TOP STORY>>Little Rock aerial porters collar ‘Top Dawg’ award

By CAPT. MATTHEW BATES
439th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

DOBBINS AIR RESEVE BASE, Ga. – Every dog pack has its alpha dog, and every pack has its wannabes waiting for the chance to become the leader of the pack.

At the Air Force Reserve Command “Port Dawg” competition June 18-22, reservists from the 96th Aerial Port Squadron, Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., emerged as the Top Dawgs.

“We’ve got a nice spot picked out for the Port Dawg trophy back in Little Rock,” said Lt. Col. Lance Turner, 96th APS commander.

Turner and his son, Senior Airman Derek Turner from the 41st APS, Keesler AFB, Miss., had a little family feud going on before the winner was announced.

“I circled this on my calendar when I joined the Air Force three years ago, and we’ve been practicing for this competition for months,” said the younger Turner.

“We’re gonna take the big dawg here...put it in my car on the drive home and drive straight through Little Rock, show it off a bit, and then keep going to Biloxi,” he boasted in front of his dad, an aerial porter with more than 28 years of experience.

Dad shot back with: “He can come by the squadron anytime, walk in the main entrance, stroke the dawg’s back, give it a bone, and then get back down to south Mississippi to the 41st APS.”

This was the command’s second Port Dawg Challenge held at the Transportation Proficiency Center here. The biennial event pitted six-man teams from 19 AFRC aerial port squadrons against one another in an arduous competition designed to showcase each unit’s logistics and transportation proficiencies on the flightline.

During the event, the competitors were challenged to demonstrate excellent judgment and skill in performing 11 different tasks unique to the aerial port career field, such as load planning, and the processing, palletizing, and joint inspection of cargo. Teams must also excel in a grueling fitness challenge and perform training scenarios under the eyes of senior aerial port umpires and judges. There is little room for error.

In one scenario, competitors had to accurately calculate the correct load restraints and air worthiness for humvees and additional cargobeing loaded into the hulk of a C-5 aircraft at the training facility.

During the forklift event, the operators were expected to balance a pitcher of water on a wooden plank, and then speedily weave their way through a red-pyloned obstacle course, NASCAR style, without spilling a drop.

Maneuvering a forklift that carries a 10,000 pound pallet, or carrying multiple pallets weighing up to 25,000 pounds on a “Halverson” aircraft loading vehicle is only one of the many unique skill sets that make aerial porters immensely valuable to the airlift mission, according to CMSgt David Mullinax, chief of the TPC, and one of the organizers of the event. The aircraft loader is named in honor of the renowned Berlin Airlift Candy Bomber, Col. Gail Halverson

“Nothing and no one gets loaded on or off an aircraft without the say so of port dawgs on the flightline,” Mullinax said. “This competition entails everything that our aerial port experts are required to carry out the air mobility mission - and then some - and it’s a great opportunity for these units to show us how well they do it.”

Confidence was certainly not in short supply for this year’s competitors. Every competing unit took aim to unseat the two-time defending “top dawgs” from the 27th APS at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Air Reserve Station.

“Like it says on the trophy, you can’t strut with the big dawgs if you train like a puppy,” said Tech. Sgt Josh Warbiany from the 27th APS. “We’re still the big dawgs - the best aerial port squadron in the free world!”

Others were also confident about savoring the prize.

“I feel really good about our chances, but it’s going to take us beating the best,” said Master Sgt James Dupuis from the 42nd APS at Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass. “We don’t feel like underdogs this time. We believe we’re going to take the Top Dawg trophy back with us, where it belongs.”

The Port Dawg Challenge traces its roots to the first Aerial Port Rodeo held in 1979. The event was discontinued for many years before being reinstated in 2009 as Port Dawg Rodeo, and then in 2010 as the Port Dawg Challenge.

The Air Force has more than 12,000 aerial porters and about 5,700 of them, or 48 percent, are in the Air Force Reserve.

Some of those participating in this year’s competition have served multiple deployments, a fact that isn’t lost on leadership who made a point of observing this year’s competition.

Maj. Gen. Wallace W. Farris, commander of 22nd Air Force with headquartered at Dobbins, told the assembled competitors that more than 8,500 aerial porters have deployed over the past 10 years.

“Out of a force of a little more than 5,000, that’s very significant,” he said. “Events like this are proof that [you] are the very best.”

“This competition brings together many highly skilled and talented folks from our aerial port community - all in one location,” said Brig. Gen. Gary Blaszkiewicz, director of AFRC logistics. “Many here are very passionate about what they do, and they bring a tremendous amount of experience and skill to the air mobility mission. It’s a great thing to see.”

Col. Cynthia Wong will soon assume command of the 514th Mission Support Group at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. She was eager to observe how well the 35th and 88th APSs from the base would perform.

“This is a tight-knit community, and a great opportunity to establish credibility,” she said. “They all work really well together normally, but when they come here [to the Port Dawg Challenge], it’s war!”