Luke Flies F-18 to Visit Tom in GA

The first week of December Luke's squadron received an email saying there was a "cross country window open if anyone was interested." Luke was immediately interested and checked into it. He matched the list of approved flights with places he wanted to fly. He was able to reach Tom by phone and so that was his choice. About noon on Friday Dec 5th Luke departed for Robins Air Force Base south of Macon, GA. Luke & Tom had determined in advance that Tom was not going to be able to get on base without Luke (or get close enough to watch Luke fly in) so Tom waited at the Visitor Center. Luke spent the evening with Tom in Dublin and later with Kathleen, Jordan & Mason who arrived about 8P from Ocala, FL.

Saturday morning Luke took Tom & family out to the base. The Robins AFB has a lot of huge transport jets like the C-5 Galaxy and as they all drove on base Jordan & Mason were awestruck by those huge jets and when they saw Luke's little F-18 they thought it looked small. But when they got to actually sit in the F-18 they were impressed. Dale & I have not had this privilege; Luke said that because he was on a USAF base instead of a Navy Base he had extra leeway as the "senior officer." Above photo is of Luke telling Kathleen about his F-18. This flight was extra flying hours for Luke and gave him some significant instrument time, especially on the return flight. He had to be concerned about icing conditions on the return flight and so we talked about the protocol for that situation. It seems the usual F-18 procedure is to fly fast enough to build up enough heat to melt the ice; alternate procedures are to fly at lower or high elevations.