40th CAB practices night sling load movements at Camp Buehring, Kuwait

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait - Spc. Daniel Klages hangs out of the belly of a Chinook helicopter, wearing night vision goggles and calling directions to his pilots: two left, one up, down. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), 526th Brigade Support Battalion stand on top of a shipping container, Aug. 14, waiting to attach their cargo at Camp Buehring, Kuwait.

Klages, a crew chief in Bravo Company of 1st Battalion, 168th Aviation Regiment, 40th Combat Aviation Brigade, has the unique job of being strapped into the aircraft and physically spotting the cargo hook while it gets seated.

"You are up in the air and knowing you are just hanging out there - it is a pretty cool feeling," Klages said.

Klages, along with other crew chiefs in his unit, is tasked with harnessing and climbing into the hole - a three-foot-square opening in the Chinook's floor where the cargo hook is located. Once hanging in place, the crew chief becomes the eyes and ears of the cargo helicopter.

"Crew chiefs direct the helicopter over the load, because the pilots can't see and so it is all on us to tell them what is going on," he said.

The Oregon and Washington National Guard units, who fall under the 40th CAB from the California National Guard, has previously been involved fighting wildfires in the western United States - sling loading a "bambi bucket" full of water from a river onto a burning mountainside.

In Kuwait, the crew faces dust storms and heat while transporting troops to different locations, as well as large artillery and trucks.

"With sling loads, we can take equipment almost anywhere," Klages said. "We can get critical equipment like Humvees to forward operating bases and drop it off where people need it."

The capability is a game-changer for U.S. Army Central, who has a 20-nation area of operations.

During the past eight months of deployment, Klages and his fellow crew members have been involved a variety of operations - even a Helocast training exercise in the Persian Gulf, where the crew practiced inserting into an area by jumping out of the hovering aircraft.

"We sling load a lot of stuff: guns, Humvees - we had to sling load a Black Hawk while we were here. We can even sling load (another Chinook)," he said. "So, if we have a Chinook go down, we can actually sling load it out."

For the troops operating on the ground, the added capability is appreciated.

At the most recent sling load training at Camp Buehring, teams from the 101st Airborne Division transportation battalion practiced moving large containers to the flight line for transportation.

"It is very important to the overall mission," said Sgt. Taler Myrick, of Nashville, Tenn. and a motor transport operator with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 526th Brigade Support Battalion. "There are times where we can't drive a load over the distance, but with the helicopter they can extend the range and fly over potentially dangerous areas. It gives us the ability to move our equipment pretty much anywhere we need to go."