Going Off the Rails on a Crazy Train...

The title is just because I've had that song stuck in my head. But it was also a pretty super, exciting weekend deserving of, at the very least, a blog post.

My awesome cousins came through Virginia Beach to visit on their way home to Florida after touring some of Canada and the East Coast. They stayed for part of Friday and Saturday and we had a total blast with them! First we took them on to base and got them some time in the simulators that the guys train in. We all got to fly the F-18 and try our hand at landing it. It was a lot of fun. I got to fly around and chase a jet that one of my cousin's was maneuvering in the other simulator. Then I attempted a landing. I got the jet down to the runway and I think touched down just as the simulator timed out and they shut it down. This can only mean one thing: I landed perfectly as far as we know. I'm pretty much ready to deploy.

That night we got together with a bunch of friends and had a rocking game night that lasted well past midnight. There was a plethora of food, fun and Corn Hole. Good times.

Saturday morning came a bit early, but the prospect of coffee kept me motivated. Breakfast involved our cousins and meeting up with some friends again at a small diner. After fueling up with sufficient caffeine and carbohydrates we bid my cousins farewell and began our own trek up to the airport. Adam had arranged a little adventure for the afternoon. We piled into the Cessna and started towards Kitty Hawk, NC or "First Flight." Adam trusted me with the controls for a little while during the flight. I did some pretty crazy stuff like kept my altitude consistent and made sure the little airplane image on the GPS screen stayed on the big purple line.

We landed in Kitty Hawk and went to get some dinner at a nearby restaurant. Nearby being essential... since we didn't have a car. Afterwards, we were to meet up with some of Adam's buddies from work and fly in formation down to Elizabeth City. But, things took an interesting turn when we got a text from his friend. He was at the airport and could see that we had left our beacon on.

After arriving back at the airport, courtesy of another buddy who was in the area, we attempted to start the airplane. Nothing. Adam then attempted to start it by spinning the propeller, which was a bit nerve-wracking for me to watch. In some ways, I was a bit relieved when this did not work either.

I should mention that a massive DUI checkpoint was taking place right at the entrance of the small airfield. This actually came in quite handy for two reasons. The first being that we were able to get some nice people to help us. The second reason being that there was a massive police bus that had a usable (though non-flushing) toilet inside. This was essential because the airfield's bathrooms were already locked for the evening.

Adam and his buddies along with several people from the police DUI checkpoint managed to get the airplane jumped using two cars and three sets of jumper cables. Impressive. Here's a low resolution image of the event.

Sadly, time had run out to go to Elizabeth City at that point, but the fun wasn't over yet. Adam and his friend were prepping to do a formation flight back to the airport. We took off with a few seconds of separation between the two airplanes and flew a low formation pass back over the airfield, for the sake of our new friends.

We followed the beach back for a while, flying lower than most of the kites we saw. We could see people waving to us from the ground. The guys got to play around with some formation stuff on the way back which kept the trip pretty exciting.

My life is not without adventure! Gotta love it!