Taking the Hornet Demo team patch off my shoulder and giving to a little boy on the show line after landing. That alone made all the deployments, underway periods and night traps worth it. I might have enjoyed dropping a bomb or two on some bad guys though too...

 

Getting thrown into a slimy water tank after T-41 solo. Three T-38 formation sorties on the same day. Comm/data link for Apollo (over Australia), Skylab (northeast of Capetown), and DOD satellite launches (Tahiti, Lima, Rio, Buenos Aires, & Ascension Island). Photo coverage of re-entry vehicles near Kwajalein atoll. A-37 low-level in the Sierras and Mojave desert.

 

Same as most of the other posts. But in particular, flights over Kosovo/Serbia in 99, followed by Italian food and wine in the little town of Pordenone (spelling?). Great times.

 

One hell of an overnight in Sydney Australia with my two new Aussie best friends. God Bless that country!

 

Cleveland Airshow

 

To this day,... 2 of the Top 20 Most Beautiful Women I've Ever Seen were in Pordenone. That was 1992. I will never forget them.

 

R2508 - flying maintainers around in Death Valley on incentive flights while dodging the F-18's.

AK - days where McKinley and several other mountains would be peaking above the cloud deck, oh and star wars canyon (if you've flown through it, you know - watching the shadow of your jet on the rock wall moving at 500 knots)

First solo flight across the pacific ocean - very cool experience to hand fly for nine hours (autopilot is crap) and realize that you've just flown to another continent. (or when you don't quite make it all the way and end up on Wake!)

Nights - where you can see about a million stars / shooting stars, even more with the NVG's up in the 40's. That cool blue color that the tails light up with at night when you light the afterburners.

Aileron rolls in the cons, breaking the sound barrier (or double :-) for the first time, roll call, international airshows, BFM (dog-fighting) - the list goes on, but by far, the best part of the job is the guys you work with.

People say that your sense of smell is strongly tied to memory. To this day, that smell of JP8 shoots me back to the flight line, zipping the comfort zippers up on my g-suit before climbing up the ladder of that 20 ton jet, harness clinking and strapping yourself into the mighty mighty :-) Just thinking about it puts a smile on my face.

 

Comedic genius right there.

 

Your avatar photo has got to be one of your best experiences ? Where was that taken? It's awesome !!!

 

Cat shot on a night so dark it's like the inside of a cat's a#%hole.

That moment at the end of the stroke when your jet hangs there for a split second and you watch the altimeter go from 50' to 45', hesitate... and then start to climb.

Maybe not the, "best" experience, but I remember them like it was yesterday.

T