I had the opportunity this week to take a ride in a Black Hawk. I love helicopters and will jump at every opportunity to fly in one. For some reason, I don’t get motion sickness in a helicopter like I do in a boat. My stomach still gets quesy when I think about the underwater demolitions range mission when we were stationed in Hawaii. That was not a pleasant experience for me. It was quite a humorous spectacle for all of the Army dive soldiers that got to see me lose it on the open water! But let’s not think about that anymore because I’m already starting to get a little seasick just sitting here.
One of our ongoing projects is the building of a water distribution network with wells and pumps for the Sinjar district in western Ninewa province. This project is worth about $17.2 million and includes approximately 116 kilometers of water pipes, 95 wells, and 60 water storage tanks. The geographic extent of the project makes it quite difficult to fully appreciate from the ground. So I have been trying to arrange a fly-over since I’ve been here. When I say that I have been trying to arrange this, I really mean that MSG Curt Kaseman, the Mosul NCOIC, has been trying to arrange this. This was our fourth attempt at the mission. The previous three missions had to be cancelled for various reasons. Although I think I’m important, the flight operations folks don’t regard me as a VIP, so I’ve been bumped a few times!
But on our fourth attempt, we finally got the dedicated flight time. Two Black Hawk (UH-60A) helicopters were tasked with flying 14 personnel from my office over the Sinjar district to get an overview of the project extent. The helicopters picked us up from FOB Marez, and we began our flight out to the Sinjar district. Sinjar is about 120 kilometers west of Mosul.
On our way out to Sinjar, we made a pitstop at FOB Sykes. The Black Hawks for this mission are based out of FOB Sykes. On the original itinerary, we were scheduled to refuel at FOB Sykes after the mission before heading back to Mosul. So I assumed that we were just going to refuel before instead of after.
Here’s a photo taken during our stop at FOB Sykes. Margaret, the USACE Resident Engineer in charge of the Mosul Project Engineers, is standing next to Vic, a security detachment member, while Sarah, the office admin specialist, looks on.
CPT Christian, the pilot, informed us that we were stopping so that she could get the final clearance before heading out. As luck would have it, when she came back, she told us the mission was scrubbed due to deteriorating weather conditions coming in from the west. So we loaded up again and flew back to FOB Marez. I’ll try again next month.