Features

Blue crew’s stellar job

Flight Sergeant Carlo Gigante in front of a P-3C.

It’s business as usual for the P-3C Orion maintenance crews as they keep the fleet’s “eyes and ears” open in the Middle East.

Flight Sergeant Carlo Gigante, SNCO for crew blue maintenance, said so far Operation Falconer had held few surprises for his team.

“The guys are used to lengthy deployments and really this has been no different to any other deployment except for the location, the time away from home and the weather is not that favourable,” he said.

“We’ve operated in Butterworth and Darwin so we are used to the heat and the guys are pretty adaptable. Before we arrived in country we were told it hadn’t rained here for 11 years and then the other night we were dragged in to tie down the aircraft in torrential rain and gale-force winds – it wasn’t what we expected in a place like this.”

FSGT Gigante said the hardest part of his occupation was being away from home.

“I have a wife and two kids and being on P-3s you do spend a lot of time away from home,” he said.

“A personal highlight has been part of this operation and just doing my job. We do our GCCs and prepare for contingencies like this and now being here, it’s impressive to me to see what P-3s do day in day out and I’m glad to be part of it. The guys are doing really well and morale is pretty high – everyone has stepped up to the mark.”