Week 34 & 35

Week 34

Flying this week was pretty normal, nothing too cool to report. I did fly down to Corpus Christi to shoot some approaches. The airfield is pretty much right on the harbor which means I got to fly over the ocean. That was pretty neat, especially because we were really low and got to see some big ships up close. We also saw the airplane called “the guppy” which NASA uses to transport shuttle parts in. Also, I did a couple VFR legs (navigating solely on charts) this week which were ok. Weather stopped us from doing the really cool ones, but there was some stuff to see.

Week 35

Its been a fun couple of flights recently. I went on my cross country in the T-1 to exciting Oklahoma City, Fort Worth, and Louisiana. The flying we did primarily at night, but on the first leg out we did a low level which was awesome. We flew through a canyon at less than 300’ and going over 300 knots. It was just like independence day, except that we did not have aliens shooting at us. We flew primarily at night which I love. It is so pretty to look at all the lights and see the stars when you are above all the city lights. It is so calm and peaceful. You don’t get near as much updrafts because there is far less heat dissipation at night. When we stopped in Oklahoma city we were greeted with a rousing square dance and everyone was singing the famed “Oklahoma” song. Of course I joined in and showed them how we do it back it “Oohtah.” We stayed in a 5 star hotel which gave us a huge discount because we were military. The showers were all tile and they had flat screen plasma T.V.’s in every room. Every room was also equipped with temperpedic mattresses, but I still like mine better. I felt just like a famous person without all the money. That night a huge storm rolled through and flooded parts of the city. It was cool to watch from 8 stories up and laugh at all the cowboys floating away. Luckily, it cleared up later and we made it back to the airport ok. We had to wait until dusk to takeoff and got to see some pretty cool stuff. There was a completely restored WWII T-6 and the pilot let us sit in it. He said it was the only one in existence that had all of its original equipment. It was neat to see what they used to train in and how far aviation has come. When we took off and the sun went down we flew around the line of thunderstorms that went through OKC. It was cool to see all the flashes at night.