Airdrops Break Records in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Airdrops Break Records in Afghanistan
July 14, 2010
Air Force News|by Bob Fehringer

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- When your unit is surrounded by an enemy hitting you with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar rounds are screaming in and you're running low on food, ammunition and everything else, you can't exactly send someone to Walmart for supplies.

That's when you pray for an airdrop. Now.

"Sometimes these missions are like driving an 18-wheeler through a 5 o'clock traffic jam while trying to ask for directions with a cell phone that isn't getting any reception," said Capt. Scott Huffstetler, an airdrop mission planner with the 8th Airlift Squadron in Afghanistan. "Eventually, you just muscle your way through and get the job done.

"The airspace in (Afghanistan) can be incredibly busy, and often times the terrain makes radio reception poor," Captain Huffstetler added. "Last night, my crew and I flew a mission into an area of the country where the air traffic congestion could rival Frankfurt, Atlanta or Chicago."

Captain Huffstetler said communication and coordination had to be accomplished during that mission by talking with many different air traffic control areas, none of which could hear the other.

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. Nothing like bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age again

Am sure it will make digging up the vast wealth of minerals there so much easier :sarcasm:

:grr: :mad: :grr:

[saigon68]

2. That was General LeMay's quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay