night before we can go on the skiway,
so it turns into a day/night shift. My
day may start at 23.00hrs and end at
05.00hrs. Meanwhile my wife is waking
up at 04.00hrs to gather all the weather
observations to communicate to 109th
operations and other inbound aircraft.
When we show up in the spring it’s -35°F
[-37°C], but today it went from -22 to
-17°F [-8 to +1°C], and that’s as high as I
would like it to go.
‘Our aim is to get the runway smooth
and as at as possible. It’s all weather-
dependent on how much drift we have.
‘A lot of the time we will spend 50 to 60
hours getting it ready for a ight period
and get one storm overnight that will
ruin our whole day and night’s work, so
we will have to start again.’
Maj Justin Garren, chief of Greenland
operations for the 109th AW, explained
the type of training carried out at Raven
Camp and the di culties in ying such
a challenging environment. ‘Average
sortie lengths to Raven Camp are 2.5
hours. Although we are looking for good
weather there, at some point we would
like them to experience some not-so-
perfect conditions so that they can see
the di erent weather approaches.‘We can train a ski co-pilot in two to
three weeks and it is a requirement that
they see bad weather before they can y
as a co-pilot both here and in Antarctica.
We train as if the weather is going to be
bad even when it’s nice. After seeing itdone right 10, 15, 20 times, you have
hopefully formed those habit patterns
when the weather is bad.
‘We have a whiteout procedure that
we train for, where we can’t tell the
ground from the sky. There is a reason
why we use bamboo on the ag markers
— they break easily and won’t damage
the aircraft.
‘In most operational squadrons nearly
all mission quali cations can occur at
the home station. Because of what we
do there is no real option to train in the
contiguous United States, so we are in
a unique position where we have to
deploy our students. We come here to
Kangerlussuaq to do that as it’s easier
logistically compared to McMurdo in
Antarctica.’
In addition to practising landings,
taxiing and take-o s, the aircrew train
special procedures on the ground for
the loadmasters to load and unload on
the snow. Combat pallet o -loads are
rehearsed, after which the pallets are
winched back using the on-board winch.
Navigators need to direct the Hercules
to the skiways using an airborne radar
approach (ARA), something that cannot
be taught in the US.This image:
An LC-130H on
short nals to
the skiway at
Raven Camp.
The ags show
the orientation
of the runway to
the crew.
Inset top to
bottom: Artwork
applied to
LC-130Hs
83-0490 and
83-0491.
Below left to
right: The LC-130
experiences
signi cant
stress working
in this austere
environment.
The nose
ski weighs
approximately
800lb thanks
to the thick
aluminum
plating.
With engines
running,
passengers
walk out to
the awaiting
Hercules.UNIT REPORT | 109TH AIRLIFT WING
http://www.combataircraft.net January 201862
60-69 Ski Herks C.indd 62 23/11/2017 11:50