This week we celebrated Veterans Day, a national U.S. holiday that has been observed here for almost a century. The tradition of honoring all that have served the U.S. Armed Forces began when World War I ended, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918.
      This year we salute The USA Air Mobility Command, which routinely moves air cargo (including all manner of goods and troops) to various theaters of war with the kind of regularity usually associated with civilian overnight services.
      Air Mobility was once connected to such epoch air cargo trailblazing as moving av-gas, spare tires, and other supplies above the Himalayas between Assam, India, and Kunming, China, during the Burma Hump operations of World War II in 1942, and later during The Berlin Airlift of 1948.
      In the case of Berlin, air cargo actually supplied an entire city, modern air cargo captured the world’s attention, and our industry was born.
      But despite the aforementioned more famous events, today Air Mobility Command carries a proud tradition, moving air cargo in volumes daily, and at a pace that actually dwarfs those earlier more famous operations.
      More recently, in both Iraq and also in Southern Afghanistan, Air Mobility Air Cargo supported a major buildup of USA troops that in large part were initiated and aided from the air.
      Any number of U.S. flags that are part of the CRAF program are utilized to move troops and critical supplies from the U.S. to forward bases elsewhere in the world.
      In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, Dubai also figures large in the movement of hard cargo and other supplies via independent operators, including several small to medium ad-hoc carriers.
      Moving air cargo into these war zones often resembles operations that could have been lifted straight from the pages of Terry & The Pirates, a 1930’s comic strip that glamorized air cargo flights to far away places like China and India.
      As the hot war winds down, Dubai continues to transport cargo via vintage equipment, moving goods to help rebuild the infrastructure of former battle theaters as peace takes hold.
      But hats off still go to Air Mobility Command, which fields scores of aircraft, their cargo bays holding tons of cargo, either on pallets ready for ground delivery or strung with parachutes for air drops.
      Today Air Mobility Command routinely delivers U.S. troops to remote sites, and right behind them, supplies—frozen food, fruit drinks, ammunition, spare parts, and whatever else is needed at the mobile, fluid front lines.
      The ability to airdrop supplies and land cargo on remote dirt airstrips is vital to supporting troops safely, and is a key element of the forward strategy.
      In the case of Afghanistan where the population was scattered across thousands of rural villages, dusty crossroads, and deep mountain valleys, initially there was simply no other way to deliver the necessary punch to affect a positive outcome, especially since the roads were too dangerous to convoy supply trucks, as loss figures gathered by the U.S. Pentagon attested.
Geoffrey

     “Dance 'til you drop at the giant FLY Bermuda Festival at Tempelhof Airport.”
     They had a huge rock concert this past weekend in Berlin.
     Rock concerts are nothing unusual, but the location for FLY BerMuDa 2012 was the fabled Tempelhof Airport.
     In fact, what has happened to the historic airport seems so positive and wonderful since THF was decommissioned and left twisting in the wind.
     Today Berliners have taken Tempelhof, and all that it has meant to Berlin and all it still has to give, into their hearts and souls.
     We’re thinking about THF and Berlin— no other capital in the world has a gathering point better located, smack dab in the middle of the city.
     As Der Speigel pointed out:
     “From the airport, say on a bike, it takes only 20 minutes to the Brandenburg Gate and the monumental Reichstag, which houses the German Parliament.
     “From the roof of the airport's enormous, semi-circular complex, 1,230 meters (4,035 feet) from one end to the other, looking at Berlin's sea of buildings seems as if THF were set in the middle of a vast prairie; the flatlands that postwar West Germany's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, famously dubbed ‘the beginnings of the Russian steppes.’”
     “The airport in Tempelhof unites the characteristics of an inland sea with the yearning for faraway places,” a delighted observer once said.
     Axel Schultes, the architect who designed the new Chancellery in the city's Mitte district, even went so far as to describe Tempelhof as an “icon of an airport.”

     No longer an airport, Tempelhof has transformed itself into the heartbeat of a great, growing city.
     Interestingly, even with its vast Tiergarten Park areas, Berlin Tempelhof has increasing emerged as the soul of the city, not unlike Central Park in the middle of Manhattan.
     What Tempelhof Airport may have lost when the airplanes went away, it has gained back with dividends as the emotional center of one of the great capital cities of the world.
     Last Saturday there were bands playing around the clock in both hangars at THF, while thousands of people spilt over onto the old runways in a great, pre-winter musical fest that felt like Woodstock in spirit and delivered some great rock bands.
     Here is a brief taste of last weekend in Berlin.
     Berlin may have its new BBI with collective egg on its face as it’s unable to open for business.
     But as witnessed this past weekend, for dear THF—wings clipped or not—the beat goes on.

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     Sometimes, the worst part of a storm happens after all the wind, rain, and hail, just when you think things are starting to clear up.
     That happened to us last week on Friday.
     We put out an issue and kapow! our IT system went haywire.
     So in case you missed that issue, please click here.
     Just for the record—
     Hurricane Sandy hit New York two weeks ago.
     Last week, New York City had record snowfall.
     This past Monday, Gotham was fogged in—although clouds all the way down to the ground also spelled calm weather all the way up to the sky.
     Next Monday?
     Who knows . . . maybe locusts?
     Nevertheless, this city will be back in full effect, and in fact has come back fairly quickly, given the tumult it recently underwent.
     But you will have to forgive us if we keep an eye peeled on the weather as we travel over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house for the annual Thanksgiving Holiday one week from Thursday.
Geoffrey

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