MC-130 Special Operations Aircrew and Navigator | 8th Special Operations Squadron | Mike LaFeve (1)

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======= Today we hear our first Combat Story from a member of the Air Force’s aerial special operations community: Mike LaFeve. Mike was an MC-130 Navigator in the Air Force’s 8th Special Operations Squadron (8th SOS).

The MC-130 is an incredible airframe and we dig into it’s configuration, aircrews, and mission sets in this episode. The platform is specifically designed to support the special operations community with airdrops, delivery and extraction of special operators, refueling, combat search and rescue and so much more, including something called the Fulton Recovery which is straight out of a James Bond movie.

In this episode we go through Mike’s first deployment immediately following 9/11 in what can only be described as the Wild West of Afghanistan. We’ll do a second round interview in which we delve into several more deployments and the varied mission set as the battlefield becomes more established.

I hope you enjoy this detailed behind the scenes look at a very cool airframe from someone inside the cockpit as much as I did.

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