First T-44 Flight

This week set another milestone in my flight training, I flew a multi-engine aircraft for the first time. After much prompting from my flight instructor to pull my thumb out of my mouth and to get out of the fetal position and fly the aircraft, I flew, landed, and took off all by my lonesome. My flying, not life, partner flew us out to our training area (over a big pond) and he did his maneuvers, then we switched seats and I got to fly. I did a few maneuvers and then I flew us to the auxiliary field where I did fourteen touch and go landings before stopping and letting my flying, not life, partner take over and do some landings and take us back to the Naval Air Station (NAS).

The experience wasn't too bad. I felt a little bit on the nauseous side while the other guy was flying, but once I got behind the controls, I felt better. However, I did get back to that feeling once he started flying again at the end. I didn't pop, so at least it was better than last time. Hopefully, since this was the first time I had flown in almost three months, that what I felt on Thursday will be as bad as it gets. The flying wasn't bad either. The plane isn't near as responsive as the T-6, but that goes with the territory. I kept waiting for the instructor to take the plane and show me how to do it, but he never did. I ended up testing the integrity of the landing gear with a teeth rattling first landing and just figuring it out from there. He did a lot of verbal coaching (versus the yelling from the last training), but he didn't take the aircraft. I guess it makes you feel pretty good when you can fly a plane without having someone take it all the time because of your lack of ability to keep it from becoming the biggest leaf on the tree.

The weekend has gone good so far, but we still have one more day thanks to President Memorial. I can't quite remember what his legacy as a president was, but it must have been up there with Lincoln and Washington because they named a day after him. Sweetpea (John Strube) came down from Laughlin AFB for a couple of days. Luckily, the weather broke for a few hours and we got to enjoy go-karts and the beach.

Sweetpea tried to pick up on some girls...enough said! YIKES! Look for his picture on a law enforcement website soon!

Other than that, the week went by without much hoop-la. Candi had another hard week at the office. She has been getting in more hours, but she still has time to work on things for me. WHAT A SWEET WIFE! Zoe's foot is getting better and I think I can stop carrying her around soon. I swear she limps just for sympathy because the vet can't find anything wrong.