Aviation BS and Photo Thread

Yes he was a heavy chain smoker......

 

It was a rough morning at work watching the sun come up.

 

So my family has a pretty rich history in aviation. Figured I'd share part of it with you guys.

My mom's dad, Jack, was in the Air Force back in the 50s. Started out flying T6 trainers, then moved on to B-47s. Ended up competing in a SAC bomber competition, and did well enough that he was awarded a meritorious promotion and a DFC awarded by Gen. LeMay himself.

He later went on to be the head pilot at Northwest Airlines, as well as a commercial fisherman in Westport, WA. While in Westport, he made good friends with a lot of the early space shuttle astronauts that would go out there to fish in their off time.

Cap from flight school


DFC



Photo from the Apollo-Soyuz window signed by the crew of the Olympic Peninsula, WA



A photo of the first operational space shuttle landing signed by the crew of STS-1

 

RIP Herb. Thanks for a great airline!!

 

Taken at Naples airport

 

I recognize that view

 

Well... I guess it must be somewhere in Europe? I don't know anywhere here with mins that low! Good grief!!

 

Mig 29s being intercepted by F15s:


Found the picture on The Warzone, the poster also linked the backstory: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/30/us/2-mig-s-will-be-escorted-over-us-territory.html

 

Oooh yes. You could always tell when Herb was in the building cause he was the only one allowed to smoke inside!

 

Air Force Guys: I’m trying to buy an AFOQT study book, but I don’t know which one to get...there are several. Any suggestions on a publisher?

 

Sorry, I enlisted and never took the AFOQT. If I had it to do all over again, I'd have stayed in college the first time and gone ROTC, but then I would have missed Desert Storm.

Then again, all officers do is budgets and paperwork...

 

I heard the Mometrix was really good. That's from the three people I know who took it.

 

Hard to be a pilot without being an officer though

Thanks for the suggestion

 

Pretty much all college grads end up in budget and paperwork billets regardless of career.

Me: Accountant that does budgets and paperwork
Our head engineer with a masters in automation / mech e -> Gets hounded by me for his budget + paperwork
The list goes on.

 

It's been over a week since I last flew but I will rectify that tomorrow with a trip to El Paso and then Albuquerque and then back home. Moving airplanes around. Hit 652 hours for 2018 with 250.1 hours flown... works for me

 

Lots of sitting around and not flying.

 

I haven't seen a woodland camo paint scheme on AF jet in years!!

 

.
...^^^... Reminds me of my days living in Canada and my trips to Northern Quebec. The coldest that I ever saw in Northern Quebec was -44.
(-40 C = F)

It routinely got to -25 where I lived in Quebec. They would fly the hangered 172 down to about -25 as the cut off point.

I had a friend who lived in Fairbanks and he said it was very difficult living there in the winter.

 

Looking for some been there, done that type advice.

Weighing my options for buying verses a flying club. Would love to hear about issues I haven't thought of to look into.
First is just overall cost. Which is cheaper. I know that varies greatly on hours flown and type of plane. I met briefly with the club president, and will follow up with him with quite a bit more questions.

For the club, what I know up front is type of planes, number of flying members, buy in cost, monthly dues.
What I don't know is how additional expenses like upgrades, maintenance, repairs, etc. are handled, what the club insurance covers, buy out, and anything else I just don't know to ask. I have no experience with a flying club. This one would allow me to fly a Husky for off field use and a 182 for taking trips. Seems great, until I look at how much I would spend in a year flying 100hrs or more, verses what I could spend on my own plane payments. Of course then I'm limited to only one type of plane and responsible for all expenses.

Anyone with club experience give me some pointers on questions I should be asking. Red flags to look at?

I guess for me, what's appealing is I can fly nicer planes in the club than I can afford to buy. I just don't want to get into something not knowing the issues and regret it.

Forgot to add that I will get to look at the schedules to see when people are actually flying and what availability there is. I do plan on attending a couple of their social events to get a feel of the members.