Hello Hivers and friends. Today's article I share something cool I was involved with at work last Friday. I sometimes come across some pretty cool stuff. As many of you know I load and offload military cargo aircraft for my full time job.
Actually we began on Thursday as we received some support equipment pallets. I've shown plenty of aircraft pallets in the past and it's really quite nothing out of the ordinary for me. Sorry no pictures on that but I promise I have something better 😁
How cool is this our main piece of cargo actually flew into us! So once this helicopter landed it immediately went into a hanger where it needed to be converted into shipping mode. Not the picture I was hoping to capture but you get it though, it's a helicopter.
What you see is a UH-60 helicopter. Looks like what you expect a military helicopter to look like right? This helicopter is FMS (Foreign Military Sales) and is going to Jordan. Not just for any use there either, it's going to be their King's helicopter. There were a few people who were there to witness it's journey to be airlifted. An Army warrant officer flew the helicopter in and assisted a small group of Army contractors that were responsible for converting it over for air shipment. They told us it would take about 90 minutes to do but it really took close to four hours. Noteworthy people that were there included the King's Pilot and Engineer.
This is not the standard military issue interior. When this helicopter was in service it didn't look like this inside. This was outfitted particularly for the King of Jordan. Anyways there are 7 passenger seats. A leather bench in the rear that fits three personal and four recliner style chairs in front of that. In the front of the aircraft is the pilot and co pilot seats. No problem with taking pictures as they actually encouraged it. Alright the best to come!!
This picture was taken with my co-workers phone and shared with me.
Well they didn't stop short at allowing us to take pictures. They also told us to jump on board to explore it. Hey the first thing I wanted to do was act like a helicopter pilot 😂 The Army Warrant Officer seen me with the headset on and holding onto the stick as I got my picture taken, he got a good laugh out of it. Probably why I had a bit of an extra smile.
In the second photo I'm chilling in the most comfortable seat onboard. See the window near the seat? Well that is actually a digital screen. I know there were at least four of these maybe six. The 2 rear recliner seats face forward while the 2 front ones face aft. The rear recliner seat on the left is the one I'm sitting in. Special seat you may ask? Well of course, it's the King's chair. I just forgot to bring my crown in today 🤣
Last fun picture above is me ready to pretend I'm doing pre-flight operations. I tell you what, being 6 foot 2 inches tall it's hard to get into the jump seat. Even hardier to get out 😳
The long wait for them to convert the helicopter really didn't seem to bother any of us. The two Jordanians and the Warrant Officer kept us company as we all shared some stories. The conversation may have got a little too comfortable as one of Jordanians gave one of my co-workers their phone number and told him to call him if he ever deploys to Jordan. He said he would take care of him. A good gesture but something my enlisted co-worker shouldn't do.
Well the logistics for this helicopter for the King of Jordan wasn't just worked out between two nations. What you see above is a Qatar owned C-17. Doesn't it look a lot like a USAF C-17? Well the truth be told this is a former foreign military sales transaction. I'll be honest I was shocked to see a newer model, this aircraft is a 2014 model, which in terms of aircraft life it's pretty new. Some of my co-workers have seen this aircraft when they were deployed to Qatar.They seen it being loaded with different unique cargo they haven't seen being loaded before. One of them seen elephants being loaded.
It took some time to get the helicopter to the C-17 because the hanger was quite a ways away. It was a windy colder day, if it was not like this the shipping conversion would have taken place outside by the cargo aircraft. The helicopter had to be towed over to loading area with tow bar attached to a warehouse tug.
Well neither of these photos I took as I left my phone in our work truck, whoops. So these were taken by one of my co-workers. Two photos here, one from the outside of the aircraft and one from the inside the aircraft. It didn't take long for this to get loaded and was also quick work putting on 4 aircraft pallets on the ramp (very rear of aircraft floor).
Well what we have here is a bird carrying another bird @erikah. It's good to see a job completed photo. All the wait and work is done for the day. The helicopter has been delivered and for security reasons I had to wait to write about until this happened. No work over the weekend last week but it has been busy this week. You see with all the things going on in the world it keeps our shop busy. This mission was kind of a break and a different tempo compared to the other mission we work. This weekend (Saturday) we have two more airlift missions to work.
Thanks for checking this out. I hope you enjoyed another day of work from me. Sometimes we ship out some cool looking cargo. It really helps keep job satisfaction high doing this kind of work. Anyways I appreciate you stopping by and until next time!
