Getting Ready To Deploy

I'm sure a lot of you wondered what's happened over the past few months...and rightly so. Things have been pretty busy, but I've just been lazy in updating the site. Once our squadron returned from the States, our immediate focus shifted to preparing for our deployment to the desert in January. This not only included continued flight practice, but also a lot of paperwork. Medical and dental records need to be up to date, bills need to be payed and put on automatic payment, wills need to be written along with many other things. Most of our flight time has been focused on the close air support (CAS) since this is most of what we'll be doing while down range...supporting the Army and Marine soldiers on the ground. I'm a little anxious when I think about this being the real deal now and not just training. But, I've received the best training in the world and feel prepared to do the job God has given me in serving my country. He will take care of us down there.

The past four months haven't all been spent at work getting ready. I met a Christian girl from Germany who've I've been spending a lot of time getting to know. I also made it back to the U.S. over Thanksgiving weekend for my younger brother's wedding and a friend of mine from church and I have done some hiking in the Dolomite Mountains near here. It was great being home and seeing the family again during the wedding...I was able to see my new niece for the first time and my best friend's baby as well while home.


I also went on our squadron ski trip to Solden, Austria over a long weekend in November...a very cool town! The slopes are on a glacier and the runs were great. I skied the first day and then decided to snowboard for the first time the second. I enjoy snowboarding better than skiing, but I was very sore for a few days after even though I caught on pretty quickly. I'm going back to Austria later next week with my girlfriend and her friends from church in Germany...we've rented a chalet in the Alps, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what that's like! I'm also spending Christmas in Munich, andit'll be interesting for me to see what Christmas is like in a different country. Europe is a great place and there's so much to see! After Germany I'll return on the first of the New Year and finish up getting ready for the deployment. I hope to have a chance down range to update the site, but if not I'll fill in everyone one I'm back here in Italy.

More Pictures:
Hiking the Dolomites; Solden, Austria

Red Flag at Nellis AFB, Nevada

My first Red Flag experience was a good one. It was cool flying into Nellis Air Force Base for the first time the weekend prior to the exercise kicking off and seeing all the jets sitting on the ramp, not only from the USA but from foreign ally countries as well...the ramp alone had more airpower than many countries have in their entire country. The first week I flew nights and then switched to days for the second. It was a big deal flying my first Red Flag at night when I had only flown 10 times with the NVGs prior. The night sorties have around 60 jets in the air at one time, and the days are closer to 80. The main thing I concentrated on was not loosing sight of my flight lead...once taken care of, I could then focus on shooting a missile (simulated of course) or dropping a bomb (simulated or for real). I definitely learned a lot throughout the week with the best part being our 4- ship dropping inert LGBs at night with the NVGs. It's the most complex night sortie I've flown, so hitting my assigned target was a good feeling.

The days were more enjoyable due to being able to fly low and fly fast...the nights are more restrictive in that area. Flying 500 ft and 500 knots down low with surface to air missile sights shooting at you along with the red air aggressors looking to shoot you from the air can be pretty interesting. The mountains were in perfect positions sometimes to "duck" behind out of sight of the radar systems. When you're able to do that it's called terrain masking. All that to say, it pays to get a good night's rest the night before so that you're alert and aware of the mountains around you flying low and fast and also aware of what your instruments are displaying. I was part of a 4-ship that dropped 2000# inert dumb bombs (no GPS or laser guidance) from low altitude...money! Not only do you have to pay attention to all the other things, but pulling more than 5.5 g's at anytime would over-g the bomb...just something else to throw into your crosscheck.

The aggressors at Red Flag are made up of both F-15 and F-16 aircraft with the paint scheme above as well as one that's camouflage brown. Their purpose is to provide and air-to-air threat similar to one that we could potentially face in the future. To do so they simulate different Russian type aircraft, since their military equipment is the most widely disseminated around the world.

Overall, Combat Hammer and Red Flag were great learning experiences for me and has helped get us all ready to deploy early next year. It's our turn to share the duties of war soon and we're ready to go!

More Pictures:
Red Flag

Combat Hammer at Hill AFB, Utah

We left for a month long TDY to Hill Air Fore Base, Utah and Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada on 2 August from Aviano. We had three "cells" to fly 16 of our F-16s here for the training, each having their own KC-10 tanker to refuel off of. It was well coordinated with each cell taking off 30 minuets apart in order to rejoin with their tanker over the Mediterranean Sea which had taken off from a different location. The first leg of our trans-Atlantic flight took us to Lajes Air Base, Portugal...it's a small island many hundreds of miles off it's west coast. Our route of flight took us over the Straits of Gibraltar and then on to Lajes. I was in the first cell of 6 Vipers to take off, and soon we were getting our first load of fuel off the tanker. We landed five hours later to rest for the night before making the long flight to the States. The second leg took us from Lajes all the way to Utah...9.6 hours in the Viper is a little uncomfortable, but not as bad as it might seem in the small cockpit. We played some trivia games and a little battleship to pass the time in between refuelings. In all, we tanked a total of 10 times on our way to Utah, so there was lots of good practice. Up until that point, I had never flown across the ocean and had only tanked a total of six times. The longest sortie I had flown prior was about 3.5 hours during a training sortie at Luke AFB. After a total of 14.6 hours in the jet, we landed here at Hill AFB, UT.

The first couple days here in the States we were all pretty beat due the 8 hour time change we were trying to get used to, so we didn't do a whole lot this past weekend other than get lots of rest in preparation for dropping bombs. I had the chance this past Monday to drop two 2000 lb GPS guided bombs called the GBU-31A Joint Directed Attack Munition (JDAM). I had dropped the six 500 lb Mk-82s at Luke as well as the two 500 lb LGBs, but never 2000 lb bombs. It was a site to see these huge bombs hanging off my wings as I didn't my walk around of the jet before cranking. Soon our 4-ship was airborn with a total of 16,000 lbs of bombs between us to go blow up some targets on the UTTR...the same range I had flown on while at Luke during our LFE phase of training. Our plan was to fly line-a-breast and all drop at the same time...it worked great! Hitting the pickle button and dropping 2000 lbs of explosives off of your wing causes the jet to roll quickly toward the heavy wing, so it takes some stick pressure to counteract the weight difference.

It's amazing how accurate the GPS guided bombs are. Our targets were all lined up in a row and our bombs hit all of them exactly where the coordinates said they were. Don't mess with the USA, or you'll get a bomb dropped through your roof into the exact room they want to hit!

I've flown a couple other times this week and had the chance to shoot the gun and all that fun stuff...something I hadn't had the chance to do since Luke. Next week I'll have the chance to drop a laser guided bomb as well. Good times! I gotta get to bed since I'm getting up at 3:45 tomorrow morning for a 7:00 takeoff. Check six!

More Pictures:

Combat Hammer

Combat Ready Wingman (CMR)

This past Monday I finished the MQT program, so I'm officially combat ready! It's a good feeling to be done with that and to fly without needing a gradesheet. Flying is always awesome, but being able to relax a little more makes it that much better.

This past week was a surge week here in the 510th, which just means that we flew a lot more lines than normal. I flew 8 times Monday through Thursday with one of those flights being an out and back to Slovakia to use a range for bombing practice. The other three days were here in Italy with hot pits in between. Hot pitting is when we land from a flight, refuel without shutting down, and then blast off again for another flight. The total flight time for a double turn like that is around 3.0 hours. We've also been carrying Maverick missiles on our jets for training. The Maverick is an infrared seeking air-to-ground missile with a very large war head, and it can track both stationary and moving targets. I hope to get a chance to shoot one sometime, but we'll see what happens. Can't believe I'm getting paid to fly F-16...in Italy of all places. Buzzards Rule!

Anatolian Eagle in Turkey

A week ago we returned from Konya, Turkey after flying for 2.5 weeks in their Anatolian Eagle Exercise. AE is modeled after the US's Red Flag. We flew with the Turkish Air Force and a couple other countries in simulated war scenarios during our time there with the weekends off to do some sight seeing. It was good for me as a brand new wingman to get that experience under my belt. Red Flag with be much more "push it up" than AE was, and I'll be better prepared for it. They had great airspace, awesome low level routes through the mountains (some of the coolest flying I've done...valleys through the mountains were sweet) and a nice practice bombing range that we were able to take advantage of.

Our first weekend was spent in a region of the country called Capadoccia. People have been living in the region basically from the beginning of the world, so there's a ton of history. Noah's Ark even landed on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. We visited an underground city that was used both for self protection during war and to stay cool in the hot summers...the area is mostly desert. The earth isn't solid rock like many places, so it was easy for them to dig tunnels and rooms to live in. We also took a look at some cliff dwellings around the area...crazy to think people actually lived there up until the 1900s. We had lunch in a restaurant that had been carved into the side of a hill with the tables and seats even being carved out of the rock. Our second weekend was spent down on the Mediterranean coast soaking of the rays and relaxing.

I'm still waiting to finish up my MQT program...I was able to get some of the rides during AE, but not all. We've been pretty busy back here in Aviano and there hasn't been an IP available to give me my checkride. It has a to be a pilot instructor that's been upgraded to check pilot. Anyway, I've still been flying a decent amount so I'm not complaining at all. According to the schedule when we left the squadron Friday, I will have my Mission Emergency Procedures Evaluation (MEPE) in the sim on Wednesday and then fly my checkride on Thursday. I'll finally be done with gradesheets for awhile and just be able to fly!

Yesterday I checked out a cool place I hadn't been to yet, called Barcis. It's about a 30 min drive up into the mountains from Sacile where I live and was well worth the time. The scenery was awesome and the lake's a cool aqua color. It was really cold too, but not cold enough to keep me from jumping off a 35' ft high bridge into the water. I went back today with a group from church to grill out and enjoy the area again...which meant more bridge jumping since the guys had to prove they weren't chicken! Things quickly upgraded from jumping feet first to diving...one of the more crazy things I've done recently in my life. I hope every one's having a great summer. I'll get back with you after Combat Hammer and Red Flag.

More Pictures:
Anatolian Eagle, Turkey

MQT Half Way Done...Enjoying Italy!

It took me about a month here in Italy, but I was finally settled in a couple weeks ago with the last shipment of my household goods. It's nice having everything set up and organized in my new place. I've put a pic on here of the car I bought a few weeks ago. Some of the guys in the squadron said my apartment will end up being a place just to sleep here and there since we're TDY or deployed a lot from here. Speaking of that, I'm going on my first TDY next week to Turkey for 2.5 weeks of flying in their "war games" call Anatolian Eagle. After getting back near the end of June, we'll be heading to the States for Combat Hammer at Hill AFB, UT and then to Red Flag at Nellis AFB, NV. I'm really looking forward to all of that as a brand new wingman in the Viper!

My flights here have gone pretty well. I'm enjoying the bigger engine in this jet. It's a GE100 that has about 5,000 lbs more thrust than the jets at Luke had. We do a lot of our training out over the Adriatic Sea, which takes us just to the East of Venice as we fly to and from the airspace...rather cool. Yesterday on the return to base after a 2 v 2 TI/ACM flight, the mountains were the most visible I have seen in my few flights here. It was a perfectly clear, cool morning and the Alps were a sight to see...it's hard to believe I'm flying the Viper here!

I've had a chance to see some pretty cool stuff already in Italy. The second weekend I was here, I hopped a train from Sacile and went to Venice for the day. The city is awesome and very easy to get lost in. It's a labyrinth of shops, homes, rivers and small walkways. I was able to get to San Marco's Square and the Doges Palace pretty easily from the train station, but got a little lost on the way back. It's all good though since there was plenty of new stuff to see. This past weekend a few buddies of mine and I took a 4 day road trip over Memorial Day weekend around parts of Italy. We saw so many places it'd be hard to recall everything, but the main places we saw were Montalcino in Tuscany, Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius, Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast and a couple American WWII Memorial sites close to Florence and Rome. Montalcino is known for the best wine in the world, Pompeii dates back to before Christ was born and was buried under the ash from Vesuvius' eruption, Sorrento was just a cool place and Amalfi was a great site to see. The four of us rented scooters and drove about 20 miles along the coast stopping here and there to take pics of the great view out over the Mediterranean Sea. The Memorial sites brought perspective to the job God has given me...it was humbling to see how many guys gave their lives in the war. What some Americans pay thousands of dollars to do we did doing for much less! That's the latest from over here in Northern Italy...I should be done with MQT soon after we get back from this upcoming TDY.

More Pictures:

Venice; Memorial Day Weekend Trip

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!

Two Rides Left...

Two rides left in the course...with things going as fast as they have, I'll be back here in the states pretty soon as an instructor in the jet! I have an out and back flight to Hill AFB, UT tomorrow and one more close air support (CAS) ride on Tuesday. The week after I dropped the live Mk82s, we had a simulated desert deployment down to Gila Bend AAF (auxiliary air field) to give us a flavor for what it'll be like real world in the "sandbox" as it's called. Gila Bend AAF has an 8,500 ft runway and is 45 min south of the base. We use it for visual approaches to take a load off of the traffic pattern at Luke. I realize that Iraq will be a lot different, but it was a change flying out of and into a different airfield that's out in the desert. While there, I had my first CAS flight. During a CAS scenario, there are ground troops (Army, Marines, Special Forces, etc.) in close contact with the enemy and that are in need of some direct fire power on a specific location. We had some Army ground controllers supporting us on this flight as well as a Joint Forward Air Controller (JFAC). The JFAC (also flying an F-16) works with the ground controller and has his eyes talked onto a target that needs destroyed or the position of enemy troops. Once he's in contact with the position of interest, he's cleared in hot and marks it with smoke rockets. That's where we come into play...we are then cleared in on the marked target and either strafe it with our gun, or drop some bombs. We were dropping training bombs (BDU-33s) on this flight. It was really cool to see how the whole process works and realize that I may be called on someday in the future to save some of my military bros on the ground.

At the end of the program, we fly in what they call a Large Force Employment (LFE). I flew in one this past Monday up to the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR), and then in another local one on Friday. It's where everything we've been learning over the past 5 months comes together into a big simulated mission into "bad guy" territory. For the LFE to the UTTR, we took 14 F-16s from Luke to destroy four different targets. Providing red air support were four F-18 Super Hornets from CA simulating Russian Mig-29's. We also had two tankers giving us gas before the fight. You can already see there's a lot of coordination and planning that goes on for an exercise like this. The day before each LFE is spent in the planning room with about eight guys working to bring everything together under the direction of the Mission Commander. The UTTR LFE I flew in was 3.5 hours from gear in the well until touch down, so that was about 2.5 times longer than the usual sortie. The flight up and back was awesome with great scenery. The Grand Canyon is incredibly huge from both the air and the ground...I could hardly believe how far it stretched! Once in Utah, the mountains were covered with snow and shot up pretty high. During our fight there were times we flew below the snow covered peaks. We could also see the Great Salt Lake just to the north of our airspace. I'll be seeing some more of the awesome mountains around Salt Lake City tomorrow.

Our LFE this past Friday was a little smaller, but not my much. It included 10 F-16s with six F-15C Eagles providing our red air support again simulating Mig-29s. Since it was a local flight, there were no tankers needed. I actually got to see a couple Eagles up close during the fight...my flight lead and I shot them both! Later on as he and I were leaving the fight due to our gas being low, an Eagle rolled in behind me and shot me up pretty good. But, it didn't count at that point because of our gas...in real life it would have though. The LFEs were a great experience as a young fighter pilot! It was only a glimpse of what a Red Flag Exercise at Nellis AFB, NV will be like someday. Those exercises include close to 75 airplanes in a mass "war." Looking forward to it!

The end of next month I have a ton of family and friends heading out here for my graduation, so I'll be sure to take some pics and fill everyone in. Until then, have fun, fly safe and check six!!

Christmas Break...Live Bomb Drop

It was good to get home again and see the fam over Christmas. The last time I was home was July 4th weekend, so it had been a little while. I was able to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in an even longer time and just relax. Of course that meant eating way too much, so I'll be working to shed the few extra pounds I put on over the break. I'll be seeing my family again out here in Phoenix for my F-16 graduation late in February.

My last update, I told everyone I thought shooting the F-16s 20mm Gatling gun was great. Well, dropping 6 live Mk82 bombs off the jet is just a good! We're nearing the end of the program now with only 5 more flights until I'm complete with the F-16 initial qualification course. There are some cool things coming up in the near future that I'll get to in a bit. In the basic surface attack (BSA) rides, we learn the site pictures for different types of dive bombing deliveries that range from 10-45 degrees of dive. From there we move into a more tactical surface attack phase where we plan the low level route and type of attack we'd like to fly against a specific target on the ground. That could be a simulated runway, surface-to-air missile site, a convoy of trucks, etc. The military ranges south of Phoenix actually have fake targets like I just mentioned for us to use on these missions. So, we start off as before flying a low level ingress to a specific target in order to stay low and out of sight. Once through the low level and within approximately 5.0 miles of the target, we climb out of the low altitude structure in preparation to roll in and complete a diving bomb delivery like we practiced in the basic phase. The amount of time from the 5.0 mile mark to weapons release is about 10-20 seconds. Once the bombs are dropped, we immediately fly back down to low altitude. Today, we did just that with four F-16s, each with 6 live Mk82 bombs on board. The Mk82 is a 500lb general purpose bomb which can be modified for both GPS and laser guidance, but ours had neither. I was number two of the 4-ship and had a nice show once I was off target and had a chance to roll up to take a look at the explosions from number one and myself! I thought, "That has to be the coolest thing I've ever done." I know, it seems like I say the same thing pretty much each time I post an update, but today it was definitely true. Shooting the gun is a close second behind dropping live bombs.

The last couple flights of the program are going to be the culmination of many different areas of training we've gone through over the past months. We're planning a mock war scenario, which will be taking place up in Utah airspace against F-18s and F-15s who will be simulating Russian Mig-29s. We will take off out here at Luke AFB with about 14 F-16s, meet a tanker on the way north and then fight the 4-6 "Migs" on our way to drop our simulated bombs on a predesignated target. We'll also be flying another local mission out of here against Marine F-5s. The F-5 is what they used as the Migs in Top Gun. They're somewhere between the size of a T-38 and F-16 and will be tough to visually acquire. I'll let everyone know how the last few rides finish up next month sometime. Oh yeah, as of today I'm academics complete for the initial qualification course here in the F-16!