Darrell's weblog

I’m heading back home tonight, finally, but I almost got stuck out here for another 4 days.
Last night we took off on a normal resupply mission up a particular river valley, but roughly halfway into the flight, we received a radio call that an American soldier had fallen into the river during a training exercise, [...]

Just two more weeks and then I head back home. I miss home. I have a Twitter account now, but it’s hard for me to use with such spotty Internet access. But that’s not the point of this update.
Today was a fun day at work. We have an old beater helicopter [...]

I’m back on the road. Every couple of days we get a new cargo plane to come in with supplies. Usually, it’s an Air Force C-17, but every now and then we get planes in from Volga-Dnepr, a Russian air transport contractor. Usually, the aircraft is one of their An-124 cargo planes, [...]

It’s cold here. We fly at night, and for the past week, it has been hitting -16ºC during our flights (That’s 3ºF for you non-metric types). That doesn’t count the wind chill when we have the doors open. It’s pretty miserable if you don’t have enough clothes on. I’m actually pretty [...]

I haven’t made a blog post since my return from overseas, so I have some catching up to do. Heather is much better about posting in a timely manner at her blog, so you should be reading her blog, too, if you don’t already. Anyway, here goes…
1) I got back from [...]

Well, I’ve been out here at my new “job site” for almost a week, and I’m starting to get the hang of things. I’m flying pretty much every night, so that’s good. All in all, it’s a pretty smooth operation they’ve got going on here. I took a few pictures of my [...]

Stolen from you guys:
1.) Go to Career Cruising
2.) login nycareers; password landmark
3.) Take the career match maker quiz and list the top 10 responses
1. Race Car Mechanic
2. Heating, Air Conditioning, Refrigeration Tech
3. Farm Equipment Mechanic
4. Heavy Equipment Mechanic
5. Diesel Mechanic
6. Automobile Mechanic
7. Motorcycle Mechanic
8. Aircraft Mechanic
9. Millwright
10. Industrial Machinery Mechanic
Hmm…I’m sensing a “mechanic” theme. [...]

I’m currently in training again. This time it’s a two-week field maintenance course for our Super Puma. I’m not really into the Puma. It’s very pretty and all, but I still prefer the Mi-17. Speaking of which, I’m up to 40 hours of flight time, which is pretty good considering it’s [...]

My current job is the first I’ve had where I get paid overtime. Overtime, I’m discovering, is rather nice. I had 35.5 hours of overtime last month, which made for a nice jump in my paycheck. Speaking of overtime, I just worked two 15-hour days in a row, so I am already [...]

Well, I’m finally starting to fly more often. (yay!) I’m not overseas yet, but I’ll be going on my first trip soon enough. Of the 9 work days so far this month, I’ve gone flying on 7. In those 7 days, I’ve racked up 22.2 hours of flight time. The above [...]