Master Sgt. Steve Pargan, 44, a C-130 loadmaster from the Maryland Air National Guard, looks for potential threats during a combat mission over Afghanistan Tuesday. (Ben Bloker / Stars and Stripes)
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — Air Force Master Sgt. Steve Pargan loves to fly, and it shows in his logbook.
Pargan, a 44-year-old veteran of the Maryland Air Guard, is part of a select club of loadmasters who have surpassed 12,500 flight hours in the C-130 Hercules cargo plane. In fact, he has exceeded 12,600 while deployed to Afghanistan, the equivalent of more than 17 months.
“It looks like a typo,” said fellow loadmaster Tech Sgt. Matt Wright, 26. “It’s an impressive feat.”
What’s equally as remarkable is that he has racked up the hours in an aircraft built to land in austere environments and fly short trips. A loadmaster aboard a C-5 Galaxy or C-17 Globemaster III can pack on the hours with long-distance flights. It takes a lot longer with the prop-driven Hercules.
Plus, he has achieved the mark without a single serious accident.
“I think you could probably count on one hand the amount of other 130 loadmasters who have that many hours — incident-free and accident-free as well,” said Wright, who has about 1,500 hours in four years.
Pargan, a member of the Baltimore-based 135th Airlift Squadron, has spent 24 of his 25 years in the Guard as a loadmaster. He said compiling so many hours wasn’t difficult because he enjoys what he does.
“I love it. It’s great,” he said after a mission to Kabul and Kunduz. “It’s a fun job. It’s just a little more rewarding doing this thing, especially when we’re doing ‘real-world’ missions.”
His experience is invaluable to younger loadmasters. He is a walking and talking textbook for rookies. Pargan has flown nearly every Hercules model. He knows the plane so well he almost has a sixth sense for picking out potential problems.
“You always learn something from him,” Wright said. “Small techniques, loading with difficult equipment … There’s nothing he hasn’t seen.”
When Pargan reached the 12,500 mark, he said his squadron made a “big deal” out of it. The Air Force gave him a patch to wear on his flight suit and a certificate to mark the career milestone. But he said the honor made him a bit uncomfortable.
“I don’t need that,” he said. “I mean, it’s my job. I’m here just to fly and to do my job. The hours kind of came with it.”
