Andy's Blog

Today was AWESOME!!! I can't state that any better. Today was probably one of the top 5 experiences I have had in my life. Why? Because I think I killed a bunch of Navy Sailors!

Allen and I left the office this morning at 7:30 am and headed to Dobbins Air Force Base in Marietta, GA. We met up with a friend of the show (callsign Toolrod), and he took us onto the base. It reminded me of driving around Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. But this had a twist Kadena did not have: today I was going to the Navy's F-18 flight simulator!

Most of you know my love of aviation. Some of you know that for a six month period of my life I aspired to be a professional pilot until (and I don't claim this very often) God spoke to me (not audibly) and told me that wasn't the plan He had for me. Very few of you know that during that six month time period I actually visited the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO as I was very seriously considering entering it, as I aspired to pilot the F-16.

I knew today was going to be amazing. I found the F-18 astonishingly easy to fly. It accelerated like a fighter jet should. Rolls and climbs were remarkably smooth and quick. At one point I was climbing at a rate of 24,000 feet/min (your average airline flight shouldn't usually exceed 3,000 feet/min). The only real problem I had for the day was I couldn't figure out how to trim the aircraft very well, which meant I had a hard time keeping the aircraft at a constant altitude with no change. This surprised me because when I flew a Cessna I remember being surprised how easy it was to control the trim.

I had two highlights of the day:

1.) I pulled a 4G Inside Loop that started at 5000 ft, climbed to (if I were to guess) 12,000 ft, and then (and I kid you not) returned to exactly 5000 ft. I can't explain the rush when doing that and then looking at the altimeter and see it read exactly where I started (all while flying 600-700 MPH).

2.) I almost landed on an aircraft carrier. I had a little bit of a hard time figuring out the Instrument Landing System (I am used to the way it looks on commercial aircraft), but I got lined up perfectly with the carrier on the first try. The only problem was, I was a little low and didn't realize it until too late and crashed right at the back of the carrier. I certainly would have killed myself and a whole bunch of Navy Soldiers on the boat. But I was freaking close I tell you!

Now if someone out there from Delta can get me a couple hours in the Boeing 777-200 simulator at Hartsfield, I think I could die a happy man.

But what is the point of all this? Well lets be honest, I mainly just wanted to report on the cool thing I got to do. But it also got me thinking about interests and hobbies in our lives. I can't explain why I like aviation the way I do. I spend way too many hours a airliners.net and flying my computer game simulator at home. But this I do know. When I was in high school, I used to question why I spent so much time dinking around on the computer and with technology. I had no idea how God was going to use that. God creates passions in our lives for a purpose. So with aviation, I have stopped questioning why I spend so much time learning about it, and I just hope and trust that I will get as much out of it as I have with technology.