Chapter 59

At 1700 Marine One left the White House lawn for Summers Road. We were landing behind the office and the helicopter was flying to Morton to the hangar, in case it was needed for emergency travel.

Getting into the house was like walking a cornfield maze with all the construction equipment and materials. The contractors were ready to go with the changes that the Secret Service wanted.

I was glad that Bob’s Construction was supplying several engineers and Andy were going to make sure that nothing they did would damage the house or the tunnel. Both of them had the authority to shut the project down. Robert was going to do checks that they did not install any eavesdropping equipment during the construction.

My mates had been packing for a couple of days, so most everything was ready except for the things Jenny, Ching Lee, and I needed. There had been plenty of things to pack. We were going to stay there for two weeks and then go to England. We were going to start our trip Sunday morning. Saturday morning was going to be tied up with the airport rescue truck demo.

I had a wonderful evening with my mates; we spent the maximum time in the hot tub. We talked about how we were going to handle tomorrow. Mom, Lisa and Mindy, along with two sitters were going to handle all the little ones. The two boys were going with us to Morton, they were big enough that they could eat the free meal that JBG was paying for.

We arrived at Morton at 0700. None of the other invites had cancelled out - in fact we gained some. We had invited the three volunteer companies that we used often. Jason invited two more from the island and Hill Church, also the Ridgley fire company and the one from C-town.

I guess Marcy and Lorrie wanted a PR blast, the more the merrier and a bigger PR blast. All the local politicians were there - you know politician’s never miss a free meal, heck I was even in that group now. Hanna and Elmo were in also in line as were all the big dogs from the 911 center.

Even though it was buffet style, the restaurant cooks kept fresh food ready; eggs, ham, sausage, scrapple, sausage gravy, biscuits and plenty of coffee, orange juice and soda.

At 0815 Jody Sweet - the Oshkosh trainer - and his group asked if everyone had enough food? You can continue eating while we run a slide show.

“JBG Morton Field fire department has purchased two Oshkosh Striker ARFF firefighting and rescue trucks to go with the two Oshkosh Pierce fire trucks they already have. The slides are rolling on the big screen of the meeting room, giving a complete 360 of the exterior and interior of the truck.”

They are Stryker 8 by 8 meaning they are four axles, driving from all axles. They weigh 90 thousand pounds with a one thousand horse power engine capable of 0 to fifty miles per hour in twenty-five seconds. I may be biased - that’s getting it done for ninety thousand pounds,” he said.

“JBG wanted the 8 x 8 configuration because this is a large growing airport with a lot of unpaved areas. That configuration would allow these trucks to assist local fire companies and go off road in some circumstances,” he said.

“The all-axle drive with the last two axles having on demand Detroit locking differentials plus the high clearance give excellent off- road operation,” he said.

“The engines are German built Deutz with one thousand horsepower and extremely high 1500 foot-pounds of torque for lugging ability, if needed,” he said.

“The Stryker 8 x 8 carries 4500 gallons of water and 600 gallons of foam fire suppressant. It has the ability to pump both water and foam with a pump on the roll without limitations. It gives these trucks the ability to lay down a curtain of foam for planes having landing gear issues to do a gear-up, if necessary,” he said.

“These trucks have a center driver position for a 254 degree of visibility through 98 square feet of windshield. JBG ordered a couple more options that make these stand out as aircraft fire fighting trucks.”

“The first one of these was 1200 PSI pumps. You guys that are firemen know that you are not going to grab a nozzle on a hose reel and open it full force with twelve hundred pounds of pressure, without getting seriously hurt,” he said.

“Why that kind of pressure when the norm is 250? It gives the deck guns the ability to cover the entire fuselage of a very large plane with water or foam from one position,” he said.

“The next option was a sixty-five-foot HRET snozzle. The snozzle has the ability to puncture the fuselage and containers on an air freighter up to thirty-six inches and deliver high pressure water, water mist and foam where it is needed. HRET designation is - high reach, extend and turret mounted,” he said.

“All the switches and controls in the cab are grouped by the functions they control. All the chassis controls have the dominate position on the panel for easy access by the operator. All the pump controls are in another group together. The snozzle master controls are grouped together. The snozzle - after activation - is controlled by a pistol grip joy stick,” he said.

“When the snozzle is activated, a fourteen LED camera screen goes live on the dash that gives the operator a live view of the business end of the snozzle. That business end has the piercing spear as well as a deck gun capable of putting one thousand gallons a minute on the target,” he said.

“For maintenance, the Stryker has a maintenance port where all fluids can be checked and all filters can be changed as needed. It also has a computer port so the maintenance team can run diagnostics and do upgrades,” he said.

“JBG also bought a training simulator to run a continuous training program for all the potential operators to keep them familiar with truck operations.

“Open the curtain and let’s look at the simulator while we get the real thing up here to look at,” he said.

“The two tractor trailers that have been loaded with flammables are back at Fort Smith for us to play with,” Lorrie said.

“Morton ground control, truck 3 and truck 4 requesting permission to use the taxiway to the terminal and then cross the runway to the terminal.”

“Morton ground - to trucks 3 and 4 - proceed on the taxiway, hold up short of the runway, there is one plane on final approach. Once it passes, cross the runway to the terminal tarmac,” control said.

The plane was one of our C5s back from another secret mission to somewhere unknown. It had been gone four days. Lorrie said earlier while we were eating that two of the C130s had been gone almost a week flying for the CIA.