Tennessee

Well,
I'm leaving tomorrow for Korea. Despite having a severe cold, I had a great time on my visit to Tennessee. I got a chance to visit family and friends in Nashville, Memphis and Murfreesboro. Standard Thanksgiving stuff as well (although I hadn't been to one in years).
I was lucky enough to go to MTSU's final football game in Murfreesboro with some old college friends. I'm posting the pics here.

Tomorrow: a 15 plus hour flight (nonstop) to Seoul, Korea. Sounds fun, right?

Goodbye to the Buzzards

I just finished up my last week of flying here at Aviano. I had my "fini" flight on Thursday. The "fini" flight is an old tradition where the pilot, on his last flight, is welcomed by the squadron upon landing and is pulled out of the jet and sprayed with water, champagne, etc. It's always been fun to be the guy on the other end of the fire hose. However, it's a little different being the guy getting hosed with ice cold water.
This time, the Lt's in the squadron decided to hold me down and duct tape me to the jet's ladder. It was successful (even though I put up a decent fight). Everybody just gathered around and sprayed water, etc. I still had the ladder attached to my back in the group photo.
The next trick that is often played is to find the victim pilot's alternate flight suit that he brought to work that day for the occasion. In my case, I hid all my spare clothes in my car. That didn't stop the no-good Lt's from getting them and quickly soaking them in water and putting them in the freezer. What goes around comes around....and that's what you always have to remember (because everybody has a fini flight every three years or so...)
I really hate to be leaving all the bro's in the squadron. The camaraderie is truly the best part about being in a fighter squadron. You really make friends for life and you always know that you will run into them again (either in another squadron or in the air.)

Cross Country Europa

Ladies/Gents,
I hadn't been back from Malta very long before I was thrown into another cross-country trip this last Friday. It was really short notice and I was available--so I went.
We took off as a four ship and flew to Palma De Mallorca, Spain. We got fuel and headed on to Portugal. We couldn't fly over the weekend, so we spent all our time in Lisbon. This city was cool. Even cooler was the day trip to a city called "Sintra." It had a Moorish castle that reminded me of something out of Lord of the Rings. In Lisbon, we had some great meals..that were masked by what was dubbed "the worst meal ever made." I won't go into the details---but trust me...it was bad.
We took off again on Monday and flew into Palma De Mallorca for fuel. After that, we headed to Sicily. There's a U.S. Navy base near the east coast of the island and that's where we landed. The city of Catania was amazing. Sicily is truly different from the rest of Italy. At times, I felt like I was in a scene from the Godfather.
You might ask why we were able to do such a cool cross country. It all boils down to a budgeted "flying hour program." Each squadron has to fly a certain amount of hours each year...and since there was an Italian holiday on Monday our home base was closed. To keep the flying hours up, the leadership approved a cross country. It actually really sharpens our basic pilot skills and gives us great experience in flying to diverse/unfamiliar airports. Plus, we're able to practice some basic formations and radar work while enroute.
I'm in the painful process of packing for my move. I should be out of here sometime around the 15th...