My Tweet cross country was a two night trip. Corpus Christi the first night and San Antonio the second night.
This was not a solo cross country. I flew with my instructor and another student went with his instructor in a second Tweet. The other instructor was an Australian exchange pilot... and he was crazy.
On the way to Corpus we had to stop for gas in Houston... or Austin... Lt Little decided to press on to Houston even though we were bingo fuel over Austin and should have stopped there.
I found myself under the "Hood", a vision restricting device that makes a student use his flight instruments and not look outside.
Lt Little asked the controller for a simulated emergency radar approach... which I thought was weird. It was a real tight and short approach which I managed to complete. After we landed and were rolling down the runway he tapped the gas gauge... it was empty. We were living on borrowed time and just hoping we were going to be able to make it to our parking spot. The airplane weighed 6600 pounds we certainly wouldn't be able to push it there.
We made it...
The flight to Corpus Christi uneventful and the other airplane spent the night in Austin. The first night was boring.
The second night took me a long time to forget... San Antonio, Randolph AFB. We got in early and headed for the Stag Bar at the Officers Club. We drank a little too much and ate very late. We closed the O'Club down and when it was time to leave we walked to the Visiting Officers Quarters... right down Colonel's Row... a wide boulevard with nice big houses where Colonel's lived with their families.
It was late at night and as we left the O'Club and the other instructor saw a round piece of plywood laying in the grass... it was covering a hole. He picks it up and rolls it down Colonel's row... kinda noisy, an attention getter at O'dark thirty... but not something that would get a bunch of guys in trouble... yet.
At the end of Colonel's Row There is a traffic circle.. a big one... with a very large house in the middle of the circle. It just so happened to be the house of a Two Star General. So our Australian friend didn't need his round piece of plywood anymore, because we were almost to the Visiting Officer Quarters... so... he just picked it up and threw it like a Frisbee right over the Generals 6 foot tall brick fence.
We couldn't believe he did it. It seemed like forever before it landed... and when it did, it was the worst sound that you could imagine. Breaking glass... lots of it... lots more noise of other things breaking.
We took of running straight into our rooms and got in bed and never turned our lights on... I didn't sleep much.
The next morning we expected to be arrested on the way to our airplane. We got up early and did the worlds quickest flight planning and preflight and left. We had to fly at 25,000 ft to have enough gas to make it in one leg. I learned that day that it doesn't feel good to fly in an unpressurized aircraft at 25,000 feet with a hangover... and 100% oxygen doesn't help one bit. At 25,000 feet your oxygen mask gives you oxygen under pressure... you open you mouth and air rushes into you lungs... that feels good. When you breath out you have to force the air back out and past a check valve in your mask... and defeat the pressure of the air trying to rush in. That, is hard work and it gets old... especially when you had a late night and you didn't get any sleep.
Lesson Learned... equals... Experience. I have lots of experience... and gray hair...
We didn't tell anyone our... "there I was stories"... You may be the first to hear it...
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