Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I spent a year living at Kangerlussuaq, Greenland in 1985-1986 as an Air Traffic Controller for the USAF. The writer mentions on page 1, that "a stout-bellied U.S. Army C-130" was approaching. That is an error. The US Army owns no C-130s. If he wanted to be sure, all he had to do was read the USAF insignia on the aircraft. On page 2 he mentions that it was "trailing a plume of black exhaust" and someone in his group made the statement "Uh-oh, I think it's on fire." The writer then remarked that he "knew this was a joke---sort of." Later in the same paragraph he states "If a dozen rivets had popped off the fuselage, or if a wheel from the landing gear had rolled off, I would not have been surprised." The next paragraph shows one of the party discovered that the plane entered service in 1965, which I do not doubt. The writer is insulting the aircraft that made his research possible. The first C-130 was procured by the USAF in 1956 and the C-130 Hercules is the longest continuously produced military aircraft at over 60 years, with the updated Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules currently still being produced. C-130's are used by over 60 different countries and the USAF currently has 518 in service. The U.S. Army has 0. All USAF aircraft are maintained to the ultimate degree and that is why you see an age as described. Ask any USAF pilot, (Cargo, Fighter, or Bomber pilot.) and they will describe it as a consistently reliable aircraft, no matter the age. If I was trusting myself to board an aircraft as he described, for the length of my studies, I would be a fool. But I'm not, and will climb aboard any C-130. The writer is insulting a workhorse of the USAF. With 10 of the world’s only ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules aircraft, commonly referred to as a Skibird, the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing is able to provide the airlift needed to get to remote locations in Antarctica and Greenland in support of the National Science Foundation. The aircraft the writer described came from a unit that does nothing except specialized extreme cold weather missions. The skill needed is a rarity. While I was in Greenland, I flew on two missions with the 109th Air Wing as a spectator to resupply the two DYE sites (part of the DEW Line) on the Ice Cap. I didn't sit in the back, I was in the cockpit with a headset observing all. One landing on first approach, we were unable to find the landing "skiway". (All it is is an area marked by orange flags on a white sheet of ice.) There was an icefog at 100 feet blocking our view. Pilot then says that for second approach, all eyes in the cockpit. If we miss it this time, we abort the mission and go home. Next approach, I'm standing behind the pilot and holding on to his seat. We get close when someone catches the flags, we make some pretty drastic maneuvers, and then land. I just flex my knees for touch down. So forget about a seatbelt. Then I deplane in the middle of nowhere. The icecap is a lonely place. But a beautiful place also. And the C-130 is a beautiful plane to get us there. If the writer did not even research that he was on a USAF plane instead of an Army aircraft, what else was just made up and conjectured in the book? Would you commit to boarding a plane for the next few weeks that you had just made such demeaning remarks of? When I find a major issue in the second paragraph of a book, it ain't good.