From Start to Finish

From the time we land to the time we take off this is what is going on in the background. Our flight engineer in the rear of the aircraft gives his instructions to the team leader of the Marines and they begin the chain of passing all the gear from the rear of the aircraft to the front. Once all the baggage is lined up down the middle most times close to the ceiling the crewmembers use 10,000 pound tie down straps to secure everything to the floor and the 30 passengers in this case marines are loaded onboard. I was hovering around 55% when I was empty before taking off to get these guys and after loading the aircraft with all the personnel and gear hovered around 80%. This is significant to me because when finished doing the math it tells me that I have 12,500lbs of weight onboard.