Twice is NICE!

So I'm an old pro at this now... NOT! My second hornet ride was sweeter than the first! Here's the scoop...

Date: Wednesday, 21-Dec-2005
Time: 0630-0930 Eastern Standard Time
Location: Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland
Enroute: Low-level Military training route over Western VA and Eastern WV
Aircraft: Salty Dog 320 (F/A-18B model), same as my first ride

This flight actually began the day before. The scheduler called me to ask if I was available to fly on Wednesday. Of course I was available...not gonna turn down a flight unless I'm not feeling good. Initially I was scheduled in a T-45 Goshawk, but due to the nature of the T-45 flight, I was unable to stay on the schedule for that back-seat ride. They do not like civilians to go on Functional Check Flights (FCFs), which is where they check out the aircraft after maintenance is performed (and for many other reasons, but I won't go into those). Ok, understandable, I can't go...I was a little bummed, but a few minutes later that all changed. The scheduler called me back and asked if a hornet ride would work instead...

UMM.... how 'bout... HELL YEAH! (Was she smoking something to have to ask me that question???)

A few hours later after all the electrons joined forces and aligned themselves from randomness into a computer screen human-readable format, I saw what I was in store for. Show up at 0630 for the preflight brief, get geared up at 0700, head out to the jet at 0730, wheels up by 0800. Plenty of fuel for a 0930 landing. Alright, a 1.5 hour flight, no sweat. The schedule showed me flying with MAJ Matt "Opie" Taylor doing "Test Technique Refreshers". This was going to be fun. Opie and I had flown before, but not in a jet. When I bought my Mooney, the insurance underwriter stated I had to get checked out in the airplane before I could take it solo. Opie happend to meet the criteria for a local flight instructor with the ability to give me such a check out. Anyhow, that's another story. Back to today's flight....

So Opie asked me, "Vanna what do you want to do today?" I asked what did he mean specifically... "Well, this is your flight today, so as the back seater, what do you want to see today? I can give you a demo of what to expect at TPS or we can go do something fun like a low-level." Well, I had already gone on a low-level before, but as a 2-ship. A low-level this time by ourselves meant we'd be lower and faster than before. "Opie, since the weather is great this morning, how about we go for the low-level and save the TPS demo for a January flight." OK! Low-level it is!

After about a 20-minute brief on what to expect, emergencies, etc (similar to the brief on my last flight), Opie checked the weather one last time and I headed over to the Paraloft to get all geared up. I won't bore you with the details again... same procedure as before.

After getting all geared up, I walked out to the jet. Same Salty Dog jet as my last flight... SD320. We're good friends by now.... :) As I walked out, the plane captain (aka PC) greeted me and asked me how I was doing..."Very excited, sir!" Yeah that was an understatement! I climbed up the boarding ladder (again, a chore in itself), positioned myself to enter the cockpit without stepping on the seat, and plopped right down. After a few checks of switches and knobs being the the right places (especially the ejection seat gear), the PC assisted me in strapping into the seat. Thank GOD! It's really a pain to try and buckle all 8-points by yourself! After the final strap, I leaned forward quickly to give my upper harnesses a tug and make sure they were indeed connected. They better be! That's what holds the parachute to me should I eject. With a thumbs-up, I signaled to the PC good to go. He headed down to the ground to help Opie finish preflight.

A few minutes later, Opie was up in the front all strapped in and giving a thumbs-up too. As I'm sitting in the cockpit, I'm looking to my right to see a row of about 6 hornets and superhornets sitting on the ramp. It was a cool sight. Looked like they were ready to pounce... like a cat. Then, as I was daydreaming about how cool this is going to be, a loud "dee-dle, dee-dle" tone came over my helmet. It's a two-tone sound that signals to a pilot something needs attention. I looked down to see the amber caution "BATT" or something like that. Opie had just turned on the electrical system. "ICS check, how do you hear me Pat?" "Loud and clear Opie, how me?" "Five-by"..

"Ok, Pat, its a cold day today so I'm going to motor the engines to let the oil loosen up before we start. You will hear the APU come up first, then hear the air starter engage on the right engine. I'm going to let it motor for 2 minutes before light-off. Once its stable, I'll lower the canopy and do the same for the left engine."

"Copy that Opie. I'm good to go..." Yeah... good to go... what a phrase. I was really MORE than good to go, but how do I say that? GREAT TO GO??? Anyhow, with my big smile showing, one of the ground crew cleared the APU and signaled to Opie was was clear. He also pointed to the back seat (aka me) and then made a huge smile, pointed to his face, and then pointed back at me. Cool, it shows.... I'm all smiles. Now Opie knew it too, but I suspected he'd already known that.

With a click-click-click sound and a high pitch squeal getting louder, the APU came to life. A few seconds later, Opie signaled to clear engine 2 (the right engine). With engine 2 clear, he said "Here's number 2..." A swish sound of air, then the low frequency grumble that could be felt AND heard signaled number 2 starting to spool up. About 2 minutes later, and with my hands on the throttle, Opie signaled for light-off on 2. I felt him push the number 2 throttle forward, and a few seconds later observed the fuel flow go to 800 pounds per hour. A split second later, with a thump, a louder squeal, some smoke, and a jet exhaust smell, the right engine came to life. "Dee-dle, dee-dle" again over the headset. The right generator was now on-line. We were no longer on battery power.

"Vanna, I'm closing the canopy, make sure you're clear." "Clear in the back..." "Roger, canopy is closing and then were gonna motor number 1."

The canopy actually closes a little faster than I expected. I noticed this on my first flight, but didn't say anything about it. Once it's fully lowered, it begins to slide foward and hook on canopy rollers, much like a cam-loc style. Simple but effective! The engine RPM on number 1 started to come up, which told me Opie had initiated the engine start sequence for the left engine. A few minutes later, he introduced fuel and the engine lit off with no problems.

A few moments later, Opie initiated BIT checks for the flight controls, fuel, and other things too. I remember seeing a lot of caution and warning flags in the back, and bitchin' betty (the female voice over the helmet) was saying all kinds of things like... "Engine Fire Left, Engine Fire Left.... Flight Controls, Flight Controls..." and many more (too many to list here).

Systems checks continued for a few minutes more, and then we started moving. During the initial roll-out of our parking spot, Opie checked nose-wheel steering then the brakes. After a final look-over by the ground crew, the PC marshalled Opie out to the taxiway and snapped a quality salute to him. Opie snapped one back. What a great and noble tradition!

So, here we are...taxiing out to the runway. It's going to be a short taxi because the active runway was 32.. the one closest to the hangar. Ok, takeoff checklist! Oxygen ON, oxygen mask secured, displays on, radios on, uncage the attitude indicator, set the altimeter to the current altimeter setting, put the ejection seat from SAFE to ARM, get the camera out.

Opie was cool with the camera. I was cleared in hot for pics and vids, as you can see in this blog. Tower called for a pos and hold... That's a position and hold position for takeoff on the runway. So we did, and I asked Opie if this was going to be a MIL takeoff or what. He said heck no, it's full burner! SCHWEETTTTT!!!!!!!!

"Salty Dog 320, cleared for takeoff. Winds three one zero at seven." "Cleared for takeoff, Dog three twenty"

This is where I started the camera rolling. I recorded a small video (download the video, save it to your desktop, and rename the file extension to .AVI) of the takeoff sequence, from brakes released to afterburners kicking in, to liftoff, hard right turn to downwind. When you see the camera pan to the left digital display, that was an accident. That was when Opie yanked the aircraft into a hard 90-deg right turn and I wasn't expecting it. The second camera jolt you will see is when we come out of afterburner. The deceleration out of burner also caused me to jiggle the camera. The the takeoff acceleration was as I remembered from my first flight. Put me back into the seat, and this time I watched the airspeed increase rapidly. Before I knew it, we were at 140 knots and rotating. Positive rate, gear is coming up, flaps coming to auto..... cleaned up and HERE'S the hard 90-deg right bank to roll to downwind (aka the first camera jolt). Wow.... simply amazing!

Once we leveled off at 3000-ft, the controller cleared us to 7000-ft. "Pat, wanna fly for a little?" Ok, if I MUST... twist my arm... :) So, here I am again.... climbing us at 320 knots up to 7000-ft. I reached it in no time. We didn't stay there for long tho... "Salty Dog 320, climb and maintain flight level two two zero." "Leaving seven for twenty-two, Salty Dog three twenty."

"And Salty Dog 320, give me a best rate climb for crossing traffic." "Roger, best rate 320." Can you see the smile on my face? "Opie, does the controller know what type of aircraft we are?" "He sure does Vanna. I think he's throwing us a bone for the fun card." "NICE.." I said, "how do we do this?" "Just push the throttles up and pull the nose up to maintain the airspeed." "Roger that, I'm on it."

I didn't get us into burner, but it was still an exciting time! The engines are very responsive, and I could feel the airplane accelerating quickly. I kept pulling the nose up to try (very hard actually) and keep the airspeed around 350 knots. Before I knew it, we were about a 40-deg nose high attitude and climbing at over 21,000 feet per minute! DAMN BRO!!!! Try that in a Cessna or a Mooney....

"Vanna, at this climb rate you will want to start your level-off a few thousand feet early and remember as you lower the nose to pull the power back." "Got it, Opie, thanks!" Not as easy as it sounds. I overshot the altitude by 100-ft and had to pull the power back to idle to keep us for getting past 360 knots. The airplane really slows down fast too. Going from MIL power to Flight Idle removes a LOT of thrust, and all that drag at 360 knots slows the bird down quickly. Before I knew it, I was throwing a lot of throttle back in to arrest the quick decel rate. Ok, great, now I'm 20 knots slow.... No problem, back on speed a few seconds later with some throttle input.

"Go ahead, Vanna, get a feel for what she can do." Ahhh... the magic phrase... Opie knew I was itching to check out SD 320. A few stick inputs, a quick response from the aircraft, and I was quickly off-course and off altitude. "Wow, she's really responsive!" "Yep, and the best part is if you take your hands off the stick, the aircraft will trim for 1g, so you about never need to input manual trim." I won't bore you with the nearly 5 minutes of stick time enroute.

"Navy Sierra Delta three two zero, descend and maintain one-zero thousand." "Out of twenty-two for ten, Salty Dog three twenty." "Ok, Pat, the trick here is to pull the throttles to idle, and point the nose about 7-deg nose low then modulate the pitch to maintain airspeed." "Roger that descending now."

Approaching 10,000-ft Opie took the controls back, cancelled our flight plan with center, and briefed up the G-warm maneuver. Simple enough, per squadron standard operating procedures, prior to G-maneuvers the aircrew have to get adjusted to Gs. A simple right turn and pull 4Gs for a few seconds, then a left turn for 6Gs. Remember on my last flight we only got to 5.5G, and I let Opie know that. "Don't worry we WILL get 6." Roger that, and sure enough he was true to his word. The 4G was nice. Not uncomfortable, and a little squeeze from the G-suit inflating. In the left turn, Opie nailed 6.0G, exactly. That G-suit squeezed the crap out of me! Pulling 6Gs was noticeably more uncomfortable. Having to sustain that G level for any length of time would definitely fatigue a pilot!

Ok, G-warm is over, here comes the descent down to 1000-ft above the ground. Once we were on-altitude, we accelerated to 390 knots. "Ok, Pat, as we briefed, you can fly it above 1000-ft, so if you want it, it's yours." "Roger, I have the controls." "Roger, you have the controls." "Roger, I have the controls." That's known as three-way positive comms for controls hand-off. It's very important that SOMEONE be flying at all times. There have been instances of crashes in the past where one pilot thought the other was flying. As with most procedures, this three-way positive release of controls was written in blood.

"Alright, I've switched the altimeter over to the radar altimeter, as you can see the "R" next to the altitude on the HUD. Keep us at or above 1000 and we're good." "Ok, will do, and what speed do we need to be at?" "This will work for now, but later will kick it up to nearly 500 knots. Also, make sure you anticipate for rising terrain." "Roger that."

Fast. Low. Quiet. Beautiful. All great words to describe what we were doing. It's amazing how quiet it really is inside the airplane at those speeds. Here I am skimming along, watching the houses, cars, trucks, horses below flying by, and ever watchful of the mountains ahead of me (currently higher than I am). "Pat, aim for that trough between those two peaks at our 11-o'clock." "Ok, you want me to go between them?" "Yep, just keep us above 1k." "Ok, here we go..."

A little left roll... a little more left roll... even MORE left roll...heck, I'm gonna miss this! Ok, start pulling back on the stick to tighten the turn radius. Yeah, that did the trick! Rolling wings level, screaming between two peaks at near 420 knots now.... We get paid to do this????? :) :) :)

I could go on and on about the 10 minutes I was flying the low-level, but then I would run out of room to finish my story. After crossing waypoint Foxtrot, Opie said "Ok, I'm gonna take the controls now." "Roger you've got the controls." "Roger, I've got the controls. Lemme show you a tactical maneuver." "Ok, whatcha have in mind?" "Well, just watch and see..."

If a redneck pilot ever said that to me I'd be scared....coming from Opie, I was excited! He pushed the nose down and we leveled off between 200-ft to 500-ft above the trees and about 450 knots. He began "yanking and banking" to put us in the valleys and stay there.... as we approached the ridge in front of us Opie said, "This is the terrain following tactic. You ready back there?" "Good to go!" Suddenly Opie pulled the airplane into a climb to parallel the mountain face. As we came over the peak, he rolled us inverted and pulled back on the stick to start us paralleling the downslope side. Once we were paralleling the mountain face, we rolled back wings-level and I noted the altitude at 290-ft with our airspeed about 470 knots!!! SIERRA HOTEL BABY! (That's "shit hot" in the civilian world). A few more manevers to realign ourselves in the valley and we hit our max speed of 490 knots.

As we progressed down the "canyon run", the clouds started to close in. Hmmm, this is not gonna be good. "Where the heck did these clouds come from?" "Dunno, but its gonna limit our run here. I think we're gonna have to pop up and wait for them to break." "Roger..." So we did just that. Climbed to 2000-ft, skirted above the clouds, and waited for our opportunity to get back down on the low level run. We didn't wait too long. At those speeds you cover a LOT of distance! A few minutes into waiting and the clouds broke... we were descending back down to 500-ft.

We overflew the target dam at better than 400 knots and about 500-ft. Our last target on the low level. Opie was cool with me taking pictures. Some of them focused on the canopy, but some actually turned out nice! I also took some video of the low level. Check out video 1 and video 2 (download the video, save it to your desktop, and rename the file extension to .AVI). Both videos are a little bumpy because down that low, there was a lot of mountain wave effect, and the turbulence was playing with us a little too.

Once we completed our run we climbed to 17,500-ft and headed back to Pax. "Vanna, you want the controls?" "Heck yeah, umm , I mean, I have the controls.." I flew us back to Pax. Add 10 more minutes of stick time to my log book. Opie took the controls when we approached Pax. Turn inbound for the break, hit 350 knots at 1500-ft above the ground, reach mid-field, rapidly roll left 90-deg and PULL PULL PULL...... heck of a maneuver! Once we reached 180-deg of turn (i.e. now we are downwind in the pattern), our speed was down to gear speed, so Opie dropped the gear. "Well, Vanna, looks like we have time for one touch-and-go." "Ok, let's do it." "I figured you wouldn't mind. I'll show you a carrier approach." Sweet.... :)
















As we approached runway 32 at Pax, I could see the painted carrier deck on the runway. Its what the pilots use for FCLPs or Field Carrier Landing Practices. Opie talked me all the way through it, explaining what he was doing, why he was doing it, and what the symbology on the HUD was telling me. The carrier approach looked VERY unnatural... high sink rate, lots of power corrections, and just before we hit the ground he hit the throttles. The ground impact was nice and solid...too much for a Mooney or a Cessna, but a piece of cake for the Hornet. One bounce of the gear and we were airborne again, this time turing right to enter the pattern for the full-stop.

After 1.4 hours of flying, we touched down. "Normal" landing, not a carrier-style landing. We cleared the runway and started the after-landing checklist. After a short taxi back to the ramp, we were shutting down. Man, what a ride! Time to deplane and take all this gear off. A quick photo op for the memories, and I was headed to lunch! Man am I hungry.... See ya in January for flight #3 Opie! Thanks Major!



-Vanna

My First F/A-18B Hornet Ride!

Date: Tuesday, 13-Dec-2005

Time: 1600-1745 UTC

Location: Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland

Enroute: Low-level Military training route over Western VA and Eastern WV

Aircraft: Salty Dog 320 (F/A-18B model)




Although this wasn't the first time I was scheduled to fly in a hornet (cancelled in the past due to weather and other issues), it WAS the first time I DID get airborne in a Hornet! Here's the scenario:

On Monday the 12th, I checked to flight schedule and sure enough I was scheduled to be in the back seat of a hornet for a 2-ship low level flight. SWEET! BUT I decided not to get my hopes up because, hey, I've been this far before only to not get in the air.

So, on Tuesday morning, I suited up in my flight suit and headed into work. What a gorgeous day! Bright sun shine, great visibility, and not a peep of any bad weather on the horizon. So far so good.... let's hope the flight doesn't get cancelled for other reasons. I arrived at the Strike Squadron (VX-23) at Pax River, and headed to the pre-flight briefing, which went something like this....

"Today we will be a flight of two on a low level over the #### route [I removed the acutal route name because I don't think I can tell you that]. Plan on being airborne around 1100 local, we will head over to the area at FL180 (that's Flight Level 180, which means 18,000-ft in altitude). Once cleared into the low level entry point we will descend down to the initial run altitude of 1000-ft off the deck. During the descent, we will do a G-warm of 4g to the right, then 6g to the left. Once we enter the run, SD322 will take lead and 320 will take 'slot'. After point Echo, we are cleared down to 500-ft. The first target will be the dam at this point. {Here the pilot points to the graphic layout of the course}. After Echo, proceed on to the next waypoint. The final waypoint will be these fuel depots. {Again, he points to the course graphic and a satellite pic of the fuel tanks}. This is our final point and we will exit out of the course, climb back to FL180 for the transit back to Pax. Enroute airspeed will be around 300 knots, with the course airspeed at 460 knots."

The briefing continued, but I'll skip the rest. Most of it was standard briefing items, like comm frequencies, lead transitions, emergencies, etc. The brief was actually very interesting to partake in. My pilot for today was the new commanding office (CO) for VX-23, LtCol Art "Turbo" Tomassetti. Very cool guy! Marine, but I won't hold it against him. :) Heck, the whole flight was Marines. Our lead aircraft, SD 322 (that's Salty Dog Three Two Two), had LtCol Gray "Haze" as the pilot and Capt Davis "Timmeh" as the RIO. Since they were lead and we were Dash 2 (the second plane), the would take the lower altitude slot of 200-ft above the ground level (AGL) while we would fly the higher post at 500-ft AGL during the run.

After the flight briefing, Turbo gave me his own brief about cockpit procedures, what to expect, what could be bad, and other things necessary for a civilian who is about to get his first back-seat ride. It was very enlightening! After the brief, I headed down to the Paraloft (PR shop) to start donning my flight gear. First, take off the flight suit and boots I was wearing. Next, put on the dry suit liner. Because we were over land the whole flight, I did not have to wear my dry suit (thank God, because it gets uncomfortable and very hot). Then, time to put my flight suit and boots back on. After that, I grabbed my G-suit. Now, keep in mind that this equipment is VERY expensive. I don't have my own gear so it is loaner gear from the squadron. I had to come into the PR shop before Thanksgiving to get fitted and adjusted for this gear.

Ok, back to it....The G-suit...to put this on, I had to swing it around from my front side to my back side. Once done, I had to zip the torso zipper on the right side, and then zip down both legs. Once it's properly on, it feels a little tight on the legs and torso. Good! That means it fits well! The G-suit, once connected to the airplane, will inflate as we pull G's to force the blood from my lower body to my upper body to assist in preventing GLOC, which is G-induced Loss Of Consciousness (a bad thing when you pull too many G's). After the G-suit was on, I donned my jet (torso) harness. This is the harness that straps me to the ejection seat. Should I need to eject, the upper connectors on the torso harness would be connected to the parachute (stored in the ejection seat headrest) while the lower connectors would be connected to the seat pan (which stores my life raft and survival items). After the harness comes the survival vest (SV-2) along with the Life Preserver Unit (LPU). These two items house a lot of survival gear and also contain a flotation vest inflated with CO2. Finally, time to put the helmet and oxygen mask on. There! Now, I'm sweating like crazy and feel very constrained, but it's for a good purpose!

One last check over my equipment by the fine folks at the PR shop and I'm walking out to the jet with Turbo. As we approach the jet, he briefs me on how to enter the jet, and how to strap in. It was a little harder than I expected climbing up the boarding ladder with all that gear, but I did it. Once up on the Hornet, I climbed into the back seat and started connecting myself. First, connect the lower leg restraints. One for each leg and they connect so that the bottom of the strap is just above my boot. Next, connect the upper leg restraints for both legs. They connect just below the quad but above the knee. These leg restraints are very important. During the ejection sequence, they pull your legs towards the seat so that I don't break them (or worse yet, leave them in the jet) when the ejection sequence is initiated. Ok, very important...checked that 4 connectors are connected...rechecked...rechecked.. good to go! Next, connect the lower torso harness connectors to the seat, then reach over my shoulders and connect the upper seat connectors to my upper torso harness. A good tug to make sure they are connected and voila! I'm now strapped in! Simple as that.

After I'm all strapped in, Turbo connected my G-suit, oxygen hose, and communications cord to the aircraft. Not an easy thing for me to do by myself considering I can barely move now. Turbo then headed to the front cockpit as I watched our other cohorts enter the jet next to us. Ahhh..what a GREAT day to go aviating! Turbo brought up the battery power, checked comms with me, and fired up the APU (auxiliary power unit). After the APU was online, we started engine 2 (right side), then engine 1. Good starts, lowered the canopy, and began built-in tests of just about every system on the aircraft. If we cancelled for maintenance, this is probably where it would happen. As God was smiling down on Vanna, the jet was good to go. Our lead also signaled good to go, and then we started taxiing.

During the taxi, I had to complete some checklist items, such as make sure my oxygen was on, put my O2 mask on, don my gloves, verify that ejection mode handle was set to NORM (which means if I eject the pilot stays, but if he ejects we both go), and turn on my displays and radios.

So, there we are...sitting on Runway 6. Lead is on our right side forward of us. He signals GO. He starts rolling down the runway at MIL power. We're doing a 10-count. He hits his afterburners and leaps from the ground. Ok, our turn. "Pat, ready?" "Yes, sir" I call back. "Ok, here we go!"

DAMN!!! What a ride! Full burners going and I have NEVER been held back in my seat that hard! Before I knew it, we were airborne and climbing like crazy! We were over 300 knots before the end of the runway and we joined up on lead in no time. So, I'm AIRBORNE!!!! SWEET! Here's a couple of pics of us joining up on the lead aircraft.

After the join-up, Turbo let me fly the jet. Very EASY to fly actually! Sensitive on the controls including the throttle. At 300 knots, we were slowly falling behind, so I bumped the throttles and could STILL feel the plane put me in my seat as we accelerated. Ok, too much throttle. The stick was very easy to control. The airplane is very responsive to inputs, and the flight control computer automatically trims the aircraft for 1-g flight. Just prior to the descent for the initial waypoint, I pulled the camera back out and took a few more pics...

Next, I had to stow the camera because we were about to start the G-warm maneuver. Here we are, diving out of 18,000-ft down to 1000-ft above the ground. On the way down, we pulled a smidge over 4g's to the right, then came to the left and hit 5.5g's. Not exactly the 6 we were looking for, but good for me! The G-suit definitely was working. It squeezed the crap out of my legs and then started pushing on my abdomen. A very weird feeling, but I didn't even get close to passing out. LOVE THE G-SUIT!

Finally, rolling in on the initial point. This is what they call a low-level. It's designed to train pilots to fly below radar to the strike point, pop up, roll in on the target, release their weapons, and get back below the radar to egress out of the area. Due to the nature of the maneuvers we would be doing, I had to stow the camera for the entire low level. Darn for photos, but DAMN what a ride! Yanking and banking over the Applachian mountains covered with snow and ice. Absolutely beautiful! It wasn't very humid out, so I never saw any vapors coming off the wings. We ran about 1 hour on the low level. Climbs, descents, hugging the mountainous terrain at 500-ft going anywhere between 290 to 460 knots. We even paralleled a highway with vehicles on it. Turbo called "Let's give the taxpayers a demo." With that, we were zigzagging over the highway about 800-ft above the cars at a smokin' fast speed. I wonder how many of them noticed us?

The pop-up to target was cool. Pull some G's, roll 90-deg, roll back, may get inverted, roll out in a dive on the target, fake drop some ordnance, pull more G's, and drop back down close to the ground. That's about all I can say about that maneuver. Let me just say the last maneuver made me a little queasy to my stomach. BUT, I DID NOT PUKE! Yes!!!

After the low level run, we climbed back to FL180 and headed back to Pax River. Again, Turbo was cool enough to let me fly part of the way back. I probably got about 20 minutes total stick time. I of course took the camera back out and took more pictures.

Lead did a cross from right to left, which I captured digitally.

Then he set up on our left side and again, got a pic of that too.

Of course, since I bleed orange, I had to get the obligatory shot... :)

On the approach into Pax River, we did a break. That's where you come screaming overhead at blazing fast airspeed, roll the wings 90-deg, pull the throttles back to idle, and yank back on the stick. Definitely an exciting maneuver! We entered the pattern, put the gear and flaps down, and did a FCLP (field carrier landing practice). Basically, there is a replica of the flight deck drawn on the runway, and the lens (meatball) on the left side of the runway. We slammed down on the deck, he pushed the throttles back up and we were airborne again...just like that...

It was about that time I heard "BINGO" in my headset. Bitchin' Betty (that's what they call the aircraft voice that tells you about bad things) just indicated we are at our min fuel, so Turbo said this next pass would be a full stop. Great landing! Surprising how hard you hit the deck tho. If I did that in the Mooney I'd probably break the gear right off!

We taxiied off the runway back to the hangar. All the while, I am doing my post-flight procedures, like turning things off, removing my harness, taking the ejection seat from ARMED to SAFE, things like that...

Once we parked in the spot, Turbo shut down the engines and opened the canopy. I was already disconnected from everything in the aircraft, so I headed down the boarding ladder. Next stop, get all this 50-lbs or so of gear off of me and get some lunch! Man, I'm hungry! Don't I just look beat down after this flight? I was too excited (but very fatigued) to show it tho...

Too short a flight for me. I will carry my first hornet flight memories for many days to come. Can't wait for the next flight. Thanks Marines (esp Turbo) for the AWESOME first Hornet ride memory!

-Vanna