Life is a beach I'm just playing in the sand

 OK, so there is too many pilots here right now officially.  There are a bunch of new Mission Commander dudes that all have to get 20 rides to be qualified as an MC.  I am a co-pilot, it only took me three rides to get qualified.  Getting qualified is the most important thing around here because they need as many pilots fully qualified as possible.  Which means that the 15 or so new MC dudes always fly.  Which leaves the 17 co-pilots over here SOL for the time being.  So in the last eight days I've flown three of them.

What did I do the other five days you ask?  Well, I was a scheduler at the squadron for two of them.  Then I took it upon myself to become a sort of MWR (Morale Wellness and Recreation) Officer for my squadron because I realized there are a lot of things to do around here this week, non military related.  So for one of those days I went to all of the countries MWR rooms, if they had one, and got info of any events they have coming up.  There is a lot of fun stuff (95% of the stuff to do is the Americans pulling the weight for the rest of the NATO countries).  In looking high and low on base for all this info I came across an Army officer who asked me to be on the MWR board.  I said yes, and now I'm a representative for our country on the NATO MWR board.  Funny stuff.  I just wanted to know about stuff to do and now I have a bunch of extra duties.  Oh well, it'll make the time go by faster.

There is some sort of race usually once or twice a week..., with bibs and t-shirts given out!  How freekin' cool!  In combat....a road race!  They also have poker four nights a week with a $50 prize given every night.  They have a chess tournament every Friday.  Karaoke, bingo, table tennis, basketball leagues, guitar lessons and all sorts of stuff like that to do.  Not to mention the USO has free internet and phones, and occasionally brings in "talent" (celebrities).  So..., there's a lot to do.

In the past seven days I've ran a 3K, 5K and a 10K.  Pretty cool.  Yesterday I went to a cigar club meeting (because that's what you do when you're deployed, smoke cigars and grow mustaches), smoked a cigar donated by some business in the USA (thanks America for being so damn cool), drank a near beer (non-alcoholic) then walked to a chess tournament, which I lost out of in two games....very fast.  Speaking of that..., Romania has some smart chess players.  they were like calling "chess plays" to each other through body signals.  Like in baseball....., it was scary.  They were good. One dude beat me in three moves.....seriously...., these dudes were pros.  I'll be back next Friday to avenge my country (if I'm off).

OK, now lets get back to flying.  Last Sunday I flew..., sort of.  We were stepping to a jet with a known TCAS problem.  TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) is the electronic system that lets other planes know where youu are and lets you know where they are so even if you can't see them with your eyes you can pick them up on TCAS and avoid them.  Now, just that system alone would be bad to have over here because then someone on the ground could buy something like it and point it up and see and the planes above him and we don't want that.  So we have to incript our TCAS so that just people we want can "see" us.  TCAS is on our MEL (Minimum Equipment List) so its a needed item for flight over here. Wheewww... There's your aircraft lesson for the week.  Anyway, we tested ours on the ground and it worked fine.  Just as we rotated we got a TCAS FAIL warning.  Darn!  So we had to get a quick vector and come back home.  That flight lasted .3 (13-17 minutes).

We stepped to a spare jet once back on the ground.  Did all the preflight again and took off.  Everything was fine until 10,000 feet. At which a bright red Master Warning light started flashing in my face.  Now there is a difference between a Master Caution and a Master Warning light.  Warnings are red and cautions are amber.  A red one is a BAD one!  This particular one said L BLEED FAIL which means that the exhaust off of the left engine, which is used to keep our jet pressurized and heated/cooled, which is above 700 degrees Celsius has a leak.  Not good.  We shut our firewall door so that if here was a fire it would either be contained in the engine or out side of it, but theoretically not in both.  So that was good, but now we had no idea where the 700 degree air was going.  No idea.  It could be someplace bad and start a fire, or someplace OK like vented outside.  But since we had no idea we made a quick return back to the field again.  landed safely and I saved the Air Force $20,000,000.00 worth of an airplane.  You're welcome taxpayers.  That was my real EP (Emergency Procedure) so far.  We train and go in simulators all the time just waiting for the day like this and my first one came.  It was fun.  And it was over bad people land which makes it even cooler!  This sortie was a .5 (30-35 minutes).

So I flew two combat sorties in one day which was cool. But at the same time I really didn't do anything but ground two jets for a while.  Oh and I got me and my three crew members pink butts back to mother Earth safely but that's besides the point.  Haha.

If you want a laugh you have to check out my buddies blog.  He just started it, just two posts, but he has a way with words and is so funny explaining things. His blog is called slowflyingelephant.  If you click on the title of his blog on the sentence prior to this one it will link you to it.  It's funny.  It'll give a little more insight as to what's going on over here, living conditions and funny random stuff.

There was a dust "tornado" here this week.  This is not something all that special because they have they all the time.  And you don't want to get caught in one because the dust actually hurts your face and it gets everywhere.  But this one was special.  It was really bug and was sucking objects into it (like cardboard and water bottles).  People were just stopped on the boardwalk watching it so I filmed it.

Dallas is the cutest dog ever

Here is her face when she knows that she is not supposed to be on the couch

I recieved a package from my my mom, sister and a card from Kristen so over all it was a good week.  Now if I can start doing more of what the Air Force spent millions for me to do.....fly.  It'll be alright.  Till next week.