Second day of Port Dawg Challenge gets physical

News: Second day of Port Dawg Challenge gets physical

Air Force Reserve Command

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Story by Master Sgt. Chris Durney Subscribe To This Journalist

Master Sgt. Chris Durney

Staff Sgt. Jake Logue of the 35th Aerial Port Squadron out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix in Lakehurst, N.J., gets encouragement from Master Sgt. Josh Bell as he finishes the tough Fit to Fight portion of the Air Force Reserve’s 2012 Port Dawg Challenge, going on this week at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Ga.

DOBBINS AIR RESERVE BASE, Ga. – The Air Force Reserve Command’s bi-annual air mobility competition took a decidedly more physical turn on the second day of the three-day contest.

Competitors from across the nation in the Port Dawg Challenge are locked in a battle to determine the best aerial port team in the Air Force Reserve. In addition to having their professional skills put to the test, they underwent a tough physical fitness challenge today.

Out on a portion of the flight line here, three members of each team had to run five 300-meter laps and perform a tough callisthenic known as a ‘burpee’ within two minutes per lap.

Despite the Georgia heat, the strength of the Air Force Reserve’s aerial port community shown through the sweat and pain as a blistering pace was set. A burpee is a fluid combination of a push-up, squat thrust and jumping jack.

The Port Dawg Challenge has brought together 19 six-person teams from 17 installations in a tough competition that focuses on the Air Force’s worldwide mobility capability

Aerial Port units perform military logistics functions that include passenger and cargo processing, equipment loading, air cargo preparation and load plans, and supervising units engaged in aircraft loading and unloading operations.

The biannual event was created to generate esprit de corps within the Air Force Reserve Aerial Port community. In doing so, it also promotes professionalism, demonstrates air and space expeditionary forces mission capabilities, and helps identify best practices to improve wartime readiness.

Events for this year’s competition test driving and loading prowess, administrative and processing skills, pallet build-up skills, forklift handling, load planning, and physical fitness.