Flying High Last Weekend

Last weekend was AWESOME! We got up and headed over to the Lebanon airport where a B-17 Bomber was to be for the weekend. When we got there it was coming in for a landing, very impressive although smaller than I was expecting, I guess I was picturing the much larger B-29. We looked at the exhibit of world war 2 relics including an ambulance with three stretchers and barely room for the driver. We saw a sign on thewindow of the airport lounge that said "Cessna rides $25 for 30mins " I said "that's awesome" and went in to sign up. They put me down for 3:00, I still had a couple hours until my ride, so we went and took the tour of the B-17, you get to crawl/walk through the length of it, you climb the ladder toward the nose and pop your head up into the nose turret where all the guns are manned facing forward. You proceed up into the cockpit area where you see nothing but sky out the forward windows because it sits on it's tail with the nose in the air. You then go aft into the bomb bay and the bay doors are open and you have to walk across a very narrow bar between them( it would feel even more precarious in flight when the fall would mean a 20,000 foot fall), after this comes the seating for the radio operator and navigator, I sat here for awhile and let people pass. Next is the belly turret where the gunner had to position the ball in a certain position to exit into the fuselage, I asked about this and inquired as to the location of the "lavatory"(bathroom), the guide first said he couldn't tell me(laughing of course) and then said "lets just say this Plexiglas wasn't here" pointing to the window beside the side gunner. From this area you can see down the very narrow tail cavity where the tail gunner had to crawl back to the tail gun, you exit from the side almost at ground level because of the slope. Getting to crawl through one of these is not a chance you get everyday, we were glad we took theopportunity, Rachel was telling everybody there was no way she would fit in a few months.


We went to sonic for lunch and came back and waited for my pilot to come get me, he introduced himself and said we would be taking the Cessna 152 so I went over and stood by it while he got the headset out of the 172, it took forever for him to get it started and then my headset wouldn't work so he killed the engine and got another one from the 172, after finally getting it started again and waiting for three war birds participating in the mini air show took off. We got in line behind a king air for take off. After it took off we taxied onto the runway, I said "we've got war birds up here" (wish I had said "at 2 o'clock") and he said OK we better get down here to the end of the runway, so we got off to the side while three world war two aircraft in a triangular formation buzzed the runway gear up, with smoke on. I said, "lets catch em, he laughed and said yeah we'll catch em" I said "you got any JATO(jet assisted take off) bottles?" he said "yeah that's about what we'd have to have to catch em" We climbed out passing right by an old Russian bi plane that was lazily crossing over the runway at about 100 feet, the pilot didn't like how close we got to him but said "no harm done" we climbed to about 2000 feet and he said "you want to fly a little?" I said "sure" and took the yoke, I gripped it tight because there was a cross wind and it was buffeting quite a bit, I said "it's pretty choppy up here" he said it had been worse earlier in the day. I kept trying to relax my grip and my breathing so I could just enjoy it, he said I could do a few turns and "have fun with it" so I started to turn to the left, we were still climbing over the Cumberland river to the north, at one point I headed east and he said to stay away from the nuclear power plant, so they don't "get mad at us". I asked him to demonstrate a few turns for me, and then I matched him, he asked if I had ever flown before, I said "once when I was 12 and a lot on MS flight simulator growing up" He said he had flown the Sim allot too and that I seemed to know what I was doing. I told him my dad was an FAA inspector, he was intrigued by that. I stayed off the rudder pedals because I always had trouble when I would set the flightSim to "uncoordinated flight" (where the rudder does not automatically follow the ailerons) because it's so sensitive. He said I was right about the rudder being more sensitive than the yoke, I kind of wish I had taken him up on it when he offered me the left seat (because I could see theinstruments better) and I wish I had played with the elevator trim to take the edge off me having to struggle to keep the nose up(and gripping so tight). He said he was going to let me fly the pattern to line up with the runway, I said that was fine. I did a 360 spiral to bleed off altitude and entered a downwind leg west of the runway, I slowly turned base over I-40 and brought it around to line up with the runway. He turned on carb heatfirst and brought the throttle back and put the flaps down. It felt like we came to a stop in mid air 100 feet from the runway, he took over and put us on the ground and I realized how much we were still moving as we got closer to the ground and I was looking sideways at Rachel sitting watching me. I told him it rocked and that if I started making allot more money I might look him up to be my instructor, ha ha. My mom said she was glad I had fun but not to let it "get in my blood" too late for that, I'm very much my Father's son :-)

We had a good Sunday as well, we made it for Sunday school and Bro. Shaw taught a very good class on the difference between good and evil (God and the world). His class reminds me of ABeka video home school because he tapes it and wants the microphone to be passed around to everybody that has a comment. Bro. Hall (a 30 year minister in the Church of God of Prophecy) joined the church at the end of the service with his whole family in attendance, that was refreshing to see a blessing to say the least. I long to see the people I've been close to in years past, bridge that gap as well.

We had packed a picnic lunch and went to the park near the church, and ended up watch radio controlled airplanes at the RC field, I guess it was an aviation packed weekend. We had communion and feet washing Sunday night, I think it's cool that Rachel was alreadyfamiliar with feet washing when she came to The Church because they practice it in the free will baptist church. I didn't know any denomination did so until I met her.

We went to Applebee's after church with Damon, Kasey, and Megan, It was nice because we hadn't been out with them in a long time, and we miss the fellowship when we don't have it. I'm excited about the growth I see in the youth and the Church as a whole.

We're off to church, everybody have a great day.