Cosmic airplanes

Yesterday was an off shift day, but several of us were assigned to go out to the sea ice runway for the flight in. They continue to fly primarily C-17's in for about a month and then the "heavy's" (LC-130's) start flying in. Eventually the sea ice runway will close and we'll move out to the Pegasus Airfield. Anyhow, I had enough time yesterday morning to eat a quick cold breakfast, make a few phone calls, go to the outdoor safety training class, grab a sandwich in the galley and then head back to the firehouse to head out to station two which is right by the runway. Station two is basically a trailer that is part of a whole little trailer city out at the ice town. We'll start staffing there on October 20. We'll spend the entire 24 hour shift there, there's a galley trailer there, and the bathrooms are in another trailer (not so close to the station.) The new ARFF rigs that came in last year are pretty nice. They are four seaters, drive on mat-tracks, and carry only drychem and compressed foam. No water at all. All the vehicles here have to be plugged in at all times when they aren't in use because it's so darn cold!
The plane came down on time and it flew in super close. The C-17 is such a huge aircraft that it makes all other vehicles look like little tonka toys. After they land we move up into closer position while they offload cargo and then passengers. So far they've been doing all hot landings which means that the engines remain running at all times. The main reason they are staying with hot landings for now is that the sea ice is still rather thin (only about 6ft) on the runway. Already 1800 ft of runway has been closed because it was only about 62 inches thick. We chatted a bit with the pilots who are from McCloud in Seattle, WA. Then the more of the winter-overs loading up and the plane took off. We have to stay in hard stand positions until the plane is ~100 miles out which should go quickly. Instead, the pilots kept circling and practicing flyovers and runway approaches. It was pretty sweet to watch them fly over and be so close. After they finally headed north we were released, parked the rigs back at station two and headed back into town. The weather was gorgeous, pretty warm, and crystal clear and sunny skies.
Once I got back I did a little laundry, a cardio workout, dinner, "cosmic bowling" and then a quick stop at the coffee house before bed.

I was invited to go out with some research divers and be a dive tender for them. Unfortunately, the runway duty got in the way of that for the day. I'll try to go again perhaps sometime early this next week.

Today was a shift day again at the firehouse. Sunday's are down days so we haven't done too much. We did our truck checks and actually had a call right before brunch. False alarm at the post office building #140. Today I'm on the ambulance. Every shift you are on a different rig. Sunday brunch was quite a tasty treat. Real eggs cooked however you like, fresh belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream from "Waffle World" and fresh fruit and cheeses. A real treat from the usual cafeteria style food. Later this evening we sent two guys home because we had too many people at the station and so I drove the rest of the shift. We did have another call about dinner time that I drove on, a smell of fumes that ended up being a guy laquering a table. Then we watched a bad horror movie, "House of Wax" then off to bed. I wonder what we'll wake to in the morning?