Weapons School graduation is about one month away, and it's hard to believe we're already at this point in the program. The days 'fly' by when going 100 mph from the time you walk in to the squadron until leaving 12-14 hours later. After a quick dinner, trying to figure out exactly what to brief for the next day's flight and some sleep, it's time to do it all over again the next day. The days go slow when you desire to spend more time with your wife and child. I'm looking forward to a nice long break over the Christmas holiday with them and family!
I have three more flights in the Weapons Phase before Thanksgiving his here. The flying has been better than any other I've done, and will be the part I miss the most after WIC is done. Just yesterday I planned, briefed, and lead a destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD) flight consisting of 10 x F-16s, 4 x F-15Es, 3 x EA-18Gs, and 2 x B-1s...it's the best training in the world. The flight went well too, which is always a bonus after the long hours of preparation. God is good!
For the long Thanksgiving weekend, I'm taking Lana and Liam to Ft. Tuthill military recreation center in Arizona from where we plan to visit the Grand Canyon and Sedona. It'll be a nice break together after completing Weapons!
Since the last post we have entered the close air support (CAS) phase of Weapons School. This type of training prepares pilots who execute this mission in situations where the Army needs over watch by fighters ready to employ weapons on the enemy. CAS has been what F-16s have been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last 10 years, but that is in a very low threat environment. Here at Weapons School CAS takes place with multiple surface to air threats we have to avoid while still providing support to the ground troops referred to as high threat CAS. At the end of this next week CAS will be over and we'll be on to our last phase: Weapons.
Weapons is the final phase where all the different platforms integrate on every mission working together to accomplish the mission. Lots of long days and hard work ahead, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little brighter. I just finished my research paper this afternoon as well...35 pages!
Lana and Liam arrived earlier this month and are staying with friends of ours we met while stationed at Aviano. It's great having them here, and it's amazing how much Liam changed while we were apart. Lana is 5 months with our #2, who is due in February. We spent last weekend in San Diego at the Navy base on North Island across the bay from downtown. It was a nice and relaxing time for us after the time apart.
Lana and Liam will be here in a couple weeks. Three months was long enough!
Completing this week marked the half way point of WIC, and being busy has made the time go fast. The flying ahead will continue to get better and more difficult at the same time. Up to this point we have been flying specific missions within the air-to-air and air-to-ground arenas, but we're now beginning to integrate them together using the previous phases as building blocks.
Since my 300' checkout and dropping the live bombs, we've moved on to escort, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD), and surface attack (SAT). These phases will be complete, barring any busts, the end of next week before we go into another full week of academics. My research paper has reached 25 pages, and I'm about 85% through. This coming Thursday I'll give a 30 min presentation on my topic to the squadron commander, director of operations, paper advisor, and academic advisor.
Being half way through WIC also means Lana and Liam will soon arrive! They'll be here in early October, just before our 4th wedding anniversary. Lana has put up with a lot being apart and prego chasing a 16 month old, high energy boy around Germany. Thanks Lana...your support means a lot!
This past week our training transitioned from air-to-air to air-to-ground. Our academics and mission planning prepared us for our 100 ft familiarization flight, and dropping live 500 and 2000 lb bombs on different targets on the NTTR. All fighter pilots are qualified down to 500', but during WIC we're qualled down to 300' and get that chance to see 100'. Flying at 100' is fine until you make a turn that low going 500 mph...there isn't any room for mistakes that low. There may be a few less cows on the range after my wingman and I finished our low level training.
Later in the week we had our first night flights here at WIC, carrying either 500 or 2000 lb live laser guided bombs (LGBs) with 210 rounds of 20 mm bullets in the gun. It had been awhile since I'd dropped bombs and the first time shooting the gun at night using night vision goggles (NVGs). My wingman and I hit all of our targets, which burned pretty good. So much so, I had to pick a different strafe target for the gun since looking at the fires through the NVGs gained them down too much. This was just the beginning of our bomb dropping.
Lana, Liam, and I have used video Skype quite a bit lately since she is still in Munich with her Mom. Liam has changed so much, even since we were together at Spangdahlem only one month ago. I miss them both a lot, and they'll be here at Nellis in a month from now...really looking forward to it!
