Photo By Staff Sgt. Matthew Cooley | Soldiers of 664th Ordnance, run arm in arm for support against the strong winds coming...... read more read more
By Sgt. Matthew C. Cooley
15th Sustainment Brigade Public Affairs
FORT HOOD, Texas – The downwash from the CH-47 Chinook kicked up small debris and pushed hard on the crouching Soldiers only a couple of feet below the hovering helicopter. They quickly attached cables from a concrete slab to the helicopter and locked arms with one another to run back a safe distance to watch the large aircraft easily lift the heavy load.
Seventy-five Soldiers of the 664th Ordnance Company, 180th Transportation Battalion, 15th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) conducted a sling load Sergeant's Time Training class, Aug. 22, 2008.
Sling loading refers to the carrying of cargo, often in a net, under a helicopter such as the Chinook, UH-60 Black Hawk, or the UH-1 Iroquois, better known as the Huey.
STT is usually done in a classroom environment or in simulated circumstances, a 664th ordnance specialist, Spc. Jeremiah Rigdon, of Dana Point, Calif., said.
"High-speed" training like this wasn't normal, he explained.
"We're focused on realistic training, the kind of things these Soldiers will be seeing in Iraq," Capt. Ted Zagraniski of Oaktown, Va., 664th commander said.
"I could train like this every Friday, every time," said Decatur, Ga. native Spc. O'Bryan Reeves, a 664th ordnance specialist.
The Soldiers who hooked the loads to the Chinook had to deal with the forceful winds of the helicopter's downwash.
"It hits you once and then it goes calm, and then it hits you again and then it's just whipping around you the whole time," Rigdon said.
The 664th OD Soldiers train on all aspects of the ammunition's logistic life cycle, Zagraniski said. That is, delivery of the ammunition from beginning to end.
The Soldiers of the 664th need to know how to sling load so they can quickly supply ammunition to troops in combat, explained Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Norman, 1st Magazine platoon sergeant, 664th OD.
"A lot of times you can't [supply] by ground," said the Mobile, Ala. native.
"When Route Tampa was hot . . . we had to [supply] by air," he recalled of his sling load experience in Iraq.
"There are places in Iraq where you may need to deliver supplies where there are no passable roads or where the enemy has denied...coalition forces use of the roads," Zagraniski, explained
Transporting cargo by sling load is fast, capable of reaching remote locations and avoid improvised explosive devices said the mission's coordinator, Sgt. Lisa Wood, 15th SB aerial resupply non-commissioned officer and Phoenix native.
A sling load can be hooked up in less than one minute and carry up to 50,000 pounds when using a Chinook, she continued.
"Iraq and Afghanistan are constantly changing, so the Soldiers have to constantly change," Norman said of the training.
"Most of the guys we got right now are [new]," he explained.
"We deploy [often]. They can't be in the crawl or walk phase, they got to stay in the run phase."
| Date Taken: | 08.22.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2008 15:17 |
| Story ID: | 22868 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 243 |
| Downloads: | 139 |
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