Army Chinook flew a bridge to a roadless Interior radar site to secure its only water line

An Army CH-47 Chinook, the military's twin-rotor heavy-lift helicopter, flew a new aluminum bridge across a river at the Indian Mountain Long-Range Radar Site on June 29, carrying it slung beneath the aircraft so crews could secure the remote Interior Alaska site's only water line.

The line is the facility's only means of fire suppression and sanitation, according to an Air National Guard account. It crossed the river on a failing wooden bridge.

The site sits about 16 miles east of the village of Hughes with no road connection. It is reached by a 4,100-foot gravel airstrip. "There are no roads and if there was a dog sled trail at one time, it has long been grown over and lost," said 2nd Lt. David Case of the 611th Civil Engineering Squadron.

A Marine Corps helicopter support team rigged the load, and a Chinook from the Army's 52nd Aviation Regiment carried it in. The Defense Logistics Agency's Troop Support office at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson coordinated the airlift, according to an Oct. 6 JBER story.

Ten Airmen from the Oregon Air National Guard's 173rd Civil Engineer Squadron spent 13 days at the site and repaired the bridge footings. They also repaired a 4,300-foot above-ground fuel pipeline damaged by frost heaves, which feeds the diesel generators that power the off-grid site, and hand-packed gabion baskets, wire cages filled with rock, along the riverbank to protect the wellhouse from washouts.

The Guard put the cost of the three projects at about $75,000 using military labor, against initial commercial bids of $1.74 million, and said the deployment saved the Air Force more than $1.6 million.

Indian Mountain's radar feeds surveillance data to the North American Aerospace Defense Command's regional operations center at JBER, according to the Guard. It is one of 15 radar sites across Alaska that the military says help guard against foreign and domestic airborne threats.