AF loadmaster racks up 12,600 flight hours

[unhappycamper]

AF loadmaster racks up 12,600 flight hours
By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Monday, May 12, 2008

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — Air Force Master Sgt. Steve Pargan loves to fly, and it shows in his logbook.

Pargan, a 44-year-old veteran of the Maryland Air Guard, is part of a select club of loadmasters who have surpassed 12,500 flight hours in the C-130 Hercules cargo plane. In fact, he has exceeded 12,600 while deployed to Afghanistan, the equivalent of more than 17 months.

“It looks like a typo,” said fellow loadmaster Tech Sgt. Matt Wright, 26. “It’s an impressive feat.”

What’s equally as remarkable is that he has racked up the hours in an aircraft built to land in austere environments and fly short trips. A loadmaster aboard a C-5 Galaxy or C-17 Globemaster III can pack on the hours with long-distance flights. It takes a lot longer with the prop-driven Hercules.

Plus, he has achieved the mark without a single serious accident.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54725