Vice Presidential Flyover...almost.

So there I was...

Flying 3000 ft about the ground 30 seconds in trail of another jet flying an orbit pattern when we get the call: 5 minutes to target. (The target was overhead the Vice President at Offutt AFB at the end of his speech. Unfortunately I was only the B team...what's new right?

What I mean by B team is that we had two jets flying in circles waiting for the end of his speech so that in the case that the first one broke or was out of position we could make the pass instead. The other plane was right on time and had no problems. I guess it worked out pretty well, and it look cool from the air when the other jet peeled off our orbit and over the VP and the stands. Anyway, I'll always be able to say I almost flewover VP Cheney...almost.

On a different note:

As for my delenquency in blogging, I appologize. I would also like to appologize for any pocket calls I might have made to any and all of my readers. And if your into that kind of thing, just wait, you might be next.

Kilroy was here!

Flying Fiasco...

So there I was...

...minding my own business on the bus on Tuesday, trying to go fly. (We have to take an hour long bus ride to the airport since our runway is being redone. ) But let's back up, shall we?

So I get to work on Tuesday morning to find out that the plane we are supposed to fly is broken, but don't worry, we have a spare...oh, but wait, the spare is broken too, but it is supposed to be fixed by the time we get there. I suggested that we call it a day right then, but no one listened to me. By that evening, they all agreed with me.

So we got on the bus, like I said earlier, to drive to Lincoln in the hopes that one of our jets would be fixed in time for us to take off. Well about halfway there the bus begins to coast to a halt on the highway, the bus driver didn't tell us anything until we ask what was going on. Come to find out the engine has some light that when it lights up, the engine shuts down. Well the light was on, and we were stranded on the side of the road. Luckily it was only 85 degrees instead of 100 like last week, but the humidity was about 85% too. So we stood outside the bus for an hour waiting for another bus to come save us.

It did, and we finally got to Lincoln an hour late only to find out that our jets were still broken. We went inside and sat while the instructor and aircraft commander tried to figure out when it would be ready to go. After an hour of waiting they had narrowed it down to either an hour from then (about 5:30pm) or 11 o'clock that night. Finally the commander down there decided for us that we should call it a day and go home.

So lets recap, we leave base knowing that our planes are broken for an hour bus ride. The bus breaks down on the way. We finally get there, and as we were told before we left, the planes are all broken. But (as they say on the Price is Right) WAIT THERE"S MORE!!! We got on the bus and headed home. Once agian we are on the highway when the we notice the bus is getting warm, (A/C is off) and it is once again coasting to a stop. At least we made it off the highway this time, but once again we waited for an hour, for the third bus to come rescue us. (IF you can't tell, like many Government contracts, the lowest bidder won the bus contract. WHAT A DAY.

Well, I went flying on Thursday, and since there were six jets we could take this time, we managed to get one off the ground. The flight was fairly uneventful, but we did have to avoid some pretty bad weather, which was interesting.

Kilroy was here!

Jelaine's Curtains - or - An Inspiration for "E"

So there I was...showing Jelaine's mom the new curtains via the webcam. I know I sound like a geek, but whatever. Jelaine made these curtains by herself, and I am really proud of her. I want to show you all. What it took to get these pictures is a whole 'nother story. I had to reconnect my computer, webcam and cable modem in the basement and run the long cords back up to the first floor. It's ok, it was worth it. So here they are.

Aren't they great? Jelaine is amazing!

This brings me to my second reason for this post. As most of you know, I am constantly trying to convince E to come up here and live with me while Jelaine is at school. So asyet another futile attempt in luring him up here, as well as a way to show the rest of you our new basement digs, I am adding some pictures of developing "SWAMP." You migt even notice that the basement is rug is green...that's kind of swampish. :-)

So it isn't a whole lot to look at yet, but eventually Jelaine's Futon will be down there and maybe one of those Luv Sacs you see in the mall. Plus Jelaine already has the TV stand her parents gave us that will replace the trunk under the TV. As for the rest of the basement. That is all for you "E".

We also plan on using all this great space for our company over New Years! :-) Or maybe we can just build a giant fort down here. I have started collecting the boxes already.

I guess that is enough for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Kilroy was here!

This ain't your daddy's air force...

...but it might be his airplane.


Ok, so I have had three flights now and haven't told you about any of them. My training flights are in a plane like the one above. One of my co-copilots gave me that phrase above. I wish it weren't true but it is. Our fleet was built in the 1960s. It has been modified a lot since, but it is still the old airframe. That's crazy huh? The most recent upgrade has been the engines. They are now much bigger than the ones above. In fact the inboard engines only have 18 inches of clearance from the ground. That makes it very important that we land on centerline with less than 2 degrees of bank in our wings or else we scrape a pod (engine). That being said, I'll tell you I have gotten 17 landings in my 3 flights. I only had 2 unsuccessful attempts. Both of witch I did actually touchdown but my IP called a go-around right before. That's really not bad. In fact my two landings yesterday were actually quite nice. The guys in the back of the plane actually said they slept right through it! :-)

For real, the guys in the back all have important jobs, but they get all of their work done when we are up high flying around in circles, then they just have to hang on for dear life in the back while we practice landings. So for them to say that they slept through my landings is pretty good. As far as what they do back there I honestly don't know. One of these days I will get the chance to walk back there and find out.

As for memorable experiences in my first few flights, I have two I will elaborate on. First air refueling:

So there I was...one of two 250,000 lb aircraft flying 275 knots, at 26,000 feet above sea level, twelve feet apart, connected by an aluminum straw full of jet fuel.

(Use your imagination to insert a picture here since Blogspot isn't cooperating with me tonight. Or if your imagination isn't too good, just look at the sidebar...I figured out how to post the pic another way.)

Sounds pretty crazy huh? Well it is but it is cool, and neccessary. I haven't gotten to actually be at the controls when we were in contact, but watching it is awesome. I can see out the "eyebrow" window (the window above our heads) and at one point the refueling boom was only about a foot and a half away from it. That was awesome. The picture above is what it would look like from the refueler to look at us while we were refueling. I can't find any pics from our point of view.

The other really cool thing that happened was yesterday while we were orbiting over Oklahoma. We were in a right hand turn in an orbit for the back end when I glanced out the pilot's side (left side), and saw an airplane come out from under ours. It was about 2000 feet below us and I did a double take when I realized it was a Buff (B-52) Bomber. I said "look at that! It's a buff!" Everyone else was surprized and even the instructor navigator got out of his seat to come look, since he used to be a nav on B-52s. 2000 ft is pretty close. Not so close as to be dangerous, but even so it was a bit surprizing to see a plane that big flying right under where we were turning. It was cool.

I think that is enough for now. I would ahve put a picture of the Cobra Ball here but again I couldn't get it to load. I'll try again later.

Kilroy was here!