Dear Cableites,

As of my last update, I signed off the day prior to Halloween. Little did I know that would be our last “normal” day here for awhile. Hours later after I had sent my update, we were all rudely awoken by a thunderstorm, as I was awake, I figured I go ahead and walk out to the porta-john and head back to bed thereafter before the sun came up. Much to my surprise, as I stepped out of my door I found myself ankle deep in cold water. I quickly grabbed my flashlight to figure out what was going on. Sure enough, we were experiencing flood conditions. To make matters worse, within the next few hours, we lost communication with our Headquarters due to our generators becoming partially submerged.

I can go on here for awhile, but the bottom line is that we did not get out from the water for 4 days. All of the living quarters and our Operations Center tent had 4”-10” of standing water. Our front gate had over 2’. It was a mess. So essentially for over two weeks we have been replacing what was damaged, and also assessing what items can be repaired. Since then we have been replacing all of the temporary floors in our living quarters and operations center. We are also working on replacing some of our security wall, since much of it was damaged by the flood.

This of course has really put a damper on our mission over here. With the needs of repairing and replacing a lot of the physical structures, the impact has been that we have conducted very little training with the Iraqi’s that we came here to train. Fortunately we have just about completed most of the reconstruction, and next month we are looking at returning back to “normal” operations.

So here we are with Thanksgiving right around the corner, and Christmas soon after, all of our thoughts here have turned to home, and our families. All of us realize that this is a difficult time for them, since they are the ones that look around and know that we are missing, and that their homes are empty without us.

For those of us here, it seems to be easier. It is not that we don’t miss our loved ones and friends, it is because each day here tends to just blend into the next. The only mark of time for us is the calendar, and each day that passes is a day closer for us to be able to head home.

My thoughts and regards to you all,
MAJ Peter Queyrel

The Mt. SAC Flying Team placed fourth

overall at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate Flying Association (PCIFA) Safety and Flight Evaluation Conference (SAFECON) at Gillespie Airport, hosted by San Diego Christian College of El Cajon November 10-14. Pilots and students of collegiate-aviation programs participated in 10 precision and academic events including: VFR and IFR navigation, spot landings (with power and at idle) and a message drop contest; two academic written exams (50 questions in one hour), airplane preflight, aircraft identification, and crew resource management. Interviews and observation of procedures were used to determine team safety. Tuesday evening’s opening BBQ brought in about 200 people to see aviation-humorist Rod Machado.

The four-day-competition required total concentration for each event, that is if the students were not pushing a plane to the staging area in preparation for a flight. The awards banquet on Saturday included John and Martha King. Aviation-schools attended were San Jose State University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Prescott), Mt. San Antonio College, Cypress College, San Diego Christian College, and visiting members from The US Air Force Academy. Twenty airplanes were flown in including Cessna 150s, 152s, 172s, Piper Cherokees, a Grumman Tiger and an Aero Commander 100.

Judges included members from many chapters of the 99s and Cableite locals Dennis and Virginia Harmer, Kathy Jameson and son David, Bill and Carol Joyner, David Franklin, Ken Earl, Hank and Judy Kras and Dominick Landolfi. And the winners are: Ryan Straton – 10th and John Garth – 7th in computer accuracy; Ryan Stratton and Eric Owens – 6th in airplane preflight; our very own Ryan Cable – 10th in aircraft identification; 9th in VFR navigation; and the overall top 2-year schools’ flying team – Mt. San Antonio College.

“This is obviously a rebuilding year,” says Robert Rogus, Chairman of the Aeronautics Department at MSAC. “We only had 3 licenced pilots with our team of 16 aeronautics students. We anticipate the next regional competition (scheduled for January 2011 – just after the Cable Air Fair) to be a banner year as we will be hosting that competition. Our students and pilots will have more experience and ratings by then. We will also need plenty of judges from the local area.”

Congratulations go to Embry-Riddle’s flying team for their invitation to the national competition in Terra Haute, Indiana in late April 2010.

Story & pictures by David Franklin