Contrary to what I normally post on the blog, I do spend the majority of my time at work.  Unfortunately the vast majority of that time is spent doing paperwork or plenty of other “un-fun” stuff.  I have been flying more lately, but every once and a while I get a real good deal flight.

Well, last week I had two of them.  Both flights were low altitude bombing sorties with live high explosive ordnance.  We spend a great deal of time practicing high altitude precision guided attacks (laser or GPS guided bombs).  Those are neat to see and have their own challenges, but it’s a bore compared to diving at the deck and seeing the big booms with your own eyes and not through a little video screen.

Luck would have it that my flight lead caught the impacts from my attacks on his targeting pod.  So with a little help from iMovie, here is the video:

The moons aligned today and I finally got to fly in Okinawa.  Actually the maintainers have really been busting their butts lately and fixed a lot of broken jets.  We went out as a four-ship for a simple orientation flight to show all of us the ranges and training areas.

I have to say it was a beautiful day to fly.  I’m not sure if it’s the remote location of the island or not, but the air around here is unbelievably clear.  There are always some clouds around the island due to the heat, humidity, and land mass, but once you are clear of them it’s the stuff they write about.

Flying around Cherry Point in the summer is like flying in giant a milk-bowl.  The humidity and whatever else is in the air severely restricts visibility.  Going from there to here is like cleaning an old pair of glasses.  I can see again!

It helps too that the scenery is so nice too.  That’s not my picture, but that’s pretty much exactly what it looked like up there today.  I think I’m going to like flying out here.

I made my first trip to the tanker today.  Unlike most of the training we do, there isn’t a gradual approach to aerial refueling.  You can’t really replicate it in the simulator, so the flight lead explains what to expect and then you just go out and do it.  It’s a bit intimidating at first, especially in a Harrier.  Most Navy/Marine Corps jets have the refueling probe (the boy part, as Shannon calls it) out in front of the pilot, so you can see the tanker, the probe, and the fuel basket in one view.  The Harrier, by exception, has the probe out over the pilot’s left shoulder.  So you have to approach the basket looking ahead until you absolutely can’t stand it anymore and your probe is about a foot away from it, then you glance left and make a final correction to connect.  The Air Force pilots have it easiest of all, since the “girl part” (as I call it) is on the jet instead of the tanker, but I won’t go there…

It took me about 8 or so stabs at the basket until I got in, but after a few successes, I was able to do it fairly consistently.  90% of the training is seeing the same picture over and over and knowing what to look for.  I lost count of how many connections I made, but suffice it to say I was adequately trained.

Admittedly, this isn’t some gigantic milestone in my flying career but there is just something incredibly cool about flying out over the ocean and getting gas at 14,000 feet.  After today this just becomes another administrative task that’s part of a tactical mission, so I’m basking in the fun of it for now.

PS: In searching for a generic photo of a Harrier refueling, I came across the gem shown above.  While it’s not a photo of me, it is a photo of the jet I flew to the tanker today.  Pretty neat, huh?  Props to this refueler for the great photo.

This past week I had the unique opportunity to shoot a real live Sidewinder missile.  Harriers drop plenty of live bombs, but it is pretty rare to shoot a live air-to-air missile.  They are expensive ($50K-$80K a pop) and the safety and range requirements are significantly greater than dropping bombs.  A systems malfunction or “pilot error” can lead to shooting down a fellow flight member.  That never wins you any new friends in the squadron.

So, how did a fresh nugget like myself get such a unique opporunity?  Hard work and a bit of luck.  My squadron is on a big air-to-air push right now and we had a written test on the Sidewinder.  The reward for the top two scores was the chance to squeeze off a real one.  My wild guess on a bonus question put me over the top and moved me to second place.

We shoot at a parachute flare launched by our lead aircraft.  When you drop bombs, you don’t normally get a good show.  The bomb comes off under the jet and you are pulling away during the impact.  An air-to-air missile on the other hand comes of the end of your wing and shoots out in front of you.  It’s all about entertainment value, right?

The missile worked just as advertised.  A slight “clunk”, a flash on the wing, and it goes supersonic almost instantly.  It made a nice smoke trail right up to the flare.  I actually thought it was going to miss, because the smoke was dropping to one side, but about a half second after the smoke stopped, the flare went up in a nice dark grey explosion.

The good news is that my HUD camera was working perfectly and I got some beautiful video of the whole thing.  The bad news is that my audio/visual curse seems to still be with me.  I watched the video a couple times, showed it to my other buddy in the flight, and when I tried to play it back the next time, the VCR started to eat the tape.  The irony is that I have 1 1/2 hours of crystal clear video from the entire flight.  There are only about 7 seconds of blank tape: exactly from when I turn in on the flare to when I turn away).  Needless to say, the VCR suffered my unrestrained wrath and will not be touching any more tapes from this point on.  So, I guess I scored two kills that day.

I had hoped to share the video with everyone, but you’ll have to settle for my “there I was” pilot’s tale.  I thank you, the taxpayer, for providing me with such an amazing training aide.

After much delays and bumps in the road, I am a fleet aviator at last.  I joined the VMA-223 Bulldogs and with little delay started flying again.

It’s a bit of a transition from the training command (some good, some bad), but I am thrilled to no longer call myself a student.  I still have much to learn, but I’m one of the team now.  These guys are training me to fight along side them, and the change in attitude is apparent immediately.  I’m training for the real world now.  From what I’ve seen so far, I’m working with a great group of Marines (officer and enlisted). 

The jets I’m flying now have the latest and greatest avionics, weapons systems, and software too.  The Harriers in the RAG are nice enough, but they don’t have all the really wiz-bang stuff, since the training there doesn’t really require it.  I’m just breaking the surface with the new systems, but I can tell you already that this stuff is right out of the movies.  If we can see it, we can hit it.  Enemies of the United States should be very afraid.

You may be hearing from me a little less on the website as work claims more and more of my spare time, but I’m sure Shannon will pick up the slack and keep everyone posted.