Flight engineer reaches milestone

  • Published
  • By Capt. Alysia Harvey
  • 48th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
ROYAL AIR FORCE LAKENHEATH, England --  A flight engineer assigned to the 56th Rescue Squadron reached a career milestone when his HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter landed here May 21.

Master Sgt. Darren Bradley completed his 5,000th flying hour in the Pave Hawk, a rare achievement according to his peers and unit leadership.

"I've been in the Air Force for 12 years, and he's the only person I've known to hit the 5,000th hour of pure HH-60 time," said Master Sgt. Kevin Marlatt, also a flight engineer assigned to the 56th RQS, who has just under 2,100 flight hours. "The chances of someone reaching this milestone aren't just far and few between, but they are virtually slim to non-existent."

Sergeant Marlatt went on to say that although Sergeant Bradley has been flying HH-60s at night before there were night vision goggles and has a total of 5,270 flight hours. He stressed that this is so significant because Sergeant Bradley has completed 5,000 of them in the HH-60.

Sergeant Bradley was all smiles and clearly elated by this accomplishment.

"This is very exciting for me because I've been shooting for it for my whole career, and it was my goal to get here before I retire," said the 23-year veteran, who began his career in 1986 as a UH-1N Twin Huey flight engineer. "And I'm glad I got to it here, as well, because this is my third assignment with the 56th."

Sergeant Bradley is both well known and highly respected throughout the entire Rescue community because of his many years of service, having completed tours of duty with the 55th Special Operations Squadron and the 41st, 56th, and 512th Rescue Squadrons.

The admiration was evident as several members of his unit were standing by to celebrate with him when he landed today. However, it was his wife and daughter who honored him by spraying him with fire extinguishers in keeping with the flying unit tradition of dousing aircrew personnel in water when they reach a significant flying milestone.

"This is very exciting, overwhelming really," said Kammi Bradley, the honoree's wife. "I am very proud of his accomplishment because it is something that's been a goal of his throughout his career, and now he's reached it!"

Tiffany Bradley, their daughter, who's a senior at Lakenheath High School agreed with her mom.

"I'm very proud of my dad," she said.

The celebrations continued as members of Sergeant Bradley's unit engaged in another traditional act: "green feeting". Sergeant Bradley's "Jolly Green" footprints were memorialized on a tile that will be placed on the ceiling of the squadron's flight planning room, along with his signature and dates of service.

Not only will Sergeant Bradley's legacy live on in the unit through today's events, he and his family will move to Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., next month, where he will begin his new assignment as an instructor for initial qualification students on the HH-60G Pave Hawk. In this capacity, he will add to his already impressive record of 1,290 hours of instructor duty and 414 hours of evaluator duty.