C-130 Rollin' Down The Strip

So the C-130 flight was happily uneventful – except for when I got my first (and hopefully only!) injury of the deployment.

I happened to be turning my head looking for my seatbelt as someone else was swinging a backpack in my general direction. That wouldn’t have been so bad except there was a Kevlar helmet attached to that backpack. Before I knew what was happening, my schnoz got up-close and personal with the Kevlar.

Kevlar: 1

Schnoz: 0

There was a loud crack, a little blood and an extremely apologetic Master Sergeant, but nothing’s broken.

Other than that, the flight was about as noisy, slow and uncomfortable as I expected. And since it lived up to my expectations, it really wasn’t that bad.

Here's a few shots of the view I had from my "seat." To the left, you can see we were definitely "in the rear, with the gear." Our big bags were on the pallet, and our smaller backpacks were strapped down in two rows.

To my right, I could see two dozen of my fellow travelers. That is, I could see them when the lights were on. The last 30 minutes or so the cabin lights were turned off, probably to help us sleep better.