Bushmaster

On the upside, at least it puts a name to one of the otherwise faceless, bitter whiners out there.

I'm thinking the best conversation had to be between the pilots when they stopped rolling. "Dude, nice landing." "Hey, thanks. Uh, where's the Follow-Me?" The next best was with the general. Way to look good in the joint arena.

The Jungle Express, by Michael Bleriot

Land a lot of places that a Herc can't. There's a book out on the C-27 by a guy who flew them in Panama, and while he takes liberties the fact is the C-27 needs a lot less room to do its thing. And I, too, hated flying half a cargo load of twinkies when a smaller plane could have done it. That said, a plane only makes sense if you can pay for it. The Herc can get 90% of the jobs done 90% of the time, so we don't need a luxury twin-engine weighing on the budget.

I can answer my own question: they didn't save anything since it was just announced that DoD is cancelling the C-27. The only way we'll see it is if Bleriot writes more books.

Good read! I flew for a civilian outfit in Colombia and have an idea where some of this took place. Excellent flying stories. I know the Army liked the C-27 and was never sure why the Air Force got rid of it. Probably cost but now they're buying it right back again, so how much did they really save. The flyleaf says Bleriot wrote two more books - The Jungle Express and Flying Naked - but don't see them anywhere. Not out yet?... Bueller?...