During the coalition buildup before Desert Storm, there were a lot of logistical missions that my unit provided for the 101st Airborne Division as they were deployed along the northern border of Saudi Arabia. To make support missions in this forward area more timely and to save aircraft time flying back and forth to King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) our unit started stationing a Chinook at an abandoned airstrip in the town of Nairyah for a week at a time.
In general, this was not a bad assignment, as any assignment where you were flying was a good assignment, but it was a vary hit or miss opportunity. Some days we’d have missions and other days it was just a day spend doing minor aircraft maintenance and reading a book or such. The airstrip was made from tar and sand and hadn’t been maintained for years. We had to be careful parking the aircraft to choose a slightly different spot as parking on the same spot would cause the landing gear to since into the tarmac. The town was just a couple of hundred yards away and you could tell the time by the Adhan call to prayer performed by a Muezzin from the mosque broadcast over loudspeakers five times day. In a way, the timing of calls to prayer was reminiscent of the bugle calls you heard daily on an Army installation. It was also a reminder that we were not at home, but in a place, far away and very different from home.
Since we were essentially on our own, it felt strange to be so isolated. Nairyah was (and still is from looking at the map) a small town and is fairly isolated by American standards. Only the desert areas of the western United States would the isolation seem at all familiar. I was surprised that we didn’t generate more interest from the local population but I’m pretty sure they’d been warned to stay away, and regardless, we saw little of the local population during the time I was stationed there. Nairyah is located in northwest Saudi Arabia along a road we designated as “Tapline Road” due to the oil pipeline associated with the highway. The units we supported were spread out generally along this road and there were five or so established landing zones built for logistical support near these units.
There was a cargo supply point for both ground and air units complete with refuel point for helicopters setup roughly a quarter mile east of our airstrip. This is where we picked up our loads. We got briefings from the operations team (they’d drive over to our location and give us our missions) then we’d go fly the mission. The usual mission was hauling Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs) to deployed units. This was our favorite cargo as this was a triple hook load (used all three cargo hooks) and they were about 18,000 lbs. total weight. Heavy loads were nice as they fly steady and it really felt like you were doing something useful. There was nothing more annoying than hooking up to a light load. Light loads were unstable, and bounced around a lot, limiting how fast you could fly and often these type loads, due to aeronautic forces, tended to come apart in flight. Any time we saw MRE’s rigged for a load we knew it was going to be a good day.
The most interesting thing about a general support cargo mission was you never knew exactly what you were going to be doing. One such day was a circuit where we were doing a passenger run, almost like a scheduled airline. This day we had a route of six LZs I believe. We had outbound passengers (mostly soldiers returning to their units, some new replacements, some messengers etc.), all going to one stop or another. It was kind of like being a bus driver driving his route. We left the cargo ramp with 8 or 10 passengers and made the first two or three stops on our route. Just finding these places was a challenge as the terrain in northern Saudi Arabia wasn’t really conducive to flying by landmarks (There aren’t a lot of things that just pop out at you from the sky) and with camouflage and all, the units were not super visible, for good reason. We did pretty well and the rudimentary GPS system we had was generally helpful if an LZ was hard to find just by visual references alone.
At one stop, we landed, and slowed the rotors to about 92% (minimum beep, as slow as the rotors could run while in flight mode) and the Flight Engineer lowered the ramp to let passengers get off and get on. As the soldiers for the next stop got on board, so did a stray hound dog. Generally, animals saw a Chinook and headed the other direction due to the noise and the dust storm we created in the desert. I don’t know if this dog was deaf or just very accustomed to the things going on there, but he just trotted up the ramp and hopped up on the seat, and started looking out the window. His tail just a wagging. (There is a rear-view mirror in the cockpit that looks back the companion way into the cargo deck, I could see the Flight Engineer and the dog in the mirror.) Specialist Snyder asked what he should do and I asked him if the dog was causing any problems. He said no, so I asked him to complete his before takeoff check. He replied that the passengers were all secure, ramp was up and dog was seated. We brought the rotors up to speed, completed our before takeoff checks and flew to the next stop. Snyder told us that during the flight the dog continued to look out the window and wag his tail, we landed as the next stop and the dog got off as soon as Snyder dropped the ramp. I assume he got to where he wanted to go. Chalk up stray dog delivery as mission accomplished.
Non-standard loads also seemed to be the norm when we flew out of Nairyah. On day, it was three Air Force pallets of Block Ice. 20,000 lbs. of ice makes for great air conditioning and that was the coolest flight I think I had in the desert. While we were being loaded, we got our amusement for the day. There was a second aircraft loading ice while we were loading but it was a UH-1H “Huey”. Don’t get me wrong, the UH-1 is a great aircraft, I love flying them, but they don’t make for a great cargo lift craft in the heat. They have a very limited cargo capacity due to density altitude restrictions. We watched as five, 200 lb. blocks of ice were slid into the cargo bay. When they tried to take off, FAIL! We watched (Chuckling) as they broke off and unloaded pieces of the ice until they got down to about 700 lbs. and they were light enough they could take off.
The most amusing incident occurred returning to the cargo pad at Nairyah. We were hauling some external load to the pad (Maybe the forklift I mentioned in a previous story) and we were making our approach to the pad. This was unusual as we normally came in empty and left with loads. Flying to the cargo pad with a load was a different flight dynamic. When you made an approach with a load, you tried to avoid flying over populated areas and items like tents and such because the gale force winds the Chinook created flying under load were pretty intense. If something went wrong and you had to release the load, it was generally considered to be quite rude to drop a load on top of someone.
The logistics of the cargo pad, with a hot refuel point and housing tents for personnel required all approaches to be made from the south. Sanitation requirements required that the latrine had to be located downhill from the housing tents and as far away from other operations as feasible and still be reasonably close enough to use. These requirements resulted that least one latrine was located on the southeast corner of the compound, close to the cargo pad LZ. The latrines were 4-hole crappers made of plywood and screen mesh.
Up to this point, there hadn’t been any issues with approaching aircraft and the latrine. But I also doubt a heavy load had been flown into to the LZ either. Regardless, I was making an approach into the LZ. I was making a very steep and slow approach trying to minimize turbulence and avoid overflying the latrine. As I descended through about 100 feet and had passed the latrine my way to the pad, my Flight Engineer mentioned that the latrine had blown apart from the rotor wash. It appeared that the guy who was in it didn’t appear too be too happy about having his toilet blown up around him.
I guess some days shit just happens.
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