Slow & Ugly

She is slow…but ugly. That pretty much sums up my latest flying venture. Although not much to look at, she is known for reliability. I truly expect her to “Get er Done” (spoken in my best Southern-inflected grunt).
The C-23 Sherpa is made by Short Brothers of Northern Ireland and modified for military use. The civilian version of the aircraft is called a Shorts 330 (SD3) and doesn’t have the aft cargo ramp. The Army uses the C-23 for cargo and passenger transport with paradrop and medical evacuation capability. With the need for operational security, I'm not able to get more specific.

After a week of aircraft system classes, we finally got a chance to go fly today. The aircraft was surprisingly stable. My biggest adjustment was getting used to a “tiller” which is a steering device moved by your left hand to maneuver the nose wheel during ground taxi.

My class consists of 3 other pilots from RI, MO and IN. They are all fun guys, which is a good thing…since we’ll all be deployed together. Otherwise, this is shaping up to be a typical military aircraft qualification course--a truckload of information is dumped on you in the beginning and within a couple weeks everything begins to make sense.

On a final note, the best unit patch I saw was from a PA Guard unit. The patch has a drawing of the C-23 with the following motto below; “Just give us a call and we’ll come in our Shorts”