I wanted to start this whole post off with, I'm so thankful for the life I have. That gratitude encompasses several things. I am thankful for the way I was raised and the love I grew up with. I'm thankful for the love I have in my life today. I truly believe that God gave me Eric and the adventure our life will be and will try and be thankful for every day, no matter what city we live in.Now...with all that being said, I'm thankful that Eric is home from El Centro and was here for Thanksgiving. We actually ate pretty well today even though we didn't have the typical family feast to enjoy. We went to Honey Baked Ham yesterday and picked up a pound of ham, 1/2 a pound of turkey, broccoli/cheese/rice casserole, sweet potato souffle, and green bean casserole. I enjoyed it and the fact that I didn't have to cook much, I loved it! We ate, watched football, and just enjoyed a laid back day of relaxation.
Now for the good stuff. Eric's trip to El Centro. So he left out of Meridian on Thursday the 3rd (after several failed attempts). His first flights took him to El Paso, TX where he stayed the night and headed out early the next morning. Unfortunately his stop in Yuma, AZ didn't work out so well because when he went to jump out of the jet, his air mask got caught on the canopy and it broke. Which meant that his IP took the jet to El Centro, and he got a hour long ride from the duty driver from Yuma to El Centro.
All right, I'll take over and tell a little bit about my experience. (It's Eric typing this) When I finally did arrive in El Centro, I started flying immediately. The flying there is all VFR (Visual Flight Rules), as there is no radar in the area and so no way to control aircraft (below 18,000ish anyway, above that LA Center takes over). This is different for us because as aircraft in a training command it's common practice to be controlled as much as possible, so we do most of our flying under IFR (Instrument Flight Rules). All of the Weps flights are done in division (3-4) aircraft, so we take off together, go fly our mission and come back together. The video does a pretty good job of explaining and showing everything there is to see.
We also did some ONAV (Operational Navigation) flights out there, which is where we fly approximately 500 feet above the ground through and around terrain. The point being to fly into hostile territory to deliver ordinance and get out without being detected by radar or troops. El Centro offers a lot of fun terrain to fly through including a canyon called "star wars" canyon, because it's where some of that was filmed. That particular route is known as VR-1266, if you search for it on youtube or google, you can probably find some good video of it. I've got some video of it, but it's not very good. We'll work on getting that stuff posted too. I got to go spend a day in San Diego, and went to the Zoo and Kansas City BBQ (where the bar scene from Top Gun was filmed). The Zoo was cool, although it's got nothing on the Asheboro Zoo as far as I'm concerned and the BBQ at that bar was actually awful. I think they've been living off that cameo in the movie for WAY to long. Overall it was a lot of fun, we also got to go stand near a target when some buddies of mine were bombing it, which was awesome to see from the ground.
The rest of my training should flow as follows... I'll be finished with Air Nav's (Final stage of Instruments) when I do my solo cross country to Pensacola the weekend of Dec. 2nd. I'll also be doing and finishing up before I come home for Christmas; Night Forms (flying formation at night), and Tac Form (Tactical Formation). Tac Form is simulating flying a combat mission as a section (2 aircraft) like we would in the fleet, mutually supporting each other and engaging the enemy. When I come back after Christmas, I'll begin "bouncing" for the boat. The "boat" is of course the carrier, I'll be going to the February 6th boat in Key West. I don't know which boat it'll be, I'll send that when I get it. After the boat, I'll go back to El Centro to do Multi-plane ONAV, same as before just with two planes. It basically combines Tac Form and ONAV's together. After that, I'll come back to Meridian and finish with ACM, Air Combat Maneuvering. For some reason they now call that BFM Basic Fighter Maneuvering and SEM Section Engaged Maneuvering. All of that to say, expect a March 23rd Winging. That is of course not 100%, but I would start making preliminary plans based on that. Spread the word any and all are invited, we'll have to see if Kelli can "hook up" the Holiday Inn in town.
Alright, well I'm back now (Laura). I hope you enjoyed Eric's summary (it's a treat when he takes the keyboard and writes out about his training). Since he brought up Christmas we need to get everyone's dates on when families are getting together. We'll be traveling up either late the 16th or early the 17th and we'll be leaving on December 26th or 27th at the latest. As of right now we're thinking about starting in Charlotte (with day trips to Salisbury and Asheboro), then heading to Boone/Avery County, and end in Hickory. As always, that's the rough draft and will be able to refine the dates and trip with input from everyone.
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