Like the last cross-country I went on, it pays to be a volunteer and in the right place at the right time. This time around, they were looking for another flight lead to fly as #3 to Lakenheath, UK and then on to Spain and southern Italy again to fight the Eurofighters. Well, after a short round of rock-paper-scissors with another guy in the squadron, I won and was in as #3. I was looking forward to this cross-country a lot because Capt Chapman, my good friend way back from OTS, is a WSO in the F-15E squadron at Lakenheath. He and I are in the picture below. The plan was to fly in on Thursday, do some dissimilar aircraft training (DACT) with the F-15 Eagles and then leave Friday night for Spain. Well due to some maintenance issues, two of us ended up staying the weekend and then flying back to Aviano on Monday after my wingman's jet was fixed. We ended up spending our time at my friend's place for the weekend and got to see London and Cambridge where many of England's well know colleges are. Well known men like Isaac Newton attended school here. There's also a popular pub called The Eagles Nest well known to fighter pilots because it's a place where the Royal Air Force and US Air Force flighter pilots from WWII went to relax after a stressful flight fighting the Germans. There are many names of pilots who flew burned into the ceiling by candles still readable. We also did what they call "punting" on the river that runs through Cambridge...it looks a lot like steering a gondola in Venice...no one fell in, but almost!
The next day, we headed to London to check out some of the well known sites in the city. We saw Big Ben, Tower Bridge (most think it's called London Bridge, but it's not) and a few other places. Compared to Rome, London is very different. I wish I'd have had more time to see St. Paul's cathedral and some of the WWII sites like Churchill's command bunker. The rest of the weekend we spent our time close to the base and waited for the jet to be fixed before flying home on Monday. Yet another paid trip by the Air Force...no complaints here!
More Pictures:
Cambridge & London
Video:
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