A few posts ago I wrote, "I have to go to Amsterdam, Netherlands the weekend of 15 Nov to attend training in the altitude chamber. If you remember way back to a post of mine in early 2004, we did altitude training in the beginning of pilot training; it's required every three years, and I have to get it done before moving to Korea." Aviano doesn't have an altitude chamber, and the nearest one is at Soesterberg Air Base in the Netherlands, which is about 45-50 minuets southeast of Amsterdam. Lana and I flew out early Saturday morning and enjoyed Saturday afternoon looking at art works from famous painters, one of them being Rembrandt. We also went by Anne Frank's house, where her family hid from the Germans during WWII before being captured and taken to a concentration camp. From there we found a theater and watched the new James Bond movie, Solace of Quantum. By the time it finished, we grabbed a quick dinner and called it a night. Sunday morning we did a Google search for an Evangelical Church in town and found one a short tram ride away. The service was in English and Dutch and encouraging to worship with Christians from another culture. After church, we wanted to get out to enjoy the nice weather, so I went for a run in a park near our hotel while Lana walked. At mid afternoon, we took a boat tour through the city and then went to an Indian restaurant for dinner...great food...so good we went back the following night after the altitude chamber!
Monday, I drove to Soesterberg for the altitude chamber with another guy from our squadron who needed to update his currency. While sitting in the cafeteria, in walked my good friend Matt Chapman from officers training school...the same one I visited during my cross-country to Britain. We hadn't coordinated anything prior; small world we live in. Tuesday morning I caught an early flight back to Italy ready to finish out the week of flying.
Before Lana and I leave Italy, we have more plans to travel and snowboard. Over Thanksgiving weekend we're going back to Zermatt, Switzerland and then the weekend before we leave we're going on our squadrons ski trip to Tirol, Austria. Only 23 more days left! Oh yeah, November is "no hair November" in a fighter squadron.
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The NATO Tactical Leadership Program (TLP) is a multi-national flying course for fighter jets. It takes place at Florennes Air Base, Belgium and is designed to train and teach the pilots who attend about the tactics and capabilities of other allies within NATO. If needed in the future, it will be very important to understand each other's capabilities in order to operate effectively together in war. At the completion of the course, we are qualified mission commanders with the training needed to lead a large force of fighters effectively into war. There is much to learn still, but we have the baseline tools to do so.
Each day of flying at TLP, the mass weather and training rules brief started sharply at 0800. Once complete, the air tasking order (ATO) for the day would be passed out with the specifics of what the "General's" objectives were for a successful mission. On the ATO one of the pilots would be tasked as the mission commander for the day and it would specify the location of the targets. A mission commander has the overall responsibility to coordinate "blue" air-to-air fighters, air-to-ground fighters, tankers, AWACS and other assets to come up with a plan to strike a target in "bad guy land" without getting shot down by "red air" fighters or surface-to-air missile sites. "Blue" and "red" is used in reference to "friendly" and "enemy" forces either in the air or on the ground. During TLP, there were 15 flights scheduled for the month of which we only flew 12 due to weather, birds (yeah, it's migratory season) etc. These flights use airspace in Britain, the Netherlands, Germany and France. So, in addition to quickly planning a safe mission each morning, there were different airspace rules to followed specific to each country. In general, regardless of the target, the plans basically boiled down to the air-to-air fighters pushing first to shoot the "red air" threat followed by the air-to-ground fighters following once it was safe to do so and bomb their target. Once the planning was complete, we would go fly a mission early in the afternoon and then spend until about 2000 that night debriefing lessons we had learned. Since we were busy the whole day, a few days a week Chris and I would go to the gym at 0630 for a quick workout before breakfast and then head over to the TLP operations building.
In our TLP class we had British F-3 and G-4 Tornados, French F-1 Mirages, Spanish F-1 Mirages, F-18 Hornets and Harriers, Italian Eurofighters (from Grosseto where I had flown before on a previous cross-country), Greek F-16s and our F-16s. Thankfully our squadron commander and director of operations let us take two of our new CCIP jets to the training. Operating on the Link 16 with other nations and the AWACS provided a lot of good learning for both us as we're getting used to the new "toys." It was a great experience for the two of us and really increased my overall understanding of how we and our allies would integrate to accomplish a mission during war time. After the last fight on 2 Oct, we had a TLP graduation and officially became mission commanders.
As you already saw in my last post, the weekend were free to travel. In addition to Brugge and Paris, I did some site seeing the other two weekends in Belgium. The third weekend I went with some British and French guys to Reims, France. Reims is in the Champagne region of northwestern France. One of the French pilots has a friend in the business and we were able to tour his small winery over the weekend. It's quite an intensive process, which takes years to complete depending on the type of Champagne. Reims is also well known because it was the town the new kings went to to receive their crown. The fourth weekend Chris and I went to Bastogne, Belgium...where the famous Battle of the Buldge took place. The 101st Airborne fought the Germans for the better part of month here during WWII, with most of the fighting taking place in the Ardennes Forest nearby. If you've seen the Band of Brothers series, it gives a great depiction of what the 101st went through...real heroes of WWII. We visited a museum and also drove out into the forest where the 101st airborne fought to see what remains of the foxholes they dug for protection and to stay warm. We also drove a little further down the road to Luxembourg to see the WWII memorial there. It's sobering to see so many white crosses in one graveyard.
On 3 Oct Chris and I took off and flew back to Aviano after a month of successful training. Sadly, Lana and I now have only about three weeks left here in Italy. Our last day here is 16 Dec and the movers are already coming to pick up our things the first week of December. As much as we don't want to leave, we know God has more in store for us over the year ahead. We're already talking about plans to visit Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Vietnam while I'm stationed in Korea. Fly safe...check six!
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TLP; Bastogne, Belgium
As mentioned in my last post, Lana and I planned to do some traveling while in Belgium for my TLP flying course and we did. I flew in with my F-16 on 3 Oct and Lana flew from Munich to Brussels the same day. After dropping my things off at the dorm room on base and packing a bag for the weekend, the other pilot who flew to Belgium with me for TLP, Chris, drove me to the Charleroi train station. I was in Brussels about 50 minuets later where I met Lana before we caught a train on to Brugge for the weekend where we would spend our anniversary on 6 Oct.
Brugge is a very nice town in the northwestern part of Belgium and is referred to as the "Venice of the North." Lana had done some research on the internet and found us a nice hotel in the city center for a couple of nights. Brugge used to be a very rich city during the Medieval times as it was a main port of the North Sea. It's great because it was essentially untouched by the world wars, and most of the old buildings and churches are still intact. One of the old churches in town had Michelangelo's Madonna status in it...one of his only works outside of Italy. As in Venice, there are many small canals throughout the town and we took a boat trip while there. We both thought Brugge was the perfect place for our 1st anniversary!
After a week of flying at TLP, Lana and I took the bullet train from Charleroi to Paris for the weekend leaving on Saturday morning...we reached our goal of making it to Paris before leaving Italy. Again, Lana did a good job and found us a nice hotel close to the center, near the Paris Opera House. We both had been to Paris quite a few years ago, but it was great to travel there together. While in Paris we saw the Paris Opera House, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph and the Basilique du Sacré Cœur among other smaller things. Paris is another one of those great cities that wasn't destroyed during WWII, and has many great places to see. We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower on Saturday night to watch the sun set before going out for a nice dinner that evening. Sunday morning I went for a run and my route took me by the Opera and through the gardens at the Louvre...a great venue to say the least! After getting cleaned up, Lana and I went to a church we found on the internet to worship with some French people. It was cool worshiping the same God with others from a different culture.
Lana and I have seen so much in our lives before and since we've been married...it would be interesting to see a map of the places we've been. To add to our list, I have to go to Amsterdam, Netherlands the weekend of 15 Nov to attend training in the altitude chamber. If you remember way back to a post of mine in early 2004, we did altitude training then as well; it's required every three years, and I have to get it done before moving to Korea. So, soon I'll explain how TLP went and about our time in Amsterdam. Enjoy!
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The 510th FS returned from Campia Turzii, Romania earlier this month after a two week TDY at Viper-Lance 2008. The F-16 is refered to as the Viper and the Mig-21 and the Lancer. Our reasons for going to Romania were basically the same those for going to Spain...Italy doesn't have a bombing range and we have a certain amount of bombing training to accomplish each year. During our two weeks, I had a chance to drop 1x500# LGB inert and 1x500# dumb bomb. Romania actually has better airspace for training as well since there aren't as many restrictions. The low level airspace (where we fly 500 ft and 500 kts) was also great and took us through some very scenic areas of Romania...big mountain valleys and lakes were common along the route of flight.
In addition to our air-to-ground training, we were able to train air-to-air with the Mig-21s the Romanians have at the base. The Mig-21 is an old Russian jet from the 60s, but has been modified over the years to keep it up to date. However, when you dogfight a Mig-21 in the F-16...there's no chance. The F-16 is much superior to the Mig-21 in that area. During our two weeks there I was able to do BFM with a Mig-21 and also get a ride in the backseat. Getting a ride in such an old Russian jet is something cool to say I've had the chance to do.
Romania is still a very poor country. It was common to see multiple horse and buddies on our way to/from work. You can still see the aftereffects Communism has had on their economy and the infrastructure. Our squadron (the fliers and maintenance together) decided to help renovate a local "YMCA" type place for young kids in the local community. The staff and kids were very appreciative and it was nice to give to a place when we have some much. Our location in the country didn't really give us the chance to do much in the evenings either, so most of use went running after work before grabbing some dinner. One of the weekends some took a trip to Dracula's Castle, but most of use relaxed around the hotel.
Well, here in a few days I'll be flying to Florennes AB, Belgium to start a month of TLP! Lana is planning to visit a couple of times so we can take a trip to Brugge, Belgium for our 1st anniversary and Paris before I fly back the end of October. I'll have all the details on the training once I'm back.
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Lana and I had the amazing opportunity to fly to Israel for a week with my work. We had briefly talked about how we would enjoy going, and a few months later we jumped on a plane and flew to Tel Aviv Airport. I only had to work a couple days, so we spent the rest of the time visiting the Biblical sites around the country. We actually were able to meet up with a high school friend of mine who's studying in Jerusalem...who would have thought?!
Our first day of site seeing took us through Nazareth, around the Sea of Galilee and Jordan River. In Nazareth we visited the Basilica of the Annunciation where most believe is the house of Joseph and Mary. There are actual ruins under the church which they think is the real house. After that we moved on to the Jordan Valley where the Jordan River leaves the Sea of Galilee and actually stepped into the water. The location where Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist is to the south of where we were. We then drove to the north end of the sea to the town of Capernaum which is the city where Jesus spent most of his time and lived. In Luke 4:31-44 it talks about Jesus teaching in the synagogue there. The ruins of the city and synagogue are still there along with what they believe to be the apostle Peter's house. Nearby is the Mount of Beatitudes and the area where Jesus fed the 5000. It was a great day and made the Bible seem very real to walk in the places Jesus and the apostles actually did.
The second day we made our way over to the Dead Sea before heading back to Jerusalem to meet up with my buddy from high school. The drive to the Dead Sea is through part of the Negev Desert, and we couldn't believe nomads actually live out there. It a wonder they're able to find water anywhere. Swimming in the Dead Sea is very strange feeling...there's so much buoyancy due to the salt it's difficult to put your feet back on the bottom once you're floating. It's the lowest point on the earth at 1,378 ft below sea level, and makes for very hot temperatures! Lana had heard the salt and mud from the lake are good for the skin, so we coated ourselves in Dead Sea mud...not sure how well it worked, but it made for a few good pictures. Later that night we enjoyed dinner together with my friend and his wife before heading back to their apartment for the night.
The Old City of Jerusalem and its surroundings was our favorite part of the trip...there's so much history there and it's where we believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world, so through Him they might have forgiveness and spend eternity with Him in Heaven. Surprisingly, there's a huge mosque sitting in the very place the second Jewish temple used to stand before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. We toured the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives before making it into the city. The old streets are very narrow and create a maze of walkways. Within the city we saw the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Via Dolorosa where Jesus walked with the cross to Calvary...the hill where He was crucified.
Of all the traveling Lana and I have done, Israel will be the one place we remember not for the beautiful scenery and mountains, but for the chance we had to walk in the steps of Jesus. The beginning of the World started just to the east of there, Jesus was born and died there and will return to the Mount of Olives in the future. We're very thankful for the opportunity we've had!
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Monday, I drove to Soesterberg for the altitude chamber with another guy from our squadron who needed to update his currency. While sitting in the cafeteria, in walked my good friend Matt Chapman from officers training school...the same one I visited during my cross-country to Britain. We hadn't coordinated anything prior; small world we live in. Tuesday morning I caught an early flight back to Italy ready to finish out the week of flying.
Before Lana and I leave Italy, we have more plans to travel and snowboard. Over Thanksgiving weekend we're going back to Zermatt, Switzerland and then the weekend before we leave we're going on our squadrons ski trip to Tirol, Austria. Only 23 more days left! Oh yeah, November is "no hair November" in a fighter squadron. 
