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!