I'm getting in the swing of things.

I'm kind of a big deal

So what's been happening over here?.......not much.  The internet went down for 36 hours and you would have thought that the world was going to end.  Haha.  I/we rely on the internet for EVERYTHING! I can see now that I don't care if I sleep in a five star hotel or a sleeping bag under a poncho hung from a tree during this deployment, if I have a good internet connection then my deployment will be good.  It's sad but true.  That's the world that I live in right now.

This clip is a RPA (Remotely Piloted Airplane) landing right over my bus.

I've flown nine ten times now.  I've been here for 26 days now.  That ratio (my flying to days here) sucks!  Which means I've only flown 39% of the days I've been here.....which sucks.  To be fair, my first flight wasn't until day 10 (once all of my in-processing was done).  So since then I've flown 63% of the time.....which is better.  I want to fly 100% of the time!!!  That's just a pipe dream.  The AF always has some sort of qweepy stuff to fill in useless time.  AAAgghhh.

It's hot here.  It doesn't say dusty....but it is

I'm still new here so I'm not too experienced just yet.  Once I get into the regular rotation I expect to have my flying to not flying ratio way up......hopefully.

When I got here I was P-57, which means that I was Pilot number 57.  We needed 63 here before we could start sending the older guys home.  Since then we've got two shipments of dudes in and my number has gone down.  My first drop was to number P-51. The my next drop was to P-47.  That's where I'm at right now.  I think the next drop for me will be on 3 Jun when some more dudes show up and some leave.  Once my number gets down to P-01 I'll be next!  So it actually seems like I'm dropping numbers fast!

Here's a video of a small group of MRAPs passing us by at nighttime.  They are menacingly HUGE when they roll past you...

I started doing my second duties over here (scheduler).  Ha.  It's funny.  I'm still learning Excel that's on my Windows XP laptop and now I'm expected to be an expert on Excel 2013 or something.  Haha.  And the spreadsheet is really complicated!  We fly 24 hours a day. I need to watch everyone's crew rest (12 hours), turn times, consecutive work days, experience level..., etc...  It's pretty difficult.  I'm confident that if the schedule were left to me for more than two days......, the world would explode.  Seriously.

The "plan" is for me to fly for seven days and then schedule for two, rinse, repeat.  So hopefully that'll be what happens.  That might be OK.  Someone told me today that a bad day flying is always better that a good day behind a desk......And that checks!  I made a goal of flying 160 total combat sorties and 750 combat hours....., but this goal is looking harder and harder everyday.  Maybe I'll step back, re asses, re plan, and then re attack my new goal. Stand by for new goal.

My flying has been so much fun lately.  My first two or three flights I still felt like I was being judged or graded, like in pilot training.  But my third flight was with my friend, Dynomite.  Yes, people with calls signs go by call signs out here.  Ever since that flight its felt like I'm just flying with my buddies.  It's been really nice.  I'm really enjoying flying out here.  Oh, and BTW, we're doing the mission at the same time......, catching bad guys and bringing them to justice.  Sweet!

Saying that, I flew through my first icing in this plane.  I thought that it was cool, but the other pilot didn't think it was.  OK, education time.  There are two different ways that aircraft manufactures can choose to get rid of ice on wings.  First off....  Ice on wings = No lift = 15,000lb of metal in the sky with my pink butt in it plummeting towards mother earth.  So ice is bad.  You can have anti-ice or de-ice.  Most planes have anti-ice which means that hot bleed air from the engines exhaust is piped trough the wing and tail leading edges and melts any ice that is trying to form.  The bad part about that is that it degrades the engine performance once its on.  De-ice is rubber boots on the leading edges of wings and tails that inflate and knock off ice once it has formed.  This is the cheaper method.  And this is the first plane that I've flown with de-ice.  I had ice forming on my wings and I had to "pop my boots" (that's an industry term..., you're welcome).  It was so awesome!  It made a reasonably loud sound and I saw the ice burst off.  Cool stuff.  But I can see how this could be kinda scary at night, in a storm. Next weeks lesson will be thermals, and how they affect lift on your first segment of a climb....haha.

This is our mail center in my squadron

We (my squadron) get at least one of these type of boxes a week since I've been here.

I got my first care packages.  Kristen sent me a large package with a rug, some flip flops and plug-in smell good stuff.  All stuff that I asked for.  I say that because I'm getting a lot of people asking me what to send.  And I really don't need anything.  I'm doing fine.  There's electricity here and they feed me everyday (for free).  They can't change my SSN and so far no one has shot at me.  So anything else is just extra.  My mom sent me some water flavorings, gum, chocolate, snacks and candy.  That was good.

I talk to Kristen almost everyday.  She's doing great.  She stays busy hanging out with neighbors, friends and family, working out, sleeping, cleaning and cooking.  She started looking for a job to stay busy also.  She went to the vet the other day and held a dog that someone left at the doorstep.  NO KRISTEN. Haha.

A wreath Kristen and her mom made.

Oh, it takes 20 combat flights to get an Air Medal.  I have 10, so I'm halfway there.