Airborne Again!

This week I resumed my flying duties with the Guard. It seemed an excessively long and difficult process to get my medical waiver to fly after the leg incident, but again “slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings!” from High Flight, John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

After a couple of weeks of academics to make sure I still knew the F-16 and a few “dial-a-death” emergency simulators to make sure I still knew what I was doing in the case that something went wrong, I flew. I took off, another instructor in “6-foot trail” (in my back seat), and gave a little “woo-hoo!” upon takeoff. Off we went to the working area to experience the handling qualities of the aircraft (wring it out and pull some Gs), then over to the auxiliary airfield for some landings and instrument patterns, and then back to home plate for a trip around the flagpole before landing. Things came back quickly.

In an hour and a half I traveled over 450 miles, pulled 6 Gs, dropped simulated bombs, shot 3 airborne targets (again, simulated), performed 4 instrument approaches simulating flying in bad weather, did 3 simulated emergency landings, did 7 touch-and-gos, and managed not to get violated by ATC! All in a day’s work!

It’s good to be flying again!