2/5 more weeks!

Two Fridays till drop and five Fridays till I pin on my wings and become a pilot in the greatest Air Force in the world!!!

Well, it seems this pilot training thing is coming to an end soon.  I have just eight more rides left!  I had four rides scheduled for this past week but for one reason or another I only flew one of them.  This Monday I have two rides scheduled and then if I fly every possible day I should have my final checkride at pilot training two Tuesdays from now.  I'm excited and ready.  It's been such a fun ride so far here in the Air Force.  I am proud of everything that I have done the past few years getting ready to come here and especially this past year.  There were sometimes where I thought this ride could be derailed but we (Kristen too) kept on going and we're almost there!  We are so pumped up to see where the next chapter in our lives will be.....and what plane we will be flying!  I could not have made it this far without the help of Kristen.  She's awesome.  And I'm lucky.

OK, so I'm excited!

This past week I flew a AR (refueling) mission.  Our planes don't have the ability to give or receive gas but most probably the planes that we'll be flying after pilot training will so we start the foundation of it here.  It's so cool to be so high in the sky and be just feet from another plane.

Our "dream sheets" are due next Sunday to our flight commander.  It is basically a list of the planes and bases in order that we want out of pilot training.  It's called a dream sheet for a reason though.  We all signed up here to be Airman first, officers second and pilot's third.  There was no plane guaranteed to us when we signed on the dotted line.  We get what the Air Force needs.  Also in saying that...., if you are ranked near the top of your class then your flight commander will probably "go to bat" for you and help you get the plane that you always wanted.  To be honest though.  There is no bad planes out there right now.  No matter what all the airframes are out there doing the mission.  We'll all get a chance to go and play in the "sand box" soon enough.  So I have my rankings almost finalized but I would really be happy with almost anything.

I saw this article in an Air Force magazine this week.  It says that on Aug 31, Sgt. Joseph A.Bovia, 24 years old, from Kenner, La (really close to home) was killed in Afghanistan.  I'm in training right now and it's kind of fun and games.  We don't see the "real" military here on this base because not many people deploy from a training base.  But soon I'll be out there too.  This kind of article always makes everything that I'm doing a little more real and it helps me stay focused.  The job that pilots do out there is tough.  We fly into hostile areas through bad weather with not just our lives in our hands, but others as well.  We train/work hard.  Being a pilot is also very exciting and inherently very dangerous.  There is a lot that can go wrong at 20,000+ feet, and at 300knots it can happen very fast.  It's good to get a little scare sometimes to keep you on your toes.  It keeps your my mind sharp and reminds me to always be ready for that emergency in the air that I train for all the time.  You never know when something can go wrong and you have to rely on your training.  I'll just leave it at that.

There are people in the sand box right now doing more dangerous things than we would ever think of doing all in the name of our freedom.  They come back home and don't ask for anything .  They look just like the rest of us.  They could walk right next to you and you wouldn't even know it.  Our country is bad ass.