This week, helicopter pilot Allan Cram discovers the safety and security manual he says his crew should have received when they first arrived in Afghanistan. Better late than never? Maybe not in a country in the midst of war, where every common type of gunfire is identified in a manual.
Balloons and Covered Bridges: An Insider’s Guide to Sussex, New Brunswick
Sussex, New Brunswick is a town well worth visiting for its covered bridges reminiscent of The Bridges of Madison County, murals, funky shops, military history and the annual fiesta of hot air balloons.
Afghanistan Calling Part 5: Good Little Soldiers Wanted
Civilian helicopter Allan Cram continues to question the sanity of flying to Afghanistan’s Kajaki Dam where a forced landing would mean almost certain capture by the Taliban. Cram has no intention of becoming being “the next Internet beheading victim.”
Afghanistan Calling Part 4: Circus of the Absurd
A civilian Canadian helicopter team in Afghanistan tries to get to the bottom of his customer’s request that his crew fly alone into one of the country’s most dangerous territories, Kajaki Dam. Meanwhile, the crew is being berated by the Country Manager for “being chicken shit.” But there’s brave, and then there’s stupid…
Afghanistan Calling Part 3: Hostile Zone, Twilight Zone
When I arrived in Kabul on August 6, after travelling about 24 hours, I was met at the airport by the other crew, and was then told about the suicide bomber in the yellow Toyota, the theft of the police uniforms, and about a scheduled flight the next morning — in 11 hours — to fly south to a Forward Operating Base (FOB) 65 miles northeast of Kandahar to take photographs of a bridge along the highway…
Afghanistan Calling Part 2: Flying in a Hostile Environment
Allan Cram had his assignment in Afghanistan: “to overfly some of the most perilous terrain in the world, where kidnap victims had little hope of being released alive, where Taliban extremists believed math should be taught to Afghan boys not by the adding or subtracting of apples and oranges, but by counting bullets and AK-47s.”
Afghanistan Calling Part 1: Flying in a Hostile Environment
Helicopter pilot Allan Cram was used to flying in dangerous places, even war zones. But Afghanistan’s Kajaki Dam was considered by even seasoned military people to be, at that time, “the most dangerous place on earth”. Why would a sane pilot willingly fly there?
Adapt, Overcome and Improvise
Life throws us curveballs, but the ability to follow a military mantra lets us adapt, overcome and improvise, regardless of how challenging things seem.
Five Miles High
George Burden gets a taste of what it’s like to fly in a Top Gun type aerial combat exercise and finds out how much fun you can have in an F-18.
A Year of Living Dangerously?
Working oversees as a helicopter pilot, Allan Cram has lived in some of the world’s most dangerous places, including Afghanistan and Sudan. But as he discovers, most people are just “working stiffs” like him, trying to put food on the table.