Week 26 (30 Jul - 5 Aug 06)

Here starts a busy week for me. Flew all 5 days!!! Summary as follows:

7/31 - Helo flight with Brian "Sandbag" Sandberg in a TH-6B (Tester 40) for 2 hours! All kinds of instruction on hovering, translation, flying qualities both low and high. Also knocked out a few test points he needed to get done. Thanks Sandbag! What a hoot! One of my favorite flights so far!

8/1 - Lat-Dir practice with OD in Tester 14 (T-38C) for 1 hour
8/2 - Lat-Dir practice with SLAB in Tester 16 (T-38C) for 1 hour
8/3 - Lat-Dir variable stability demonstration flight in a Lear 24 (Tester 77) with Pappy and Frenchy for 1.7 hour.

Now, the fun day. August 4, 2006..... Kirby and I took Tester 12 (T-38C) on a cross-country flight down to Patrick AFB in Florida. We launched in the late morning since we had no academics that day. Our fuel stop was in Charleston, SC (KCHS) where we were the very small jet next to a bunch of C-17s on the ramp. WOW! A little over an hour delay there for fuel, and we were on our way to Patrick AFB (KCOF). Kirby let me fly nearly the whole flight down. The total trip time down was only 1.8 hours, spending most of our time around 0.85 Mach at 26,000 ft. Amazing it didn't seem like 1.8 hours.... more like 1 hour.

We put the plane to bed there at Patrick, and went out for a night on the town, so to speak. The motor pool loaned us a government van, and we were lodged on-base at the AF Inn. Nice place actually. Very similar to a hotel.

Anyhow, saw Talladega Nights at a local theater, after spending over an hour driving around looking for one. We called it a night and spent nearly all day Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center, playing tourists. Shuttle Atlantis was already out on the launch pad, but we never did close enough to really see it. This picture is the best we could do.

My buddy Kevin was in Orlando for flight training, so he drove to Cocoa Beach to meet us for dinner.

Read the next blog for our departure back to Pax River...
-Vanna