If you’ve never heard of Aerial Port, you’re not alone. It’s the military’s equivalent for an air terminal and serves essentially the same functions as the terminals at Port Columbus or Cleveland Hopkins airports. They are all tasked with moving passengers and cargo through the air. The key difference is that the cargo and passengers passing through Port Columbus don’t ever purposefully exit a plane mid-flight.
Aerial Port at the Air National Guard’s 179th Airlift Wing is located in a non-descript building. There is no passenger drop-off or nearby parking garages. Inside it looks like mere offices and there is no Starbucks. But if you happen to notice the bank of digital clocks showing military time at various locations around the world, you know you’re not in a normal office building.
“Welcome to Aerial Port,” said Staff Sgt. Jacob Hergatt of Lexington, Ohio, stepping out of a room labelled ATOC. He said that ATOC or Air Terminal Operations Center is the heart of any Aerial Port Squadron. It coordinates all the passenger and cargo movements that occur at the 179th. All orders for the various services within Aerial Port come from ATOC.
Those services include PAX which handles all passengers and their cargo as well as Ramp Services, which packs and processes any cargo that is to be loaded or unloaded. That could be tanks, Humvees, water, food, ammunition, disaster relief supplies, household goods, and even human remains.
Ramp Services is in the back of Aerial Port and is more warehouse than office. Pallets of cargo fill one area while shelves holding plywood, cardboard, and what looked like duffel bags lined another. Senior Airman Andy Krieg from Ashland, Ohio explained that the bags were actually parachutes for air dropping cargo when a landing isn’t possible.
Located off of the main room is a much smaller room where the ceiling extended up four to five stories. This is the drying tower for the parachutes after recovery from any mission. Two huge chutes hung from the top, their suspension lines just touching the floor.
Krieg said that everything they did there had a written procedure for it. He pulled out a binder from a whole shelf of them as an example. He pointed to a nearby cargo platform. “This is a CDS or Container Delivery System. It is used to deliver loose supplies like water, food, ammo,” he said. There were several others like it in the room and they all looked the same.
“There is an exact way to build a CDS platform and run all the ties that secure it. It’s all written down here [in the binder], even the type of knots we use,” Kreig stated.
Staff Sgt. David Kitchen of Springsboro, Ohio said that, “If something fails, it is not a good thing; so we always follow procedure.” It was a sentiment heard often during the week at the 179th.
The two airmen then proceeded to demonstrate packing a cargo parachute. Master Sgt. Michael Sipe from Shelby, Ohio joined them to help because this particular chute, a G-12E, is quite large. It measures 64 feet in diameter and weighs 125 pounds when packed. It has sixty-four separate suspension lines attached to it, each one 51 feet in length. With a load capacity of 2,200 pounds, it is used to slow down and stabilize large bulk cargo platforms.
Packing the chute is not a quick process.
The parachute’s suspension lines need to be kept separated so they don’t get tangled and in some places are covered with cloth so they don’t melt from the friction created when the chute deploys. A large fan is used to partially inflate the chute so it can be neatly folded and inspected for tears and defects. Then the 32-foot long canopy and all 64 lines are systematically packed into its bag, which is then closed using multiple cords. Every cord is fastened with the exact same type of knot as specified in the procedure book.
Loading and unloading cargo requires a different set of procedures and skills including operating the equipment sitting nearby: a very large forklift and an odd-looking vehicle called a K-loader. The cargo varies according to the mission. Stateside, it could be assisting the Coast Guard or FEMA in recovery and relief efforts; helping to move the possessions of military families moving to new assignments; or training, like that day’s flight.
It was clear that Aerial Port played a vital role in the operational mission of the 179th. What was also clear as I talked to the men and women of the 179th, was that there is a prevailing attitude about their jobs that is very positive. Perhaps that’s because mission success is paramount for all of them, and even a simple knot is crucial to getting it done.
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth story in the “Embedded at the 179th” series.
