Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Chris Durney | A special heavy training pallet hand-painted with scenes from the movie Forrest Gump...... read more read more
Sinise visited the 189th Airlift Wing’s Aerial Port April 29 to see a special Bubba Gump/Lt. Dan heavy training platform painted by two members of the 189th Logistics Readiness Squadron. The Lt. Dan Band visited Little Rock Air Force Base to perform a free concert for service members and their families as part of a USO tour.
Staff Sgt. Dustin McElyea and Senior Airman Jorge Cantu created the special design on the platform in honor of Sinise’s visit to the central Arkansas base, and his well-known support of the military.
“We knew that Gary Sinise was going to be doing a visit to the base and an idea was brought together to actually do a Forrest Gump pallet. Once we started doing the planning and layout, we were sketching, gathering ideas about what to do and Sgt. McElyea started with the Tom Hanks portrait on top and I started with the USO symbol on the front. We just kept working our way around the sides and the last part we added was the Lt. Dan Band stencil that I painted the day of his visit,” explained Cantu.
McElyea and Cantu used some stencils to paint lettering and numbers on the pallet, but the majority of the work was done freehand.
“In total, it took us about a week to complete it. We painted after work, skipped lunch and tried to find an hour here or there during our day to get it done,” said McElyea.
Although delayed by bad weather, Sinise kept his promise to tour the 189th and visit with the airmen who hand-painted the heavy training platform just a couple of hours before his concert was scheduled to begin. Staff Sgt. McElyea and Senior Airman Cantu received heaping praise and thanks for the work they did painting the pallet, especially from Sinise, who was overwhelmed by the details and movie references they included on the pallet.
“He was definitely impressed and excited to see it. As he signed the pallet and noted my attention to detail, and thanked me for painting him with nice forearms,” Staff Sgt. McElyea said with a chuckle. Sinise signed the pallet, took photos with unit members and spoke about his love for the military and the veterans in his family.
The 189th LRS Aerial Port prepares about five heavy training platforms per day in support of wing training missions. Pallets, which weigh about 2,700 lbs., are rigged with parachutes and loaded onto C-130 H aircraft and precision air-dropped at the Blackjack drop zone, near Romance, Arkansas. After each drop, the Logistics Readiness crew recovers each pallet and returns them to Aerial Port for future training missions.
The special pallet took its first ‘flight’ early on the morning of May 14 during a weekend training flight. The extraction went off without a hitch and the platform was recovered for future use.
The 189th Airlift Wing flies the C-130 H model aircraft and is responsible for the legacy C-130 Formal Training Unit mission. The wing trains more than 700 pilots, navigators, loadmasters and flight engineers, including international and inter-service students.
| Date Taken: | 05.17.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 05.18.2016 17:09 |
| Story ID: | 198448 |
| Location: | LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, ARKANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 122 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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