Serving Those Who Served – Disabled Veterans

Some 85 King Airs have flown the Disabled Veterans through Veterans Airlift Command

The request from Veterans Airlift Command (VAC) was the kind that Jim Harris loves to say yes to. The organization needed him to fly the first leg of a trip that would take the wife of a wounded warrior from her home in Buffalo, New York, to be by his side at a military hospital burn center in San Antonio, Texas. As he does with all VAC missions, Harris immediately contacted the passenger to discuss timing. She requested they leave in four days and asked if she could bring her 15-month-old son and her parents. The Beechcraft King Air 200C had plenty of room for her family, he told her.

“So I picked her up in Buffalo and when she came out to the airplane she had her 15-month-old and a one-week-old newborn,” Harris said. “The doctors had told her there was no way she could fly with the newborn, but when they realized she was flying on a private aircraft instead of going through the terminals they gave her the go-ahead.”

Breg Hughes, a com-mander in the U.S. Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets, suffered burns over 50 percent of his body when his Humvee ignited a roadside bomb in Afghanistan just days before he was scheduled to go on leave to be at his wife’s side for the birth of their second son. He’d been back in the States and in intensive care for a month but his wife, Allison, a retired Army captain and Blackhawk pilot, hadn’t yet visited him due to the pregnancy.

Breg wasn’t recovering well and needed the support of his wife. Harris flew the family to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where they boarded a second VAC-coordinated aircraft that would take them to San Antonio. The Veterans Airlift Command, a national network of volunteer aircraft owners and pilots, provides free air transportation for medical and other compassionate purposes to post-9/11 combat-wounded soldiers and their families.

Breg would go on to spend four months in the hospital and endure more than 20 surgeries. Now a retired major, he is working toward his Master of Business Administration at the University of Chicago and a career as a financial adviser.

This is exactly the type of support Walter Fricke envisioned when he started Veterans Airlift Command. The wounded have a better chance to heal when their spirits are lifted by family, a lesson he learned the hard way: he spent most of six months in the hospital with 700 miles separating him from family after he was injured in 1968 while serving in the Vietnam War.

A Vietnam vet giving back

Fricke is a decorated former Army aviator, having flown hundreds of combat missions as an Army helicopter pilot with the 68th Assault Helicopter Company in Vietnam. He received the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with the Silver Star and palm, two Bronze Stars, 21 air medals and a Purple Heart.

An instrument-rated commercial airplane and helicopter pilot with multi-engine land and sea ratings, Fricke flies at airshows around the United States in support of VAC as part of a T-28 warbird aerobatic formation demonstration team called the Trojan Horsemen. He collects and flies vintage and warbird aircraft including a Great Lakes, Waco, Staggerwing and Grumman Widgeon.

Fricke started VAC in 2006 after retiring from a career as an executive with GMAC-Residential Funding Corporation and then as founding president and executive director of the Homeownership Preservation Foundation. He serves as the chairman and CEO, and

he regularly flies for VAC. His daughter, Jen Salvati, runs the day-to-day operations as VAC’s executive director.

According to Salvati, the organization has coordinated flights for 9,000 passengers covering more than five million miles with the generosity of more than 2,400 pilots and owners who have donated their time, aircraft and operating expenses. Those figures include 85 King Air pilots who have signed up for the VAC network and volunteered for missions.

King Airs are some of the most popular aircraft for VAC missions because they offer passengers comfortable flights – non-stop routes, flying above weather and plenty of cabin room for family members, service dogs or medical equipment. Here are the experiences of two King Air pilots who have flown wounded warriors as part of the VAC network.

CHI Aviation’s King Air 200C

Jim Harris, who helped get Allison Hughes to her Green Beret husband’s side, has flown 34 missions for Veterans Airlift Command, including four in December 2014.

“Four in one month is somewhat unusual for us, but we attempted to help the VAC in getting wounded veterans from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in the Washington, D.C. area, home to spend the holidays
with their families,” said Harris, the facility manager and security coordinator for CHI Aviation headquartered in Howell, Michigan.

Harris points out that he is merely the pilot; it is CHI Aviation President Chris Turner who donates the company’s 1981 King Air 200C and pays all the expenses to fly these missions. CHI Aviation, which started business in 1980 as Construction Helicopters, Inc., operates 20 aircraft from CH-47D Chinook rotorcraft to the King Air 200C. The company provides search and rescue and passenger transport services to oil and gas customers in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as aerial crane services throughout North America and the Caribbean. CHI is also a U.S. Department of Defense contractor.

“About 75 percent of CHI Aviation’s employees are veterans, many with combat experience,” said Harris, who served in the Army during the 1960s. “Each mission we have flown for the VAC has given more back to us than what we have ever given to these veterans. All of our employees are happy that our company is able to provide these wounded veterans a comfortable mode of transportation aboard our airplane in recognition of their services and sacrifices to our nation.”

The company’s King Air features the Blackhawk PT6A-52 engine upgrade and the Raisbeck EPIC PLATINUM performance package minus the swept turbofan propellers. It flies about 150 hours a year performing executive transport, crew swaps and other logistics support for the company’s facilities in Galliano, Louisiana; Boise, Idaho; and Sacramento, California. The airplane’s factory-installed large cargo door is ideal for hauling a helicopter engine on a rack.

The cargo door and spaciousness of CHI Aviation’s King Air 200C means Harris often gets special requests, for example, when a wounded warrior is confined to a 700-pound motorized rolling bed.

“To get someone home to see their mom for the first time in months or even years, and with all they are going through, it’s just a very humbling experience. We are happy to assist the VAC on these special opportunities to reunite veterans with their families,” Harris said.

“Ninety percent of the veterans I have flown have lost at least one limb,” he said. “We are talking about 19, 20, 21-year-old kids. If they have a break between medical procedures and want to visit friends and family back home, some don’t have the money, and for many, traveling commercially is nearly impossible.”

Harris has flown wounded warriors and their families to medical treatments, homecomings, funerals, weddings, and he even transported to a reenactment – a then 88-year-old World War II veteran who had received the Medal of Honor for his combat service in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

“War is truly hell,” Harris said. “This is our way to help our vets through some difficult times, and CHI Aviation is absolutely honored to do it.”

CEMCO Inc.’s King Air C90SE

From his first VAC flight in 2008, Neil Hise knew these missions would have an impact on the lives of the veterans as well as his own.

“It was an eye-opening experience to be close to people who need help and have issues they are dealing with, whether it’s the loss of a leg or the real desire to get back to military service,” said Hise, a Vietnam veteran. “They’ve got their whole lives to deal with this and we help them for a couple of hours. It’s such an honor to fly these guys.”

Hise is president of CEMCO Inc., a New Mexico-based family business that makes vertical shaft impact crushers to crush materials for recycling and energy production among other uses. Many of his VAC flights involve the military hospital in San Antonio or the western part of the country. In addition to signing up for missions posted on veteransairlift.org, he will let VAC know when he’s on a business trip with room for passengers.

This is Hise’s first King Air; he purchased the 1996
King Air C90SE new from the factory and has accumu-lated 2,900 hours in it. “I consider myself to be one of the luckiest guys in the world
to own a King Air,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful business tool; it’s very professional; it’s a
great airplane to fly; it’s just
a sweet airplane.”

Much of CEMCO’s work is in the mining industry, and the C90SE gets Hise to aggregate mines and processing plants in remote locations. “My King Air is a magic carpet; it gets me into small fields,” Hise said.

That means Hise can get VAC passengers pretty close to their hometowns no matter the size. He has flown 22 missions for VAC, including three last year, and has a photo with most of the soldiers he’s transported. The photos hang on the main office wall, inviting visitors to learn more about the costs of war and what can be done to help.

“I’m compelled to do this,” said Hise, who’s been flying since 1968 and has 5,820 hours total flight time. “It’s something that I give back and it gives back to me. It gives me some closure from my experiences returning from Vietnam.

“Some of these veterans’ stories have really affected my life, I mean absolutely changed my life and still bring tears to my eyes. And keep in mind, I’m a crotchety old Vietnam vet, business owner and grandpa.”

One of those passengers was Army Sgt. Matthew Melancon, who lost both his feet when an improvised explosive device hit his vehicle in Afghanistan. During a flight from Texas to New Mexico, Melancon told Hise that the injury was the best thing that ever happened to him because he now appreciated the good things in life.

“When someone with grievous injuries like Matt is able to have that outlook, it’s really special,” Hise said. “You meet some of the most wonderful people when you’re doing this – from the veterans and their families to the people running VAC. And the FBOs almost always step up, offering a fuel discount, waving ramp fees and bending over backward to help.”

More pilots needed

“The war might be winding down but the need for flights has not stopped. Veterans Airlift Command is here for the long haul,” Salvati said from VAC headquarters in Minnesota.

Some who request transportation are no longer in hospital settings but they require travel for medical care, and some wounded warriors are still seeking treatment for injuries sustained as many as 10 years ago.

“I’ve got a triple amputee in Denver right now who needs to go to San Diego for a consult on a hand transplant,” she said. “Many of our soldiers need specialized treatment, and it’s not something they can find at their local VA hospital.”

Visit veteransairlift.org to find out more on being a volunteer pilot, donating money or to request transportation for a wounded warrior.