The Most Insane Flight On The C-17 Globemaster
Sam Eckholm
This guy is a little too happy, but he's young, so it's understandable. I sort of knew all this stuff, but seeing it all wrapped up made me realize how impressive this machine is. It isn't a C-5 Galaxy, but there are twice as many C-17s. C-5 - 131, C-17 - 279.
7:42 Rapid descent from 25,000 feet to 5,000 feet in two minutes - that's like 120 MPH
straight down.
10:15 Advertisement for the Air Force Reserve
.jpg) |
| Boeing Globemaster III (03-3127) Mt. Rainier in the background |
Coincidently, this photo showed up in the weekly Flight Aware newsletter.
2 comments:
Here is my very first ride on a C-17 story...
There I was at Kabul International Airport with about 30 others waiting for a ride back Home.
This was April of 03 and we had been waiting since noon for the plane to show up. About 10 pm a C-17 lands and we start walking to the furthest taxiway (Not complaining, we would have made that march even if it had broken glass and snakes cause "Home"). We get there and are told to make yourself comfortable on the asphalt cause the plane has problems and they don't know if they can fix them enough to get airborne.
It's about midnight and everyone is sacked and it is pitch black and quiet as the grave, when off the end of the runway about 50yds out there is a huge explosion and flash of light...then quiet for about 5 seconds...then blood curdling screams. Apparently one of the Haji's had found a landmine. A couple of the medics or Team guys jumped up and run out into the dark.
At that point the plane driver comes down the ramp and screams "Get your asses and your gear on board we are wheels UP in 15 min." I never did ask them if they had been able to help the guy before we took off.
We flew to K2 and had a few hours there (I was hoping they were able to fix whatever had been wrong) and flew Non-stop back to Shaw AFB. Great bird, and and riding it was like a limo compared to the C-130's we usually got.
MSG Grumpy
Good grief.
Post a Comment