I flew to Afghanistan in 2002 on an Antinov AN 225. I shall endevour to spin the entire dit in all it's glory, it's long but by God it was an experience!!
I was part of a small detachment who were required to accompany some "heavy kit" to Op Jacana. We were initially briefed that an Amercian Globemaster would be our transport of choice, however, on arrival at Brize we were informed that plans had changed somewhat. Subsequently found out plans had been changed for weeks prior but nobody thought to inform us, typical.
After waiting for 3 days, yes 3 days!! for the beast to arrive, I was outside that departure lounge have a crafty fag when the sky was filled with the most enormous aircraft I had ever laid eyes on. The craft landed and stopped which defied all laws of momentum and taxied around to a far side of the airfield. Another 10 hours of hanging around and yet another night at Brize followed. The following morning we were on the pan with our vehicles which once packeted up looked like a brigades worth.
"there's no f**kin way that lot is goin in any f**kin aircraft" one of the lads stated.
We lead the way followed by numerous monkey's driving the rest of the wagons. On arriving at the aricraft the sheer size of it is unbelievable, the nose was up and I took the liberty of standing in it's mouth, it really was a huge expanse of space and echoed if you shouted down into the cavernous cargo bay. We took hours to get everything loaded under the usual RAF anal approach. Once done it was yet again hands to waiting about stations.
After a further 3 hours we were told we would be departing within the next hour or so, a group of scruffy looking oiks wandered across from the dep lounge in what can only be described as 70's retro clothing. This of course caused much hilarity amongst all of us. The most desheveled of the bunch (and the only one carrying a brief case) turned out to be the senior pilot!!! Once the crew had arrived and checked the load over, which entailed pulling three of the chains securing the vehicles and slurring lots of russian we were told 30 minutes to departure. We had a russian interpretor in the form of some RAF type who asked if anyone was "into" planes. Of course I raised my mit and was escorted up what can only be described as a caving ladder to the flight desk, where I met the deshevelled pilot and Chewbaka from star wars who had obviously becane his flying carrier on one of these beasts. The flight deck was surprisingly complex, the only thing I have seen similar is some phot's of a nimrod I saw, lots of analogue style controls, very few digital instruments as far as I could see.
The journey begins, and we are gestured to the crew area accessed from another caving ladder to a moderately sized compartment just in front of the tail in the roof of the cargo space. Aside from the crew using our seats as a makshift underwear drying facility it was as comfortable as you would expect. Not a seatbelt in sight and because I thought it would be funny I pointed out that there were no lifejackets under the seats. As if we would have had any chance if she had ditched, I reckon we'd have had the most rediculous swim imaginable to get out anyway. The first we knew that we were airborne was the aircraft listing to aft and we all fell about the place. No "ladies and gentlemen take your seats for take off" here then. What made it all the funnier was we were sharing the flight with some RAF Chinook flight crews (someone really dipped out there then!!). We made numerous stops along the way without to much to tell about, that is until we reached Azerbaijan. I had only ever heard of Azerbaijan in an Eddie Izzard DVD so was quite keen to have a nosey about. We made our way down the ladder as we did every other stop and went to the rear door to get some fresh air. Once the crew had disembarked the two guards at the foot of the steps cocked their weapons and gestured we stay where we were. Who were we to argue!!! Smoked a fag at the door, not that I had to wait as the compartment upstairs was smoker friendly as the crew insisted on kicking the arse out of! We worked out after 5 hours we probably wouldn;t see the crew for a while so we jumped on top of the wagons and got a bit of head down. The next moment of clarity was the aircraft adopting the same position as when we had all fallen about at the very beginning of the journey at brize. Yes, they had started up the runway without informing any of us!!! Climbing the ladder first I used my leatherman to batter the hatch as hard as I could and moments later chewbaka opened the hatch chuckling and jibbering some Ruski at me, I have never been so close to committing a gross act of violence in peacetime since.
From that stage it went once again to a fairly mundane period of flight until we worked out we must be somewhere above afghanistan, thanks mostly to one of the RAF flight crew who with a gucci GPS had tacked our flight all the way. We were having what I believe was supposed to be coffee but didn't taste anything like it, think in actual fact the ruski's were having yet another laugh at our expense. However, delighting in their coffee as we were and GPS guy piped up that he thought we were around the area of Bagram, our destination. At this we rushed to the grubby windows and peered out, surely he must be wrong we were still at many 1000's of feet, then from the window next to mine another of the flight crew saw an airfield, yes Bagram directly below. The following 3-4 minutes are somewhat lost in my memory on acount of the fact I lost all bearings and possibly even conciousness. The nose dropped and we fell, the aircraft fell at an alarming rate, we all fell about the floor, red hot sort of coffee spilling over all participants. We managed to land and taxied a short distance past many fire tenders, I think they thought we wetre in the poo also. Once we had disembarked a jovial yank said he had been briefed that the incoming aricraft looked as if it had experienced a complete failure on finals. That was us and that was how it appeared from the ground. But alas we arrived "safe"
I have yet to experience a flight like it, many of my firends, collegues and even my wife have told me they have a deep hated/fear of flying, I regail the Antonov story and they become quite upbeat about cruising the airways. For me it fuelled my passion for flying, I'm now in the process of transferring from my current job in the Royal Marines to the AAC to hopefully fly for a living. I am fully confident that I will never have a flying experience which will match my Antonov tales but if they come close it'll be great!!!
