Marty86 Posted February 11, 2017 Report Share Posted February 11, 2017 There are some awesome stories on this thread. He's my two cents: I was always building models airplanes as a kid. Also, I had a S***load of match box cars and my model planes were always "blowing them up". When we got our first DOS computer, I got the Jane's Combat Simulations Longbow II flight simulator. Dear god...That was literally all I could do for about 2 years, all the while working very hard to keep D's on my middle school report card. Then one summer my Aunt took my sister, cousins and I to First Landing State Park off the coast of Va Beach. There was a Navy exercise going on during the second day. There was a Destroyer a few miles off the coast and C-130's parachuted supply packages off into the water. Then the F-14s came. At the time I thought they were mock dogfighting, they might have been, but more likely just low carrier breaks. It was the coolest F***ing thing I had ever seen. I still remember the oil stains on the landing gear doors as they broke off, belly up, towards the beach about 200 ft off the deck. I joined the Navy in 2006 as an Aviation Structural Mechanic and was fortunate enough to get sent to a fighter squadron (F/A-18F). During my time there, the Blue Angels came through for an airshow. Someone from the Blue's popped their head in our shop and asked if anyone wanted to ride along with Fat Albert, the USMC crewed C-130. A buddy and I raised our hands and the next day, slightly(very) hung over, we hopped on the C-130. If you are unfamiliar, most of their demonstration maneuvers are based on short runway or arriving/departing an air field under fire. We took off, leveled off at 30 ft off the deck, then went ~30º nose up at ~200 knots for about 300 feet, then they slammed the yokes forward to level off and we all went weightless for about 3 seconds. We spent the next 20 minutes wing over wing and doing sh*t I never thought a C-130 we remotely capable of. Then we landed... REALLY fast. Same as the takeoff but nose down. I was crapping diamonds. THAT was the coolest thing I have ever done in my life and from then on I knew what I wanted to do. Left the Navy in 2011 to get a degree and rejoin to be a pilot. Working on it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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