Yes, the Mi-17 comes equipped with rear-view mirrors. I’m shooting for spinners and some curb feelers next time.
Baghdad suburbs from the air (and my very useful cockpit fan)
While it doesn’t seem like much has happened since my last post, (and that’s probably true) I have at least started to fly. In the past 10 days, I’ve flown a couple of times. I did fly that transport mission to help guys catch their freedom bird (the flight home), saw some sights around Baghdad, then came back and got familiar with Taji from the air. The next night, I stayed inside the wire, familiarizing myself with the local area under NVGs. Both of those sorties I flew with old friends-the first with Bob, a pilot from Andrews and my beer-brewing (and now cigar smoking) mentor. The second flight was with Kacey, who also is from Andrews. It was a nice way to get myself back into flying with a familiar face or two.
My third flight was with the Squadron Commander, a day line outside the wire. We flew over Fallujah, landed at a series of Landing Zones around Baghdad, then dropped me off at BIAP for my latest exciting adventure. The US Government bought a slew of brand-new Mi-17s a few years ago, and until the beginning of this year, they had sat in storage somewhere in the region. This year, however, they took the aircraft out of their boxes, then reassembled them and checked them out to make sure they were ready to go. The problem was that they weren’t in Iraq. So they again disassembled them, loaded them on a transport plane, flew then Baghdad, and then attempted to put them back together again. I say attempted because it took them 3 days to do a 6 hour job. During which I sat on my butt, waiting. And to make matters worse, the heat is here. It was 106. Which for those of you who don’t know, is hot. I mean like my flight suit stood up on its own when I took it off hot. Like I lost 4 pounds in water weight hot. Like holy crap, the air is on fire and I just want to die hot. But on the positive side, I really, really, really appreciate air conditioning in a new way.
Anyway…after two days of sitting around and waiting for Ukrainians to do a simple job (and failing) they finally got the aircraft back together, and something wonderful happened. For the first time in my life, I flew an aircraft younger than me. Granted, I had go to Iraq, to fly a Russian helo maintained by Ukrainians, but it finally happened. And it was glorious.
And tonight, I should get my final flight before my checkride. I say should because there is a thunderstorm overhead. And while I like the rain, (except that it’s so dusty here that it’s mostly mud, not rain) I’m worried that the storm will stick around and I won’t get my flight in. But my Xbox is here, so I can at least play some Tiger Woods golf.
War Memorial on the side of Baghdad
More Baghdad suburbs
