<a : 18 pagost 1958, the C-54 aircraft of the Fixed Wing Element flew over 100% of their programmed flying hours. this tempo slacken. Only with the end of the operation in sight did The C-54's of the Fixed Wing Element carried 12,785 pas- sengers and 1,882,018 pounds of cargo during the operational phase of HARDTACK. To perform these tasks they generated 2522 flying hours. During the months April through July, C-54's of the Fixed Wing Element flew more than 80 hours per month per assigned aircraft. The C-54's of the Aerial Photo Element aug- mented this effort by flying 1101 passengers and160,886 pounds of cargo, which generated 29) flying hours. See Figure 14 for a summary of C-54 Flying Activities. The only problems arising from the operation of the C-54 aircraft arose from over-—flying programmed flying hours, which made it difficult to schedule the aircraft into maintenance in as orderly a fashion as might be desired, and caused a few AOCP's late in the operation. During the build-up phases of HARDTACK, the L-20 aircraft flew a busy: schedule. The principal areas of L-20 operation were between ELMER and FRED Islands in the Eniwetok Atoll and between NAN and PETER-OBOE Islands in the Bikini Atoll. Through July, a schedule of a flight every 20 minutes between ELMER and FRED beginning at 0740 in the morning and continuing until 1630 in the afternoon was maintained. As the operational phase progressed the tempo of light aircraft airlift increased and many calls for special airlift were received in addition to the regularly scheduled flights. Early in June, in response to the request of Commander, Task Group 7.1, another L-20 was assigned to Bikini making the division of aircraft five ~ (5) at FRED and three (3) at NAN instead of the six (6) to two (2) ratio 107 Are td ~