Bosses Day at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station - Jerry Hoban Edition

On Friday July 17th I was able to attend Bosses Day at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station. I was sponsored by our Cargill Liverpool Account Manager, Corey Palmer. Bosses Day is held every year to educate employers on operations, deployments and tasks reservists perform, and to thank those employers for their support of our Reservists, Guardsmen, and Veterans.

 

This year, Bosses Day fell on an air show weekend. The best part of this was that I was able to take a flight in a C-130 with Corey as the Flight Engineer. The C-130 Hercules, or "Herc", is a turboprop military transport aircraft built by Lockheed Martin. It's capable of operating from rough strips and is the prime transport for paradropping troops and equipment into hostile territory.

After meeting some of the folks who put the whole event together, we were sent out to the strip and to the impressive aircraft:

 

 

We were strapped in and given safety guidelines (don't unbuckle your belt, don't jump out of the plane, if you're going to throw up, do it in a bag). We then took off. Once we got to cruising altitude, they lowered the ramp, opened the cargo door and gave us a unique view of Niagara Falls and surrounding areas:

 



The flight was a blast, and Corey gets bonus points in my book for not crashing the plane. After the flight we were treated to the pre-show, where we were able to see some stunt planes and even the Thunderbirds perform. Saturday was the full air show. Corey's family and my fiance joined us, and he gave us a full narrated walk through of the C-130. Here's me pretending to be a copilot:

Overall is was a fantastic, unique experience. JB Hunt continues to be a strong supporter of our military and employs many veterans and reservists (for more information, visit https://www.jbhunt.com/jobs/office/military/). I was honored to take part in this event and hope to be able to do it again one day. Me and Corey on Saturday in front of a C-130:
  

Lastly, a photo of an F-16... just because. If you've never seen the USAF Thunderbirds, I highly recommend going to an air show soon. Absolutely incredible to watch.