Flying is always awesome

Had a very good flight tonight, need about two more and I will be finished with my progression. Can't wait till they turned me loose start flying students again. This job is so close to what I did in the army I was a fairly easy transition to retirement. I'm almost finished with my first month, I have 11 to go and then I can start applying for EMS positions in the southeast coast. Unless I can figure out a way to get Marie and Elli to join me over here but I don't see that happening. And that is OK because sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Back at Fort Rucker

My 6 1/2 hour drive was uneventful. Marie and I and the girls, all three of them. We met in Pooler for some lunch, Karaline flew in to Savannah Saturday she spent the weekend with us after she came down from Virginia. She had Thanksgiving with her family, She's like one of my daughters now, It's only a matter of time before Robby pops the question. Marie and I are very fond of her, she is a great kid. Her folks live in Virginia her dad is a retired Marine Corps Officer who works for the VA and Her mom is a professional photographer and I think Marie's new best friend, they are great people.  I often wonder what that type of relationship would have been like. Nonetheless Marie and I are lucky to have our wonderful family and the amazing opportunities that are in front of us. We have three amazing children who continue to impress me every day. Robby has been in Korea for about a month and he is doing great things as a new young lieutenant in the army. Shirley who is in her second year of college is doing great thing as well she is going to make an amazing nurse. Elli and her second year of high school home alone with mom helping her to maintain her sanity is an amazing young lady as well. I hope that someday when Robby and Shirley have for fill their obligations to the army my family and children can all settle down somewhat close together, or at least in the same country.

So anyway I had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with the family and now it's time to get back to work, my training with DOSS hopefully will be complete this week. I look forward to flying new students and molding young minds of future aviators flying what I consider to be the most amazing attack helicopter in the world. Shirley is planning on coming over here for a visit into weeks I look forward to it, her and I should have a pretty good time.

Going home for Thanksgiving

Well I have a short week only three days. Then it's off to Savannah to spend some quality time with Marie Shirley and Elizabeth and somewhere in that weekend we will be joined by Karaline. Flight training is going well I would say the week after I get back from Thanksgiving my training should be complete and I will be flying students. I'm actually looking forward to it I enjoyed my time when I was here from 2000 To 2004. Flame students is probably one of the most challenging things I've done in the Apache. On average most of the student pilots have less than 100 hours  and zero aircraft hours in the Apache. So it should be fun to start all of that again. As I have said before it is like a great big reunion here with all of the people that I have worked with in my carer. So many of them are here as contractors and DACs. I have many friends here at Rucker so new but most old from all over the world and my Army travels. I look forward to working with all of them again without the distractions of thinking about our next Combat tour together, because those days are finally behind me and them for ever.

The RV is working out pretty well, it's starting to get a little cold out I went out and purchased an additional heater but I leave in the bedroom it has a built-in thermostat and I set it for 75 and turn it on when I go to bed. It's fairly quiet doesn't wake me up and works fairly well, keeps the bedroom side of the RV pretty comfortable. However I don't think it is gotten below 50° yet so time will tell if the fireplace and the extra electric heater are enough to keep the RV warm.

No longer torn

Well it is official, I flew 2.8 last week which puts me somewhere around $15,000 in the event that I decide to quit prior to one year. So obviously that's not going to happen, I just need to make the best of it the job is no more challenging then it was 16 years ago when I was here doing the same thing. Flying new student in the most advanced attack helicopter in the world is not a bad gig. I spend a great deal of time on FaceTime with Robby and Shirley and Elli I, sent Marie a lot of Snapchat's because she still doesn't have an iPhone. Fort Rucker is not a bad place to raise a family the people here are extremely friendly just like they were when we were here in 2000. I think that this experience was probably one of the best times of both mine and Marie's life. I mean after all this was where we conceived our first child and we all know how he turned out.

Test post

Torn

I sit here in my RV thinking about the last year and how quickly it past bye. Tomorrow I am supposed to start flying for a new company on Fort Rucker call DOSS. As soon as I start flying with them I owe them one year for the training  I will be receiving in the aircraft. I find myself a little torn thinking can I make this work for year. Robby has been in Korea for about a month Shirley is a sophomore at GSU in the nursing program and Ellie is in Savannah with Marie. I thought that this would be easy but I'm finding it a little more difficult than I originally anticipated. Again as soon as I fly my first hour I will owe the company $5000 a flight hour. Part of me tonight is doing a lot of soul-searching trying to decide if I really think I can make this work. The money is really good but living in an RV not so much, living away from Marie and Elli even more so not so much. I spent the last six months or so sending out resumes to just about every aviation program within a 3 Hour Drive of Savannah. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of aviation programs within that geographical footprint. The more I learned about EMS flying the more excited I got. I spent 25 years flying Army helicopters both lift and attack. I started flying the Apache in 1998 and for the most part I have really enjoyed it, flying the Apache in combat is probably one of the most selfless things I will ever do, I know that there are soldiers in the army that are still alive because of what we do in the Apache. So part of me really likes the idea of eventually being hired on as an EMS pilot where I know I will save lives. It's all about the timing,  again if I start flying the Apache tomorrow I will be here at Fort Rucker living in this RV for at least one year.