Air Force operates a mini-FedEx hub to provide relief in Pakistan

For the past 10 days, the Air Force has operated what a commander calls a "mini-FedEx hub" near Islamabad to manage the flow of relief supplies to flooded areas in Pakistan.

The United States has provided support for the relief effort in Pakistan since July and a 36-member team from the Air Force's 621st Contingency Response Wing set up its cargo hub on Aug. 26 to manage the flow of humanitarian aid to outlying areas of the country. Just like the main Federal Express hub in Memphis, Tenn., the one at Chaklala Air Force Base at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad unloads cargo from incoming an aircraft and then reconfigures it for outbound shipments, 621st Ccommander Lt. Col. Shawn Underwood, said during a phone interview from the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew over Pakistan on an inspection trip last week and said media reports don't come close to capturing the extent of the nation's flooding, which he said was equivalent to inundating the East Coast of the United States.

The Air Force flies in shipments such as food, water, medicine and tents in massive C-17 and C-5 airlifters, as well as some smaller C-130s. The 621st, headquartered at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, repackages the cargo overnight on pallets for distribution to people in flooded areas of the country the next day, Underwood said.

Communication is key to coordinate the flow, and the 621st travels with its own satellite system, called the Small Package Initial Communications Element. SPICE provides voice, video and data communications over classified and unclassified Defense Department networks using a small 1.8-meter dish that can access Defense Department satellites operating in X-band and commercial Ku-band satellites, Underwood said.

The gear, which weighs 1,500 pounds and can be transported on a relatively small 7-by-9-foot pallet, provides the response wing with three classified data connections, three unclassified connections and three phone lines.

The data connections allow the 621st crew to access the Air Mobility Command's Global Decision Support System 2, which provides Underwood a snapshot view of incoming aircraft. The 621st also uses the Automated Air Load Planning System to configure outbound loads to control weight and balance.

The systems have supported 672,000 pounds of humanitarian cargo shipments during the past 10 days. In some cases, the operation is a replay of what the 621st did in 2005 when it deployed to Pakistan to support a similar relief mission after an earthquake battered the country, Underwood said.

The 621st operated in Haiti in January after an earthquake there devastated the country, and humanitarian missions now account for about half the wing's workload.

Underwood said he counts humanitarian mission as the "most rewarding part of his job because "we're doing what the American people expect of us, the right thing."