Pilot Day

Tokyo, Japan - 1971... Martha was just barely pregnant with Sharla.

That was the last time I saw the Thunderbirds... That's a long time ago... too long for a pilot

It was such a beautiful day I decided I had to brave the traffic.  I called my golf buddy, Steve, and off we went.  There was no traffic.  On the way there I could see smoke trails in the sky and it looked like we had missed the Thunderbirds... awwww...

No traffic... parked... had a short bus ride and a short walk and found ourselves right in front of the parked T-Birds... and the T-Bird pilots tent was right next to us.  In no time at all the F-22, Raptor started their show.  That airplane is amazing.  To me... it was like a science fiction movie.  There is not another airplane in the world that can compete with it...  The Raptor was a wicked looking machine, and they were parked right if front of us also.

I didn't bring a camera, I just wanted to see it all.  I finally took a couple of short videos with my phone... not much but it gives the general idea.

I could have gone home after the Raptor... and then there was some activity at the T-Bird's tent... we hadn't missed their show it was just starting.  Wahoo. 

My friend Steve even perked up a bit, and the Thunderbirds were old news to him.  The T-Bird F-16's are the white specs parked on the ramp in this video and the smile is genuine... They were just about to taxi out to fly.

One of the things I liked about flying was the carving the graceful arc of a flight path.  I missed it for a while today... about 5 minutes... well... maybe 10.

I remembered that the ejection seat you sit on is hard steel and that foam seat cushion is never thick enough... and at 6 g's I would weigh about 1200 pounds or so... I think they were pulling 8 g's.  I also remembered hearing some of my F-16 pilot friends talking about lots of broken capillaries (veins)... bursting from the high g's...  the price of freedom.




All my graceful carving will now have to be on wood.