What A GREAT Day!

[ProdigalJim]

Just finished up a Wing SAREX today...got a bunch of stuff signed off, and now I just need one more ride to get my Scanner. Hoping I can knock that out sometime next week.

We were supposed to go look for, and supply digital imagery of, flood damage along the Potomac River, skirting oh-so-close to the Dulles and DCA approaches, as well as within a stone's throw of downtown DC. As it turns out, heavy rains here this week gave us some REAL overflowed, brown rivers to shoot.

For those of you working the "real deal" down South post-tornado, I know this sounds both tame and irritating, but it was my first ride since I was a cadet in 1979 and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire day, from tasking to brief to checking out the airplane, helping to check traffic and getting over the target and shooting.

I also learned quite a bit...along with blowing some cobwebs away from lessons tucked in the back of my brain from a long time ago. The evaluator who flew with us was knowledgeable and a good and patient teacher.

Among the old lessons I re-learned:

1. You need a backup for your backup. BOTH the primary and spare batteries for the camera I was toting, which I checked at the Mission Base, crapped out while we were taxiing out. We had a backup camera, so all was well.

2. All THREE crew can contribute to keeping an eye out for traffic and otherwise sharing the load. I had resolved before we departed to keep my mouth shut, particularly during the most busy phases of flight, but discovered that even when the greenest, newest Scanner trainee spots traffic flying away at 11 o clock it's a "good thing."

3. Getting checked out on the radio stack in your squadron's airplane is NO guarantee that you'll know what to do when confronted with an entirely different airplane from some other Group or Squadron.

4. Being the newest newbie is not a reason to stand back while the more experienced aircrew plan and brief; taking an active role in this phase can really help reinforce your own learning.

5. Targets you've driven past on the highway for 10 years, and that you can identify on a map in a nanosecond, look entirely different from the air.

Forgive my enthusiasm, but I had a great day.

[SARDOC]

awesome....keep up the good work.   If you are not having fun you're not doing it right.

[Eclipse]

There's nothing like the days where everything comes together.  Ditto on the fun, at some point that's the payoff for the hard work.