Saturday, July 8, 2000
Youth tour Dyess, take ‘flight’
on C-130 simulator
By Anna Voelker
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Chanea Wells overcame her fear of flying
in just eight minutes.
That’s how long it took for the 11-year-old
to get through the rocky and shaky simulated C-130 transport plane
mission to Granada.
Chanea, who will be a sixth-grader at Mann
Middle School in August, got a first-hand look Friday at what
pilots, flight engineers and navigators go through to fly supplies,
food, troops and equipment all over the world.
She and 14 other children from the Boys
and Girls Club of Abilene took a break from summer volunteer work
to visit Dyess Air Force Base and learn more about their options
after college or high school.
“I thought it was really going to be
scary,” Chanea said of her “first” plane ride.
“I thought I was going to pass out, really. But it was cool
… very cool.”
Although her father, Derrick, is a master
sergeant stationed at Dyess, Chanea doesn’t think she will
join the service when she grows up. Instead, she plans to be a
lawyer.
Sean Pierce, 11, has never flown in a “real”
plane either. After experiencing the simulator, Sean said he will
think about joining the Air Force “to fly fast jets.”
“Flying is something I wanted to do
before (coming to the base),” he said. “This seemed
pretty realistic.”
The $17 million simulator trains teams of
two pilots, one flight engineer and one navigator to work together
in different circumstances.
Retired Air Force pilot Howard Allan called
the concept of “Crew Resource Management” an important
part of flying a plane.
“It’s big in the airlines, and
it’s big here,” he said.
Allan, along with other Air Force retirees,
programs the simulator to throw different circumstances, such
as generator overloads and electronic and hydraulics problems,
at the team. The team learns to handle dangerous and everyday
situations in the simulator, which is much safer than throwing
the group into a real C-130 to practice, said Staff Sgt. Michael
MacAleese.
MacAleese, a flight engineer with Dyess’
39th Airlift Squadron, said hosting the Boys and Girls Club is
a way to reach out to the community.
“Kids see these planes fly over, and
we want them to have an idea of what they are and what they do,”
he said.
Contact staff writer Anna Voelker at
676-6738 or voelkera@abinews.com.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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