///AMG
Well-Known Member
Some of my most hair raising flying was in Afghanistan, during the spring storm season. The "combat" part of it, at least in that stage of OEF, was normally pretty secondary to the near daily fuel and/or weather related crises. Mother nature in that part of the world is no joke, and you can box yourself into a corner real quick. One flight stands out in particular, basically being out of options and having to punch through a major thunderstorm flowing out of eastern Iran, without any sort of weather radar, and without the fuel to make it to the only divert with landable weather.....bagram, several hundred miles in the opposite direction, which at the time was sketchy as well (and also would have been the absolute only option had we committed to it and the weather didn't improve, which it didn't). Full burner, trying to climb out of it, got caught in a down draft and basically could not maintain +/- 3000 ft for a few mins. No damage to the aircraft, but i thought the wings were going to rip off at the time.
