Hello Hivers I was a busy bee at my full-time job yesterday. I pulled up at 7:20 a.m. went inside tothrow some steel toed boots on and grab some gloves. First course of action is to load up some K-Loaders with aircraft pallets. We have two types of K-Loaders one can fit 3 pallets and one that can fit 6 pallets. In all, we have 2 smaller ones and one larger one. So our K-Loader capacity is 12 pallets.
Last week we did all the processing of the cargo. That included 16 pallets and 8 pieces of wheeled support equipment or what we call rolling stock. For work today we prepare to load two C-17 aircraft. The first aircraft to arrive is the easier of the two. It's load consists of 14 pallets and a tow bar. Pretty easy load just a lot of pallets to push. Not really hard work because you push the pallets across roller trays on the aircraft floors. I didn't get many pictures of the the inside of the aircraft because I had the job of driving the K-Loader.
A C-17 can hold a total of 18 pallets. These pallets are approximately 9 foot long by 7 foot wide. We load a tow bar first than load the right side of the aircraft with 9 pallets. Since I couldn't see what was going on because the larger K-loader was in front of me, I decided to raise up to see what was going on, haha. Hey I sat there for a little bit so I was curious. I could have gotten out of the loader and looked but why do that when I can raise up to see. Better view right?
The first K-Loader to the aircraft is the one with the six pallets on it. I drive right behind it coming within inches of it to form a bridge. This makes it quicker so we don't have to keep lining up with aircraft rail system.
Since you won't see the inside of the plane on this aircraft load I'll show you the inside of the K-Loader. The one I'm in is our oldest most beat up one. Just fans inside to cool off with. So there are many controls we have to be familiar with. This loader will raise, roll left to right, pitch up and down, and side shift left or right. It also has conveyer rolls that control the pallets movements. Fortunately after dumping all my pallets I drove our newest loader next, Frosty.
Same type of loader I just got done driving but this one feels brand new. Its an older model that just recently got a frame up restoration with some new features. My favorite feature is the air-conditioning. It can get hot in these small cab. The air conditioning works so good sometimes you have to turn it down. Why we call it Frosty, lol.
I dumped my initial 3 pallets than was reloaded with two more from behind with a forklift. This load took us about a hour to complete. Pallets are relatively easily to load. The next load I will share with you is difficult and pretty physically demanding.
The next C-17 aircraft came in at about 8:45 P.M., it was suppose to come in at 5:45 P.M. It just means I will be working later. This load consists 7 heavier pieces of rolling stock and 2 pallets.
A open not yet loaded cargo cabin. The loading crew that flew into us was young. There were two young load masters and they were in no hurry. There was one experienced crew chief who I thought knew more about loading then the two load masters. I'm glad he assisted with the load because crew chiefs usually don't.
We had somewhat of Skelton and inexperienced load team. My boss, two other co-workers, and two augmented helpers who were out there with us for the first time. We needed more help and looked for volunteers. It's usually pretty easy looking for volunteers because many don't get to see what we do.
So we had 3 workers on vacation, 1 deployed, and one out sick. Leaving us just 4 in total in my work center. I'm getting over a cold, one worker pulled a muscle in his leg earlier, and another has wrist and forearm issues. My boss who is 60 years old was the healthiest among us, haha.
I don't think I've shared these two things with you before. First picture is the entrance to the lavatory, for those not familiar this is the aircrafts bathroom. Not much different that a commerical airliner's bathroom so I'm not taking pictures inside, haha.
The second picture is the load master's station. This is where the load master sits during flight and conducts some if his calculations. To the left is some stairs that leads to the cockpit,crew rest quarters, and a couple of other stations.There were about 7 crew members up there and it's an area that I don't feel comfortable taking pictures because of the amount of people up there. I use to have some pictures of this area from a previous phone but unfortunately they didn't transfer over for whatever reason.
I'll leave you with a few pictures of the loading process and some equipment that has been placed into position and tied down. I usually try to take pictures with out someone jumping into position and knowing there in them, haha. With everyone knowing I'm a blogger they know I'm taking them to incorporate into a blog and that makes it a little less weird taking them when caught, haha.
Well this load took about 3 hours and 15 minutes to complete. The crew was slow and cautious and like I mentioned before in no hurry. I got off at about midnight and that makes for a long day since I started at 7:30 in the morning. I didn't work straight through though. I had a doctor's appointment from 1:00 to 3:00 and was off the clock from 6:30 p.m.to 8:00 p.m. I was prescribed some muscle relaxers from my doctor for my shoulder, these came in to good use as my whole body was stiff after I finished for the day. I woke up this morning not feeling too soar.
I hope you enjoyed my work day which was on Wednesday July 5th. Take care, be safe, and let's get to the weekend.
