Experiences as a Military Pilot in the Middle East

Jeremy Atherton is a pilot and Major for the Wyoming National Air Guard flying the C-130 as an aircraft commander (and former active duty Air Force Major). He is trained to fly cargo, airdrop cargo, and people, and is a pilot for the MAFFS program, which is a forest firefighting unit of the Wyoming National Guard. 

 

Here is a short video about the MAFFs firefighting mission: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQM512rDaGQ

 

He has been deployed several times to the middle east in support of the war on terror and actually flew the Bombardier E-11A in Afghanistan (part of the Battlefield Airborne Communications program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_Airborne_Communications_Node). If you ever saw the movie Lone Survivor with Mark Wahlberg you would understand the difficulties of communication in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. The E-11A helps to fix those issues by flying at high altitudes and providing coverage to troops and special ops on the ground. The E-11A is actually a retrofitted commercial and civilian plane so the USAF sent him to get his commercial pilots license before deploying.