T'is the Season of Space-a Folly

Author Message   Allison Krug New member Username: Happyhiker Post Number: 4 Registered: 08-2007 Posted From: 66.75.125.252 Posted on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 - 10:50 pm:    Mike! Wow! Great fortitude and nice story Definitely a must-read for wanna-be space-a-ers I am a seasoned space-a traveler, unacommpanied, cat V, with two little kids in tow. I travel with 24+hrs worth of food, diapers, clothes, wipes, and even a tent and bourbon. Seriously. I can land anywhere and survive. This stuff does happen, and it's part of the adventure. In addition to the strandings, I've had great "miraculous" experiences (such as 2 KC10s leaving McGuire going all the way home to Hawaii within hours of arriving at my Dad's in NJ hoping to catch a flight sometime in the following 3 weeks). Preparation, lists of contacts, contingency plans galore...I've even called a car dealership to have them measure the trunk of a mini-van to make sure my stuff would fit with a potential car-pool ride at the other end of the flight. I like space-a flight for so many reasons - opportunity to tell the troops and crew how much you appreciate them, and that you're praying for them. Opportunity to teach the kids about global issues and places they'd never grasp at such a young age any other way. Opportunity to test and exercise my faith! Aloha and call us if you need to stay over next time you're stuck in aloha-land! Alli   James H. Coppens Member Username: Coppens1 Post Number: 43 Registered: 05-2006 Posted From: 125.60.241.237 Posted on Saturday, January 09, 2010 - 10:02 am:    Dear Mike, I agree about flying on the holidays. Check out my trip report McGuire-Travis-Misawa-Yokota-Singapore-Manila (in 3 parts). I got stranded at McGuire for 4 days, then finally got out the day after Thanksgiving. Jim   Mike Schukert Senior Member Username: Mike_s Post Number: 419 Registered: 03-2004 Posted From: 74.243.17.3 Posted on Thursday, January 07, 2010 - 03:00 pm:    John: Glad to oblige--even though I occasionally take a hit for trying to increase the awareness of unaccompanied mom's with wee ones. Who was it that said that "None are so blind as those that will not see?"   John McClellan Advanced Member Username: Mccljp Post Number: 227 Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 157.127.155.214 Posted on Thursday, January 07, 2010 - 01:53 pm:    Look at it this way Mike, you took one for the team so that that unaccompanied mother with three in tow didn't have to.   Mike Schukert Senior Member Username: Mike_s Post Number: 417 Registered: 03-2004 Posted From: 74.243.10.216 Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 09:36 pm:    Thanks Irwin. I wasn't aware of FUBAR's lesser stages. I also need a refresher re: "Catch 22's" preceeding 21. I'll bet that space-a is repleat with many examples!   Irwin Rovner Advanced Member Username: Irovner Post Number: 349 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 66.32.101.114 Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 06:38 pm:    There are at least 3 levels of intensity, the lowest being SNAFU. It increases to TARFU before reaching FUBAR. Additional refinements are possible.   Edwin B McConville Senior Member Username: Perkyva1 Post Number: 902 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 71.176.45.34 Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 06:04 pm:    Mike: Does FUBAR=SNAFU???   Danny Hamilton Senior Member Username: Dannyhamilton Post Number: 530 Registered: 03-2004 Posted From: 68.225.115.15 Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 02:59 am:    Lester meant to say the sub base at "Kings Bay", GA (I-95 at exits 6, 3 or 1) just north of the Florida state line.   Lester Green Advanced Member Username: Rtgreen5 Post Number: 242 Registered: 03-2007 Posted From: 69.143.223.11 Posted on Sunday, January 03, 2010 - 01:31 am:    Mike: I reread your trip report and was wondering: 1. How long did you remain at Tinker AFB to resolve the maintenance issue and 2.What was the necessity of driving all night from Charleston to St. Augustine? After all of your delays and frustrations on this return leg, why didn't you "veg" out at Charleston AFB billeting the night of your arrival, or if that was not available, go a short way down to Sea Isle, GA and enjoy a day at a decent hotel like the King and Prince and unwind? If you didn't know of this establishment, Google it. We love to stay there and walk the beach and indulge in the buffet breakfast. Maybe next time. Of course, there is always the Navy Lodge at the submarine base nearby. I think it is at Hunters Bay, GA, if I remember correctly..   Chris Schaede Intermediate Member Username: Schaede Post Number: 91 Registered: 03-2007 Posted From: 69.61.176.139 Posted on Saturday, January 02, 2010 - 11:54 pm:    Mike your story is a must read for holiday travellers regardless of category. Even one of these bumps could be a serious problem for someone with kids in tow or a time constraint.   Lester Green Advanced Member Username: Rtgreen5 Post Number: 241 Registered: 03-2007 Posted From: 69.143.223.11 Posted on Saturday, January 02, 2010 - 08:10 am:    Mike: I read your report with great interest to see how you tackled these frustrating delays. But as a Cat. 6, these things do occur. I've flown into Reno with Southwest and that may have been an escape route home for you at a reasonable cost, as well as the Amtrak mentioned in this posting. Hindsight is always 20/20 and there is no need to look back and second guess your decisions, but only to learn from the experience. How many of us have let flights go for various reasons only to be disappointed by future cancellations or diversions when travelling Space A? My sense of all of this is that I would have bailed out at Reno and made my way home as my threshhold for this painful uncertainty is quite limited. A similar disappointment happened to my wife and me after failing to get on the Rotator at SEATAC. We did not return to McChord where we landed and wait for a Pacific-bound flight, but instead took Hawaiian Air out of SEATAC to Oahu on our way to Osan. It worked out pretty well except that our C-5, which we boarded at Hickam, broke down on Guam and as it turned out, was kept in maintenance for about 2 weeks. When I learned that the plane was AOCP for parts, we caught the next flight out to Kadena. So these things do happen and one must have a Plan B at the ready. For you, you needed a Plan B through L, so it appears.   Joe Lippo Advanced Member Username: Momojoe Post Number: 354 Registered: 06-2006 Posted From: 138.163.106.71 Posted on Saturday, January 02, 2010 - 06:16 am:    Wow that must really have been an experience! One thing in your post chilled me to the bone, however. (Pun intended) The mention of Ice Fog! This is nothing to be trifled with, even in an aircraft fitted with proper de-icing equipment. On a flight to Whidbey Island in the trusty P-3C Orion, we encountered ice fog on final. To keep it short, we rolled on final with 4 engines online and an FMC (Fully Mission Capable) aircraft. By the time we flew through the innocent looking fog and landed, we had two out of four engines almost completely destroyed and a completely wrecked airplane! (If you are any sort of flight crew, imagine every caution/warning light on and sirens/horns blaring!!) We had to be towed from the runway! Towed! Oh the embarassment! However, I'd rather be red-faced than dead any day of the week. Good thing your pilots diverted. Your day could have been a LOT worse...   William Standage Senior Member Username: Charlie13 Post Number: 960 Registered: 07-2004 Posted From: 207.69.140.20 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 09:17 pm:    Mike, A very good story. I'd like to propose and alternate escape from Fallon. If you can get back up to Reno, you might be able to catch the daily West bound Amtrak Zepher. It stops in Sparks and downtown Reno sometime around noon. You can then detrain either at Fairfield-Suisun, or Davis around 4-5pm for a transfer to Travis via bus or taxi. As a senior, you qualify for the Amtrak discount. AAA membership also gives a good discount. This mode of travel avoids any worry about driving the snowy Donner Pass on interstate 80.   Danny Hamilton Senior Member Username: Dannyhamilton Post Number: 528 Registered: 03-2004 Posted From: 68.225.115.15 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 07:41 pm:    Mike, stop! You're making me cry! What a bummer of a trip back home. I guess all in all, it could have been a little worse, though. Donner Pass could have been closed in front of you. Travis could have had no vacancies and you DID manage to get to the rental cars pickups and turn in before closings. I'm sorry you had to go through all those off the chart highs and lows of emotions in trying to get back home, but I am glad you finally managed to do so. I'm sure your next Space-A venture will seem a bit dull after this trip.   Larry W. Carnes Senior Member Username: Larry Post Number: 1038 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 12.65.126.85 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 07:13 pm:    Sounds almost like the script from "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" with Steve Martin & John Candy.   xLoadmaster,M.Lewis Intermediate Member Username: Cblmelga Post Number: 112 Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 76.17.90.31 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 06:56 pm:    My oh my   michelle k bayley Advanced Member Username: Aviva Post Number: 163 Registered: 10-2006 Posted From: 68.51.164.179 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 05:25 pm:    It doesnt sound like your tribulations(other than the dining hall closure)was form holiday things but rather troop movements...but you are a champ for weathering it and making it home. I personally cant wait til the husband and I can enjoy adventures like that one! Thanks for showing us how its done...and glad you made it home ok!   dinotars Senior Member Username: Dinotars Post Number: 6282 Registered: 06-2003 Posted From: 173.169.151.24 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 04:54 pm:    Mike, Only a seasoned SPAT could weather a spacea storm like that.   John R Garrison Senior Member Username: Majorg Post Number: 2250 Registered: 02-2006 Posted From: 79.206.36.195 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 04:09 pm:    Mike: Yep Happy travels, John   D.B.M UK Senior Member Username: Overlandrover Post Number: 5504 Registered: 04-2005 Posted From: 88.108.32.214 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 03:11 pm:    Mike, sounds like you should have stayed in Hawaii a few more days. Glad you made it home safe if not sound of mind. Good info for the wantabees to get on the road this time of year. (Talk to Mike, he will tell you what it is like at Christmas for a Cat VI) So when is the next trip then?   Mike Schukert Senior Member Username: Mike_s Post Number: 412 Registered: 03-2004 Posted From: 74.243.17.37 Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 - 02:38 pm:    Senior space-a travelers (SPATs) are typically a savvy, go-with-the-flow bunch. Unfortunately, situations can and do arise that elevate the “pucker factor” of the most stalwart SPAT. At such times one gets up close and personal with one or more of the “demons of space-a:” bumping, denied boarding, flight cancellation/rerouting, etc. Seldom, however, do all of them loom prominent on a particular point-to-point trip. What follows is an accounting of one such instance, a holiday foray that gives new meaning to Murphy’s Law. My wife and are now home after a wonderful Hawaiian space-a getaway. As spectacular as our time in Aloha Land was, the return trip could only be described as disastrous! “FUBAR” (for those familiar with this once popular military acronym) best describes our homeward-bound misadventure. Without getting overly detailed, I will try to summarize our travails. We left balmy Kaneohe MCAS on 22 December in a beautiful Navy C-40 destined to NAS Jacksonville (our final destination) with enroute stops at Fallon, NV and Beaufort, SC. Perfect, we thought, an uncomplicated flight on the same plane all the way home! WRONG! Even before liftoff complications arose. Seems they couldn't get into Fallon because of frozen fog (a phenomenon also known as "White Death” or, as the local Indians call it, "Pogo Nip”). Consequently, we had to divert to Reno International Airport where three bus loads of troops from NAS Fallon would be meeting our plane. We knew that our C-40 could only be configured to hold 121 passengers; but, prior to boarding at Kaneohe the crew told us that they were not expecting that many troops to show up...WRONG AGAIN! Exactly 121 sailors and Marines exited the buses. So…we got to experience the indignity of bumping for the first time! Luckily, we were able to avail ourselves of one of the troop buses back to NAS Fallon where we thawed out and licked our wounds in on-base lodging. Early the next morning we braved the frozen, foggy gloom and made our way to the galley with expectations of restoring our sagging spirits with a delicious breakfast…NOT! Although NAS Fallon’s galley is one of the few Navy on-shore dining facilities that still welcomes retirees, a sign on the door said that it would not be feeding anyone from 23 December to 2 January. After gulping down some lukewarm coffee and whatever was deemed suitable for consumption at the nearby Liberty Center, we called the free base taxi (no kidding, free on-call base transportation!) and rushed to the terminal to ascertain our chances of catching another flight to any east coast destination. At the terminal we discovered that a C-9 was in-bound to pickup any remaining troops for transport to NAS Oceana. We were aware that C-9s are 90-seat birds, but the terminal folks told us that only 77 troops would be boarding. Great…especially since it was reportedly the last flight out of Fallon before Christmas. WRONG! Our luck wasn’t about to change as 90 uniformed pax showed up and boarded the plane, ergo no room for us “out-to-pasture” types! It was now painfully clear that a flight out of NAS Fallon to “anywhere” wasn’t in the picture, and spending the rest of the year in the frigid high desert didn’t exactly “pluck our twangers.” The only remaining get-away option was a rental car back to Reno where we could buy an airline ticket home, or across the Sierra Nevada Mountains in hopes of nabbing an east-bound flight out of Travis AFB. As last-minute air fares were sky high, we opted for the latter escape route. However, by this time the on-base Hertz facility was within an hour of closing for the holidays. Now convinced that the fates were toying with us, we managed to keep our wits intact and booked a costly one-way rental to California. But, no sooner had we exited the NAS Fallon gate then we learned that a huge snow-packed winter storm was forecast for that afternoon! The next challenge would be getting across Donner Pass before the authorities mandated the use of tire chains or closed the pass altogether. California here we come! Our westward trek and mountain transit took about four hours including a 30-minute delay at the summit due to a traffic-halting rollover. We barely made it to Travis AFB before nightfall. Our first stop was Travis’ AMC terminal where we learned of a flight the next morning to Charleston AFB, SC with a 0615 show time. Our relief and excitement were palpable--until we discovered that our transport would be a C-5! In spite of strong doubts as a result of a number of personally experienced past disappointments accruing to C-5 mechanical breakdowns, we pulled ourselves out of the sack at “o-dark-thirty” and schlepped our bags the half mile or so to the terminal. Just prior to 0615 the monitor blipped and presented a revised show time of 0815...not a good sign! At around 0800 the roll call time was slipped to 1215, and again an hour leter to 1415. Not surprisingly, after three postponed show times came a PA announcement that the flight was cancelled altogether! So t’was back to the proverbial drawing board we were. The terminal monitor showed a C-17 flight to McChord AFB that evening. As there wasn’t anything east-bound for the next two days, we decided to go for it, book another one-way car rental in Tacoma and drive up to NAS Whidbey Island for a connection with an NAS Jax-bound C-9. Alas, within minutes the monitor went blank again and reappeared sans the McChord flight! Foiled again! The next day, after a series of cancelled flights to Dover, we finally got manifested on a C-5 to Charleston. We actually boarded the plane and, yes, it took off. But we’re talking about the infamous C-5 here, surely our luck wouldn’t hold out…and it didn’t! About two hours into the flight we were told that a mechanical problem surfaced (surprise, surprise!) and that we’d be making an enroute stop at Tinker AFB, OK. Just prior to landing a crewman allowed that, after the problem was corrected, we’d be diverting to Dover…more bad news! After taking off from Tinker we were told that we’d be going to Charleston after all as there was no parking space for our C-5 at Dover. Minutes later came an announcement that they managed to find space at Dover, followed by yet another update that Dover was fogged in--ergo back to Charleston! After touching down at Charleston AFB we had to rush to the civilian terminal on the other side of the field to pick up yet another one-way rental car (our third in as many days!) before midnight when the Avis-Budget counter closed. We made it with 15 minutes to spare, got the car and drove all night to the St. Augustine, FL car turn-in location before its early Christmas Eve closing. We learned a hard lesson from this experience: NEVER try to fly space-a on holidays (and Christmas is the "Queen Mother" of them all)! Hopefully others will benefit from this sad tale. As aggravating and stressful as it was for the two of us, being retirees we at least had the spare time, mobility and sufficient funds to cover the many unanticipated lodging, meals and commercial transportation costs incurred. On reflection we wonder how this “odyssey into the unexpected” would have impacted space-a travelers lacking such flexibility and resources! There is no question that this trip would have been unimaginably difficult for an unaccompanied mother with an infant or toddler in tow! Concluding thought: Murphy is an optimist!