers took us to get some lunch at a McDonald’s about 20 minutes away. And then it was time for me to stress. 1530 launch, 4 hour mission max, puts us back on the ground at 1930.

So I took some pics while I waited and passed the time. No sense in worrying about anything that you don’t have any control over.

I call this plane “Scooby Doo”

And then it was time to go flying with the 79th RQS from Davis-Monthan AFB, Tuscon, Arizona! Here we are in a steep 45 degree left hand turn to begin our ingress to our low level flight in the mountains surrounding Santiago. Since today was only a training exercise, we kept the altitude to 1,000; AGL. Still pretty cool!!

And then it was off to pick up the PJ’s. We were permitted to sit in on the briefing. It was pretty amazing to observe how quickly the two forces were able to cooperate and work together. Of course there was the language barrier, but it seems that no matter where you are from, it still take a certain kind of person to jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

Now tell me that this does not look like Monterey, CA??!?!?!?! It’s actually the coastal town of Quintero, Chile. The minute we stepped off the plane and saw the water, I knew it was just like being back in Monterey.

Ok, time to gear up…

Pose for a quick photo…

And hot load onto the HC-130P.

As we circle to our jump altitude, the PJ’s start focusing on their task at hand.

Checking and making sure we are on course and on the right heading.

And then in a blink of an eye, it’s jumpers away!

And then it’s doors closed, and back to home. We landed at 1830, which meant that even if there was a driver ready and waiting to take me the 30 min back to the hotel to get my suit on, I still wouldn’t have been able to make it. So alas, dinner with the Ambassador was not meant to be. But it was still a cool flight and a fun experience.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 10:21 am and is filed under Aviation, Photography, Adventures, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.