What it’s like to hang off the back of a military aircraft at 2,000 feet

Looking at New Mexico from 2,000 feet in the air, I didn’t expect the sights to be so beautiful.

I’ve lived in the Land of Enchantment my entire life, growing accustomed to the daily views of mountain peaks and desert plateaus. But there’s something different when you’re up in the air, one hand snapping photos while the other turns white from tightly gripping the side of the plane.

Two-thousand feet is a long way down, and even scarier as you hear helicopter blades slicing the air right next to you.

It’s Wednesday morning, and I’ve found myself inside a Kirtland Air Force Base MC-130J, watching from the open ramp at the back of the aircraft as a small Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk attempts to connect to my airborne ride to refuel.

Being high up in the plane, I noticed new things about my home state.

There’s far more green in the state — speckles of grass that separate the long stretches of brown. The mountains reach farther up into the skies. Roads, both dirt and paved, shoot every which way for miles on end as I try to determine where I am and where my house is from up in the sky.

Over and over again, I thought to myself, “Wow, the ‘Top Gun’ and wartime movies were actually right” — as the turbulence made me truly believe I was about to parachute from the plane into a war.

I was volunteered to go first to swing my legs off the edge of the aircraft, tightly harnessed in with a hook that tethers me inside. I tightly grip my cellphone in my hand, swaying as I walk closer and closer to the edge. I’ve been up in the skies before, firmly holding onto a hot air balloon basket during the Balloon Fiesta, but this feeling is different.

The air so high up is cold, and I can feel the high wind speeds and the additional air blowing from the helicopter blades, blasting into my face as I hold on tightly to the metal bars that keep me from flying out of the aircraft.

Master Sgt. Bart Johnson calls to me, urging me to stand up from my cargo seat (which looks exactly like how they do in wartime movies) and walk over to the open ramp and watch the views.

Twelve people fill the seats of the aircraft with me, and we all watch in awe as the helicopter deploys its “probe-and-drogue” refueling method, where a tanker aircraft deploys a hose to transfer fuel to another aircraft as the planes latch together. Watching the two planes attempt to connect to each other to transfer fuel, which I could smell in the air, was dizzying in an electric way.

People won’t get to have the same experience I did beneath the clouds, but Kirtland Air Force Base invites the public to see the MC-130J and other aircraft ascend during the Kirtland Air Fiesta on Saturday, May 31, and Sunday, June 1.

You might even get to watch as two planes trade fuel like I did — just not 2,000 feet in the air.