Pitchlock & Cheese Holes BY LT MIKE ANGELI
fter you’ve logged a few thousand hours, it becomes all too easy to relax on practicing the basics that were so ruthlessly imparted us back in early flight training. Honestly, who thinks that they will one day find themselves on short final with an engine out, and that the infamous “bus full of nuns” will appear right in front of you? Landing a Coast Guard C-130H just outside of Sacramento, California on a cool and blustery winter’s day, I was unexpectedly provided one of these harsh reminders. With the busy summer months behind us and a lull in recent search-and-rescue cases at Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, I was eager to fly something other than the standard training sortie. This particular day’s urgent tasking was to fly cross-country to the Coast Guard’s aviation logistics center in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to pick up a critical part for an Alaskabased H-60 helicopter that was down hard. As a freshly minted First Pilot at the time, it would July-August 2015
be my first cross-country flight to the East Coast in the mighty C-130. Originally from North Carolina, I was excited at the prospect of some sweet tea and BBQ with friends that evening – until I read the Dash-1 weather brief. Moderate to severe turbulence was forecast at all altitudes across the Sierra Nevada mountain range and on into eastern Nevada, stretching from the Canadian border down into Mexico. We were also looking at a strong low-pressure system approaching the East Coast, bringing gusts upwards of 35 knots, poor visibility and low ceilings at our destination. However, I felt reassured by the fact that my aircraft commander was one of the high-time flyers in the fleet and had logged considerable time flying in the extremes of Alaska at a previous unit. We took off and climbed out. With a slicked-out aircraft and a full load of fuel, we quickly reached our cruise ceiling of 25,000 feet, putting us just on top of most of the clouds and turbulence. It wasn’t until we crossed into western Utah that we spotted (or, rather, heard) the first sign of trouble. 15
