As most know we are military, Brent is active duty Air Force and there are some privelages we have when it comes to traveling. We can fly anywhere the Air Force flies for free! Now talk to most active duty personal and they'll say "it's impossible, you need to much leave, you won't ever make a flight, there's no way of knowing where you can go, etc. etc." Now ask those people "When's the last time you've been on a HOP" I promise their response will be "Never".
I'm the queen of free, and I love to travel so this challenge was perfect for me. I researched "space-a -flights" on the net, went to the Nellis passanger terminal and within a week had all the information I needed to plan a Hawaiian adventure.
Ya see, the key to flying on a HOP is knowing the major passagner terminals for the Air Force. In military terms we call these PAC's terminals. Travis AFB is a huge hub, this base has 10 or more flights out a day, all over the country and world for that matter. Travis is considered the gateway to the Pacific. So if you want to go to Hawaii, Japan, Guam, Australia, Korea or Singapore this is your base. Travis also flies to the East Coast, to bases like Dover, Andrews and McGuire these bases are the gateway to Europe. Scott AFB in IL is the middle ground, this base flies all over the world and can get you to either the West or East Coast.
The problem with fighter bases, like Nellis is......well you can't get the hell out. The mission each base supports plays into what types of aircraft's fly from that base. Thus you aren't going anywhere from Nellis, or if you are, it's gonna be hard to plan. Major bases like Travis have flights and areas they service on a regular basis, so it's easier to plan. Granted the actual schedule is only released 72 hours ahead of time since 9/11 but you can call on a daily bases for a couple of weeks to get your bearings on when and where you can go. Each and every base has a "flight recording" number listed on their website. I have compiled all the numbers for each base onto a spreadsheet so I'm ready when we travel.
I'm not going to bore everyone with details about leave, and paperwork. If you need to know, google it.
So here are the details of our first expierence.
Brent and I drove 10 hours from Nellis AFB to Travis AFB on a Thursday night so we could be at roll call for the first flight to Hickam AFB, Hawaii. We made it in a few hours before, selpt in the car and made it to roll call. We knocked 2 retired people off the flight (active duty always has priority) and were ticketed for the frist flight. We were asked if we'd like to purchase a meal for the flight, I couldn't believe it! Of course we did, so we were set. Now we were off to security and then a holding area while the plane loaded its cargo. Security was a breeze, way better than commerical anyday!
Here's where the fun part comes in, after boarding the first plane a KC-10 we learned we'd all have to get off for a mechancial issue. No big deal, because there were 4 other flights leaving for Hawaii that day. We got off, went out of the holding area, we were reissued tickets for the next flight. Success, we were gonna be off and running, problem was we had to wait about 5 hours. No big deal to us, we could walk around base. Afterall this was a free trip !
With no issues we borded a C-17 cargo plane 5 hours later and were on our way to Hawaii. We were given blankets, ear plugs and our little lunches we ordered. We were also allowed to lay on the floor and sleep. Sweet! And since we have completed another HOP trip to Hawaii, I should get around to posting about it, this trip is over a year old! I've got to get better about updating our blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment