14 posts tagged “naval aviation”

How are you celebrating St. Patrick's Day?

I'm enjoying enduring another day of rather Irish weather: rainy, drizzly, and all around wet and miserable. While saints don't do much for me personally, I'm not going to argue with a day on which so many people proudly wear my favorite color and drink my favorite beer. I actually started last night with a Guinness to celebrate the achievements of the latest class in M's squadron to qualify at the Boat. Some of our friends from Texas were amongst the CQers, so of course we had to go out to congratulate them and find out where they're headed next. Maybe now that they're through, there will be enough available CODs for M's class to have a chance to touch a real airplane before he's spent a full year out of the cockpit. I'm not holding my breath, though. I suppose it gives us more time to enjoy Guinness while we wait.

Looking back on 2008, what were the highlights of your year?

Here we are, starting the fifth day of 2009, and I'm still "looking back on 2008." I guess there hasn't been much of import to report so far this year, which is just fine with me because last year at this time we were running around like headless chickens trying to get ready for a buddy's wedding and prepare for the move from South Texas Town #1 to South Texas Town #2 at the same time. That was not one of the year's highlights, by the way. These were:

M's winging: The culmination of flight school and my husband's designation as a Naval Aviator was a time of joy, giddiness, and relief. Getting to celebrate with M's folks as their son's hard work and accomplishment were recognized was absolutely wonderful.

Buying our first house: The move after the winging was a pretty stressful one due to our months of transience in the process, but it was worth it when we finally signed the forests' worth of paperwork, picked up the keys, and walked into our very own home for the first time.

Adopting our two cats: Sure, there's been some property destruction, an emergency trip to the animal hospital, and some distinctly unpleasant messes to clean up, but we can't imagine life without Vera and Valentine. They provide such affection, entertainment, and liveliness to our household. And hey, if we manage not to screw up our feline charges, maybe we won't do too badly with kids someday.

Honeymooning in the Bahamas: Nearly two years after we signed the ketubah and agreed to embark on this crazy marriage venture together, we finally squeezed a solid week of leave out of the Navy for a honeymoon. We met some interesting people (including a tiny, foul-mouthed pistol of an activities coordinator and a sketchy, overgrown frat boy in his forties who tried to "adopt" a set of sisters in their twenties). We had some amazing experiences (the dolphin encounter, walking through the mangroves to Gold Rock Beach) and some experiences I don't care to repeat (the bonfire, the semi-submersible), but the best part of the whole trip was simply having a week for just us, no other obligations or worries that the squadron was going to call to tell M to come in on a day off. I hope we can manage more such getaways in the future.

Getting involved with CAP: In 2008, I went from having maybe heard of this Civil Air Patrol thing once or twice (but not having a clue what it was all about) to being an active volunteer with my local squadron. Through CAP, I not only went up in a small airplane for the first time, but I got qualified as an aircrew member who can assist on search and rescue operations. I'm excited about what 2009 holds with regard to my CAP "career." In the early months, my squadron is going to continue to focus on getting people trained for various emergency services qualifications. I'm going to be working on becoming a Mission Observer (right-seater in the airplane), so I'm hoping to go flying again within the next couple of months. We should also be working on getting everyone qualified to be on a ground team, too, so we have multiple valuable assets to offer in an emergency. I'm glad to be a part of it, and I'm glad that 2008 brought me the opportunity.

So, 2008 was quite a year. I've got high hopes for 2009.

Don't worry, it has nothing to do with fish (even if Troy McClure might prefer otherwise). I was spending some quality time browsing YouTube for videos of the plane my husband will be flying, and I felt the need to share them with (or inflict them upon, depending upon your level of fascination with airplanes) my dear readers.

This first one is of a trap, or carrier landing. Man, the COD is a big hoss.

This one is a montage of video and photos of the COD set to music. It's certainly no "Pump It," but there are some fairly cool shots.

A vital step in the process of getting settled in the new house has been completed: we have high-speed Internet access. Compared to the hoops of fire we had to jump through to accomplish this back in Texas, getting connected here was a breeze. Score one for Cox; we'll see how the rest of their service stacks up.

Having said access allows me to do exciting things like share the news of what M will be flying as his fleet aircraft. We found out this morning that he will be a C-2A Greyhound pilot. The Greyhound is the COD, which stands for Carrier Onboard Delivery, meaning that he will be flying cargo and people and what-have-you to aircraft carriers. I plan to tell new acquaintances that my husband is a Greyhound driver and watch them try to puzzle out what on earth a bus has to do with Naval Aviation.

Video: Show us a video that makes you want to dance.

...and yes, I'm absolutely okay with that! Naval Aviation will make you say some pretty strange things sometimes, and being able to say -- with a straight face, mind -- that I was absolutely ecstatic to find out today that my darling husband is a hooker is definitely one of them.

Okay, further explanation is probably in order: M has been away since late last week on the carrier qualification (CQ) detachment, and I'd been waiting on the edge of my seat ever since for the word that he completed the necessary traps (landings aboard the aircraft carrier) to earn the right to call himself a tailhooker. The tailhook, of course, is what the planes landing on the carrier use to catch a wire to decelerate themselves. The video below shows an earlier CQ det, and it might give you an idea of the sort of thing my husband's been up to recently.

I don't think I could be any more proud of M right now. He's worked hard for this accomplishment and I know he'll be fantastic in whatever comes down the pipeline next. Right now, though, I just can't wait for him to get home so we can celebrate!

Anything will start to seem routine if you hear about it enough. There are days that I forget that not everyone's husband goes to work in a flight suit, especially living around and socializing mostly with student naval aviators and their spouses. Every once in a while, though, there are days that remind me what a cool job my husband actually has. This past Wednesday was one of them.

M has been extremely busy lately preparing for carrier qualifications, often leaving early and coming back late, sweaty and exhausted from three "bounce periods" a day. The husband of one of my good friends is also getting ready for the upcoming CQ detachment, so Annie and I had been missing out on time with our men. When M mentioned something about a barbecue out at the auxiliary landing field where the CQers were bouncing, I mentioned it to Annie. After a little hemming and hawing over how we would probably be the only spouses to drive out to the middle of nowhere for a poorly publicized barbecue, we finally convinced each other that it might just be an adventure. And hey, it's not like we were doing anything else that day.

The drive turned out to be forty-five minutes of uninterrupted South Texas desolation, and upon our arrival, we learned that not only were we indeed the only wives who showed up, but a scheduling quirk meant that our husbands weren't even going to arrive for another hour. No one quite knew what to do with us, but we stuck around until the guys arrived by van. They weren't real sure what to do with us either, but we eventually snagged some tasty slow-cooked chicken and everyone's mood improved.

Getting to have lunch with the guys was all well and good, but Annie and I had an ulterior motive: we had never actually seen our husbands fly before, and we wanted to stick around long enough to see their bounce periods. We thought we would be able to watch from a distance, take pictures of all the planes, and maybe get a chance to ask later which ones were people we know. When we heard that we might have the chance to be able to watch from the LSO shack, though, the possibilities of this venture looked better and better.

We didn't get in touch with either of the LSOs for such a long time that we thought we were out of luck, but just before we were about to give up, "Demar" walked over and asked us if we'd like to come out. There was no hesitation in our "Yes, please!" We joined him on the ride out to the shack, where we met up with "RJ," the other LSO who would be waving our husbands' passes.

A quick note of explanation: A Landing Signal Officer, or LSO, is someone who controls aircraft as they approach and land on aircraft carriers. They are highly trained and can tell just by looking whether a pilot is on glideslope for a good trap, has too much or too little power, or whether they need to move right or left. LSOs grade each landing, as well. On an interesting note, the highest grade one can ever get is just "OK." Got it? All right, moving on...

My husband was in the first bounce group, and I was excited just to be so close to the action. I watched his first couple of passes from outside, and man, those jets are loud. We're talking chest-vibratingly, shack-shakingly loud. Annie and I were lucky that Demar had some extra sets of earplugs.

On the third pass or so, though, RJ handed me the radio and gave me some instructions. When the time came, M called the ball, and as RJ told me to, I pressed the button and piped up, "Roger ball, Sweetie!" I think that threw him off just a little. The next time, RJ said, "Here, tell him this and watch him do what you say." I said, "Right for lineup... waveoff, foul deck!" and what do you know, M did exactly what I said. I got a little chuckle when I observed, "Gee, all I have to do to get him to do exactly what I want is to tell him over the radio?"

M's bounce period finished up, and I guess he still liked me even after I surprised him on the radio, since he waved to us as he taxied by. While we were waiting for the next group (which included my friend's husband) in the air, Demar showed us the famous "meatball" and explained a little bit about what they're looking for in a good carrier landing.

Well, I could write on and on, but every English teacher I ever had told me I should show, not tell. I don't think video is quite what they had in mind, but hey.

Having a spouse in the military brings its share of annoyances, certainly, but it also opens the door to getting to see and do some pretty cool things. How many other people get to see that kind of seriously cool aviation up close? I think I'm pretty lucky.

After many happy months of using various lovely pre-made themes, I decided to jump belatedly on the bandwagon and try my hand at making my own banner. This one was cobbled together quickly, but it'll do for a while.