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Achieving liftoff: Travis, Guard train with helicopter

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Patrick Harrower
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The winds at Travis are unrelenting. They constantly howl through the base and challenge the most advanced of pilots. Just as the wind here won't quit, neither will Travis Airmen when it comes to training for the next mission at hand.

Members of the 621st Contingency Response Wing, 60th Aerial Port Squadron and the California Army National Guard teamed up to perform sling-load training with a CH-47 Chinook and two Humvees Nov. 21 at Travis.

The training was based on a real-world humanitarian relief scenario, similar to the one currently unfolding in the Philippines after the devastation of Typhoon Haiyan.

"We are usually suited with mobility aircraft to perform an exercise like this," said Col. Scott Zippwald, 570th Contingency Response Group commander. "Our great partnership with the Army National Guard has enabled us to do this with a helicopter for the first time. We accomplished a lot of training with them and their involvement made the exercise very realistic."

With the help of the porters from the 60th APS the Humvees were loaded onto the Chinook via a sling under the aircraft. They were then flown to an airfield in Rio Vista to act as the exercise ground.

"It was a little nerve wracking to marshal the Chinook over the humvee to get hooked up," said Staff Sgt. Ryan Torralba, 60th APS passenger services operations supervisor. "I'm used to spotting vehicles and airplanes but there were a lot of similarities with the helicopter. We trained a lot before hand which also helped."

An assessment team took over at the exercise location to determine if it would be suitable as a distribution hub for humanitarian relief efforts.

"One of the great tools we have is our assessment team," Zippwald said. "They can go in rapidly and asses an airfield for its potential and limitations to determine if it's a suitable place to stage operations. Having an airfield this close to base makes it great for training."

The team consisted of experts from many fields, to include civil engineers, air field operations, security forces, loadmasters and communications. Members from the 60th Medical Group were attached to the exercise to give an evaluation of the sanitary and medical conditions of the location.

"Whether we're doing this in Rio Vista, the Philippines or Europe the things we are looking at and our standards are the same," said Lt. Col. Timothy Devine, 60th Aerospace Medicine Squadron bioenvironmental flight commander. "We're going to do a health risk assessment to check the water supply, air, flora, fauna and industrial surroundings of the area. Anything that can adversely affect the wellbeing of the troops is looked at because you never know what's on the ground that could hurt them."