Today was a pair of SEAD/Force Protection sorties. Four of us jumped out in front of a four-ship of strikers and practiced weaving in and out of SAM rings and knocked a couple Red Air fighters back a peg or two.
Two sorties in one day! I’ve almost made RAP for the month. Attached life. . . *sigh*.
Wow! Here’s something you don’t want to see the day you buy a stock — a huge drop in price in high volume! Two days ago I purchased shares of a shipping company. The sector looks like it’s doing pretty well, and I picked what looked like the best of the bunch. It had about 35% institutional ownership (according to MSN Money) and was ranked highly by IBD. I checked the charts and it was definitely well-extended from a decent buying point, so I knew I was taking a risk (like leaving a couple grand in a money market that gets eaten by inflation isn’t a risk in and of itself!). Sure enough, the order went through first thing next morning, and the stock got crushed during the day.
Lucky for me I’m not prone to panic, because it went up on high volume the next day!
If you happen to be in the Pacific NW in late Oct/early Nov and like to write on the Internet, Anwyn‘ll be hosting a Blogofogorama in a couple weeks. I hear the main topic will be Saint Peters’ historic defeat of the Islamic Fundamentalist Balrog on the bridge of Lepanto-dûm. Or something like that. [Wow. . . how un-PC of me! --ed]
I wish I could get there! Methinks my wife and newborn wouldn’t so much appreciate Dad taking off just now.
Perhaps I should say "Landing of the Stork." Christina and I just welcomed a healthy baby boy into the family.
Mother and son are doing splendidly! Christina spent 2 hours, 19 minutes in labor. This was our first kid, and since I figured she was going to be in labor for a good long time, I suggested she take the epidural. She elected to go with no drugs. I’m pretty proud of her!
Immediately following the birth, I started trying to teach the kid Faraday’s Law, but then I realized I forgot it after the physics final back in 1989. I settled with reciting the equation for general relativity. The nurses then suggested I try a lullaby. I don’t know what’s more sleep-inducing, the barely-remembered songs of my infancy, or the partially-remembered nuclear physics from college. Either way I went, he fell asleep pretty quickly.
I’d best start teaching him how to play football.
. . . That would be NFL football, the other game is called soccer, no matter what my European wife says!
I haven’t written about investing for awhile. I recently sold my holdings in Apple, it gapped up about a week ago and the volume seemed to be drying up. I made my 20% gain on it, although not in the IBD-recommended eight weeks or less. So I sold, making a small profit.
Other issues I’ve been scoping out have been Crocs and Force Protection. They’ve done well this week, but they went up on extremely light volume yesterday while the rest of the market chugged higher. That leaves me a tad concerned. Crocs is the maker of the shoes everyone seems to be buying. The danger there of course is that everyone who wants them has them, and earnings will dry up. Force Protection makes the Mine-Resistant Anti-Ambush vehicles that are in-demand in Downrangeland. They’re going to be facing some competition from Oshkosh trucks at a minimum, and depending on which team wins the most contracts, Force Protection may go nowhere. I’d consider it a fairly good risk, but I’m prepared to have to sell later on with no profit.
I’ll offer the standard disclaimer: I’m an amateur investor. You must do your own research. I tend to buy things late and have to sell early, making only a little profit. By the time you read this, there’s a good chance the stock will be on the way down.
The 13 FS arrived back at home station today. They flew 13 jets home. Go figure!
Greetings to visitors from the Cox & Forkum website! I’d love to say to check back here for cartoons, but unfortunately for lack of a picture, a thousand words will have to do. We’ll have plenty of time for commiserating later, we’ve all got to learn to get along without their poignant talent.
As for the Penningroths, my little brother’s the one in our family with the drawing talent. He doesn’t have a website. I’m all you’ve got!
Maybe we can convince them to make drawings of F-16s bombing appropriate targets?
Let’s see, what did I do today to top off last night’s divert to Hachinohe?
I had the brakes fail on taxi. Then after "New jet, new day" I had the engine fail shortly after takeoff, followed quickly by a successful flame-out approach and landing. Then I took off again with a similar engine problem that terminated in a flameout approach and landing. Then I had an oil system malfunction after takeoff with the engine seizing, followed by a flameout approach and landing. Then I had the flight controls nearly completely fail after takeoff, so I simply RTB’d to a no-HUD, no-AOA gauge visual straight-in. Then I had the engine fail again. Then while I was doing an unrestricted climb to 32,000′ the jet went out of control, so I simply let go of the controls and gave it ten seconds for HAL to try to fix itself before I intervened and showed the computer how to fly a modern, high-performance fighter jet. Then I called it a day.
I did mention this was situational emergency procedures training in a simulator, didn’t I?
Tonight’s mission was the long-awaited NVG re-hack. It was the first time I’ve flown at night since June. June of 2006, that is.
The briefing and step were all routine, with the exception that both FNG F and I were out of NVG currency, so I got to be the lucky guy to take an IP along in the back of the family model. Quattro was the IP of record for this flight. He and I jumped out of the crew van after step to find a D-model (about 2,000# less gas) with two CATM-88 missiles (800# each), an ECM pod, and a LANTIRN targeting pod. . . a LANTIRN targeting pod?! That’s the first time I’ve ever flown that configuration. Most of the time when we carry HARM missiles we also carry a HARM Targeting System Pod (HTSP). Maybe we’re getting ready for MMC 4.2 upgrade and the R7 HTS pod. The new system is supposed to be able to work together with a targeting pod. Our current software tape isn’t double-pod friendly. We closeted our surprise, slapped away the mosquitos that suddenly appeared in a swarm, finished the preflight inspection, hopped in, cranked the motor, aligned the INS, turned everything on, checked the flight controls and brakes and a myriad of other widgets and gizmos, and taxiied to the arming area and then to Runway 10 for takeoff.
Night takeoffs in afterburner are always a great sight. After the cleared-for-takeoff call from tower and the radio frequency change to departure control, the next thing that happens is the jet in front of you selects MAX on the throttle (which you don’t see), followed shortly by a 20′ long cone of orderly orange fire complete with five or six supersonic shock waves that appear streaking out of the nozzle as the Viper seeks liberation from the tyranny of the tarmac. Within 15 seconds, the previous aircraft lifts off, you repeat the previous motions of the other pilot in your own cockpit; in two seconds you find yourself pressed back in your seat with the digital airspeed readout increasing faster than you can count. At the point the readout passes through something resembling 155, about 10 pounds of back-pressure with the right hand on the side-stick controller and your own nose rotates into the inky blackness over the Pacific Ocean just two miles away. Seconds after that, your ship breaks its tie with the ground and with one last check of that single engine’s ‘steam gauge’ instruments for certainty of operation, you throw the gear handle up and start making sure your vector takes you into the sky. Night takeoffs just rock, no matter where you are when you see them, but I certainly get some of the best sights available to human eyes.
Hoser, the DO had told us earlier in the mass brief that tonight would be "High Illumination," meaning there would be plenty of light for the NVGs and we would be able to see everything pretty well. It turned out that we launched so close to sunset that although it’d been dark on the ground, the sky was so bright that the NVGs were nearly useless, everything was just washed-out-green. All we could really see for the first five minutes of the departure was the anti-collision light on the other jet.
The 1v1 intercepts worked out much like any others. We were going to try to get in a simulated JDAM attack at the end, but with all the extra drag from my CATMs and pods, I hit BINGO and we started our RTB. Everything went fairly normally with the first half of the return. We checked out of the airspace with SABRE, who pushed us over to Sapporo Control for IFR. We finished our battle damage checks, then I called back to squadron ops to relay our aircraft maintenance status. We then switched over to ATIS to find out what the weather was like back at the field. It sounded pretty good, with no ceiling, scattered clouds here and there, and light winds. After 10 minutes listening to Sapporo Control sequencing us around and below the airline routes that criss-cross the sky above our return route, they handed us off to Misawa approach, and that’s when the fun started.
Upon contacting Misawa approach, they informed us a runway change was in progress, and they started vectoring us to the HI-TACAN initial approach fix and told us to plan to hold for about 10 minutes. I did some quick mental math, and with 2600# of gas remaining, determined I could do just that, but no more. So far, so good. We flew to the IAF and entered holding, but just in case, I started looking up the approaches to Hachinohe Airport, our primary divert field. It turned out to be a good thing. During our first turn in holding, we’d talked to the SOF and told him what our situation was. He figured we’d have no problem making it back, and he promised to get us priority getting back to the field. Normally we’re supposed to get to the final approach fix with 1,500#, and it was going to take 600# to shoot most of the approach (500# if we got vectors direct to the FAF). I expected to hit the IAF and be cleared to start the approach.
What happened next, of course, was approach told us to execute one more turn in holding, and that we’d be cleared the HI-TACAN for Runway 28, and if the runway change wasn’t complete they were going to have us hold at the FAF. No dice. I was just below 2,200#, the next turn in holding would be another 300-400#, then 500# best case for the approch to Misawa, and the runway change that was supposed to have been completed by now was going to take an extra 12 minutes. FNG F, Quattro, and I all decided we were going to Hachinohe, which was just 12 miles off our nose.
We were quickly cleared over to Hachinohe Tower’s frequency. Tower informed us we’d be cleared for a visual approach to Runway 07, winds were light, and the field was VMC. The approach turned out to be no problem, although the Hachinohe Airport sits in a little bit of a valley and we felt a little dragged in due to the elevated terrain under long final. We landed, taxiied over to the Japanese Navy P-3 squadron, shut down, hopped out, and walked over to their base ops to arrange a trip home.
We waited for about four hours on the ground before a team of maintainers and security forces finally showed up. The maintainers picked us up, and after a 25-minute drive back to the squadron ops, we all hopped out, threw our gear in our lockers, and finally called it a night.
In sum, the day had been three hours of preparation; one hour of step, start, taxi, and takeoff; 1.5 hours of flight; and 4.5 hours of hurry up and wait before arrival at the squadron. Luckily I’d only been in the office for 2.5 hours before I started the day. Otherwise it’d've been a really long one!
We always say the first time something unusual happens (like a divert) will be at the least convenient time. Never mind the fact that it’d been 15 months since my last night/NVG flight, and never mind the fact that I’d never ever seen Hachinohe Airport from anything but the simulator’s Runway 25; it was also my wife’s and my first anniversary. That, and I didn’t have any Yen in my G-suit pocket.
At least now I have Yen with me!
***************
Update 20071004: It turns out the OG/CC was as surprised as I was about the 2xAGM-88 w/ LANTIRN pod configuration. (For those of you not in the military, the OG/CC is the commander of the operations group, almost always a O-6/colonel type. Surprise is the least favorite emotion of the O-6 and above). He got the configurations changed the next day, from what I heard.