Aviano Air Base, Italy

I've been here in Italy for close to two weeks now, and things are going well. I've been able to get a lot done in the time I've been here, which I guess is pretty good considering the Italian way of life it a little slower than we're used to in the USA. I picked up an apartment the second day I was here in a town called Sacile, which is about 10 min from the base and the Alps...I'm moving in this weekend. I also picked up a '95 BMW 318i just yesterday from an Italian dealer here in Aviano that was in pretty good shape and should last me just fine during the time I'm here. The northern part of Italy I'm living in is right out of a movie...very nice scenery and nice old towns. The weather has been in the 70's and sunny for the most part. Some of the taller mountains in the Alps still have snow on them, and I'm planning to go do some site seeing up there very soon. I can't complain at all...I'm living in Italy really close to the Alps flying F-16s!

There are two squadrons of F-16s on the base here, the 510FS and 555FS. Like I mentioned before, I'm in the 510FS Buzzards...above is our squadron patch. I've met most of the guys in the squadron, and all of them seem to be good dudes. The moral is high and commander has done a lot to make the squadron a great place. I'll start some class and simulators next week and will be flying the week after...looking forward to getting back in the jet and being an MR wingman. Basically that means I won't have anymore gradesheets and will be combat ready! We have a lot of cool trips coming up for training purposes both in Europe and back in the States, so I'll be getting my fill of flying soon! I've said it a ton, but God's good and has given me a lot to look forward to!

I'm going to take a train down to Venice this weekend to check out some of the sites around there. It's a 55 min train ride for about $10 bucks round trip...not bad! Some people save up for years to take a trip to Europe to visit places like Venice and it's basically a short trip down the road for me. The town of Sacile has a train station 15 min walk from my house, so it's very convenient as well. I have plenty of room in the new apartment for visitors, so hopefully people take me up on it! Below is a picture of my new squadron building and one of the base looking down from the mountains.

More Pictures:
Sacile; Apartment

310FS Night Systems Course

There isn't really a good place to put this update, so I figured I'd put it here. Before we leave Luke AFB, there's some additional flying that all F-16 graduates do to get qualified in flying with the Targeting Pod (TP) and Night Vision Goggles (NVGs). While we're still officially a part of the 63rd FS, we fly with the 310th FS Tophats. Their mission is solely to train guys with the TP and NVGs. The TP provides an infrared (IR) image in the cockpit and allows us to target things on the ground based on the temperature contrast between the target of interest (a building, truck, tank, etc.) and it's surroundings. The TP also has a high powered laser in addition to the IR camera. Once the target is being tracked, we can laser designate it and drop a laser guided bomb (LGB) with very high accuracy. We can carry GBU-10, GBU-12 and GBU-24 LGBs. They are merely "dumb" bombs with laser seeker kits installed in the nose and fin kits installed in the tail for directional control. The flying consists of three days rides learning the TP and five night rides which involve a basic formation flight, two air-to-air flights and two air-to-ground rides using the TP while wearing the NVGs. The third TP ride was the most memorable since we had a chance to drop two inert GBU-12 bombs! On previous rides we would call "splash" when the time to impact clock read zero, but this ride we were able to call it based on the huge cloud of smoke and dirt thrown into the air at bomb impact. I currently have three NVG flights left in the 310th before I'm done flying here at Luke. The Air Force is packing up my stuff the end of the month to ship it over to Italy, and I catch a flight out of Phoenix on 15 Apr. I'm looking forward to getting settled into my new life and new squadron soon!

Graduation

It's already time for me to talk about another graduation...time flies when you're having fun, literally! Graduation weekend was a great time with all of my family and friends out here in Phoenix. In all I had 21 people at the graduation dinner Saturday, February 25th. People started arriving in town on Wednesday of that week, so it was nice to have some time to relax, play golf and hang out by the pool for a few days. Thursday morning after some of my immediate family arrived, my older brother and I played 18 holes of golf at the Wigwam Resort where he and his wife were staying. So, while we were chasing a little white ball around the course, the rest of my family was relaxed by the resort pool. Neither of us played really great, but had fun nontheless.

Friday kicked off with breakfast at the squadron at 0730 in the morning with doughnuts, bagels, muffins and all that good stuff. After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed into our squadron's main briefing room for a family welcome given by our squadron commander. He gave a brief history of the base, shared exactly what we had been through over the past six months or so of training and then proceeded into giving out some awards for the air-to-ground phase of training. The first seven rides of that phase went towards compiling the scores for the different awards handed out. In all, there were around 12 different awards handed out for each type of bombing delivery we practiced to include strafe (shooting the gun at low altitude). I'll add in here that when you're flying in a program such as the F-16 training program, you don't know where you stack up in the class because you're so busy flying from one day to the next. Well, I was blown away to receive eight of the awards for the air-to-ground phase of training...I could hardly believe it! God gave me the ability to do pretty well and it all goes back to Him. Needless to say it was very surprising!

After the welcome, I took my family to the end of the runway to watch some of the jets take off. It was great to watch their faces as a few F-16's roared by executing an afterburner takeoff. I heard a lot of, "I can't believe you fly one of those things!" I couldn't agree with them more...I can hardly believe it myself! From there I took six of the guys to the simulators to fly low around some mountains, shoot some bad guys and then try to land. It was cool to have them sit in the seat and see what it was like in an F-16 cockpit. After some fun time there, it was out to the flightline for burgers and pics by a jet. Some of the instructors in the squadron did the honors and grilled up some fine beef patties.

Saturday morning, my brother and I went golfing again...this time is was with our guest speaker, Colonel Wilson, and my squadron commander here in the 63rd FS. Colonel Wilson was my base commander when I was stationed at Columbus AFB, MS. Golf went a little better this time, and it was also a lot cheaper playing at the base. Our base course is ranked in the top five of Air Force courses, so it's really nice. After wrapping up another 18 holes, we headed back to the Wigwam to chill with the family before the big graduation dinner that night at the Officer's Club. At this point, all of my 21 guests had made it into town and were anticipating the evening's events. Most of them hand never been to a military dinner, so I was excited for them to experience one.

Soon, we were all sitting at the 2.5 tables it took to fit all my family and friends. After the posting of the colors and honoring the Prisoners of War (POW) and those Missing in Action (MIA), we sat to enjoy a good meal before the guest speaker. Of course with so many people, pictures were taken of everything. We also watched our class video during the dinner.

After dinner and a speech from the guest speaker, our class handed out some awards to the instructors we thought did a great job teaching us throughout the course. The squadron commander then handed out some awards to our class as were wrapped up the evening. Of the awards given out, I received the Air to Ground Top Gun award and the Distinguished Graduate Award. Wow, we had finished a tough F-16 training course and I finished at the top...dude, very awesome! It's a God thing no matter how you look at it. He made me who I am and has allowed me to experience what I have so that I can fly the best fighter in the world! While on stage receiving one of the awards, my squadron commander called my family the "Trumparazzi" (my callsign being Trump) since there were so many of them...we could hard see at thing after all the pics. It was a great night that I'm glad so many people were able to be a part of. It was another step in an awesome journey I've been having in the Air Force serving the country. Soon I'll be enjoying the Italian Alps and some great Italian food! At this point I'm still planning to update the site when over there, but we'll see...check six!

F-16 Training Course Complete!

The day after my flight up to Hill AFB, UT I finished the F-16 Initial Qualification Course here at Luke. It was a great feeling to land after that sortie and know I had taken another big step forward in my Air Force Career! To celebrate everyone finishing up, we took a squadron trip up to Los Vegas, NV to visit Nellis AFB. Most F-16 classes take a trip up north to see the base because there's a lot of cool stuff going on. They have what is commonly referred to as "the petting zoo" which is a collection of foreign military equipment for guys like us to see first hand and learn about. We also were able to get a couple classified briefings on some of the future capabilities of the F-16 and on the Air Force's newest fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor. Lets just say that the Raptor will kick the tail of whoever it goes up against...hands down. I had never seen one up close, but we had a chance to walk around one and check it out.

From there we stopped by the Air Force Thunderbirds hanger to check out their operation. I had mentioned before that a flight commander of mine here at Luke is a new member of the team. We met up with him and had a tour of the place...as we walked out the back of the hanger to the flight line, the diamond formation was just landing and taxied back while we were out there. It was pretty cool to see...a few years ago I could only dream of flying a fighter jet as I watched the Thunderbirds perform and now I am! There were a ton of other aircraft parked out on the ramp as well since there was a Red Flag exercise going on like the one I explained a couple entries ago. Almost every jet you could imagine was flying in the skies over the base...even foreign jets. Of course, we also hit up the Vegas strip while we were there. It was a cool place to see at night with all that was going on. Good food and good times!

We start into the Night Systems and Targeting Pod academics on Monday already to start preparing for flights that start in March. I'm not looking forward to sitting in the classroom again since it was so nice to be done with that stuff for awhile. But, I guess I aught to be doing something to earn that paycheck! I'll get back with you all soon.

Video:

Flying The Grand Canyon

These pictures couldn't wait to be posted later...it's one of the best pics taken to date. I took off this morning on my flight up to Hill AFB, UT and soon flew over the Grand Canyon just like we did for the UTTR LFE. One of my bros in the class took this pic of my jet as we flew over...how cool is that?! I'm going to have to blow it up and put it on the wall somewhere.

About 45 minutes after the Canyon, we had landed at Hill AFB. It was awesome around there with all the mountains and now...definitely a place I'd like to be stationed and fly the Viper someday. We grabbed lunch at this philly steak place, relaxed for awhile and then flew back here to Luke. On the way back we flew down low over Lake Powell, which is part of the Colorado River that's been dammed up on the east end of the Canyon. That too was an awesome thing to see. From there, we also flew down over the Barringer Meteor Crater about 35 miles east of Flagstaff, AZ. It was an awesome ride to basically finish the program on, and one I'll definitely remember! Hope you enjoy the view as much as I did!