Still Pilot #38

Be afraid.....be very afraid

Look at that parking job!  Right on the line!  I was crowned best taxier two days in a row here.....  Also, I got a "that landing was tits man" from one of the back seaters this week.  Which is a good thing I think, or at least I'm taking it as a good thing.

Peace in the Middle East!

I've been flying a lot.  I finished entering all of my flight thus far into my pilot logbook and electronic logbook.  I have 495.5 total flying hours in my life time.  Pretty cool  You need at least 1500 before the airlines start looking at you so I'm 1/3 of the way there now!  That's pretty cool.  My hours have grown really fast over here since we fly for five hours at a time.

The fire marshall would never sign off on this building I'm in!

I ordered a fisheye lens for my camera.  It came in..... and I love it.  All of my pictures might be in fisheye from now on.... it's that cool!

The sunrises and sunsets here are so pretty!

Kristen sent me a flying hat this week.  What's a flying hat you ask?  Same question I had.  Back in Meridian some aircrew members had a baseball hat they'd wear when we were flying.  Some of them had flags on them (state, country) but most had sports teams.  Everybody had one.....except me.  I think it's a way that we can had some individuality out here.  You basically just wear it when you step to the jet and go fly.  I asked Kristen to send me an LSU hat and it came in this week.  It's an awesome hat..., it's all mesh.  And is has that obnoxious yellow and purple all over it.  Don't me wrong, I love LSU, but their colors are flashy!  Needless to say, I spend the last week going back and forth about how everyone else's team sucks and how the SEC and specifically LSU are the greatest football programs around. Period.

I never explained the whole mustache ting out here.  This is the story.  An F-4 squadron commander, a Colonel, back in Vietnam grew a way out of regs mustache (regs are that your "stache" can't go past the corners of your lips and must be well groomed).  Some General came to visit his squadron and asked him to shave off his mustache because he was setting a bad example.  He obliged and shaved clean.  The next day he was shot down in combat.  He spent a few days evading capture and was eventually rescued by PJ's.  When he got back to his squadron he told everyone that they must grow their mustaches because it makes you bulletproof.  So, they all grew their staches and no one in that squadron was shot down the rest of the tour.  So now aircrews grow their mustaches when you deploy so that you're bulletproof. And it works.....I haven't been shot down yet.  So the stache stays as long as I'm deployed!!!

I had today off (first in 17 days) and tomorrow I'm a scheduler.  Then it's back to flying again.  My first day back flying is the 4th of July!  We are fling sooooo many flags for people on the 4th.  People just stop by our squadron building and ask us to take their flag up with us in combat.  We do, and then we print a certificate and the crew signs it.  It's pretty cool.

I'm still pilot number 38. I'll be that for a while (a month probably).  The training squadron which trains pilots and aircrew moved on 4 Jun across the country so it might be a while till we see any new people come out of it.  So we're just here waiting....

My Paw watching a baseball game...IN SHORTS (very rare)!

My godchild thinking she's a wrestler!  I love you Diva!

I got some good emails with pics of the family this week....

Me Skyping with Dallas

Dallas catching her breath

And of course I have to end it with some pics of Dallas.

If you're in the reading mood and feel like some laughs about my living conditions and this base in general then visit my buddy's blog at http://slowflyingelephant.blogspot.com/.

Have a great 4th of July!!!  Till next week....