Maverick Flies to Tuscon

Crazy excitement around here folks - NavyGuy is flying a T-2 to Tuscon, AZ! Huh? Yes, this is a big deal - here's why.

The Navy is replacing the T-2 training airplane with the T-45 airplane. The T-2 is an elderly plane they've been using here in Pensacola for flight training. Elderly planes get to retire in Arizona (Florida is too expensive for them and the climate is better out west ;). Somehow, the elderly planes have to get out to their pleasant retirement community (aka "the boneyard") near Davis-Montham Air Force Base... and NavyGuy, being the ballsy flight student that he is, asked if he could be one of the NFOs who would fly one of the planes out there...

Shockingly - the Navy said yes! (Guess it never hurts to ask.) NavyGuy is scary excited about this adventure, and feels very privileged to be the only flight student caravaning along. He left early early this morning (5:30am...? I don't quite remember, but allegedly I said goodbye), and called several hours later to let me know that he had arrived somewhere in Louisiana. (These airplanes are small, so they can't go straight from here to Tuscon. They have to make several "hops" - little trips - in order to get there). As if NavyGuy wasn't excited enough, the pilot he's flying with let him do a landing from the backseat (which according to my ex-Navy-pilot grandpa, is really impressive, and I should be way more jazzed). And, they painted his name on the side of the airplane!!! How Top Gun is that?!?!

So, now he's in Houston, hanging out in his flight suit, thinking he's all that, living that sweet sweet airplane life. I on the other hand, am trapped in Pensacola, praying desperately that Tropical Storm Fay decides to speed up her trip through Florida and get the hell away from us quickly before I'm swallowed up in a deluge or blown out to sea. Yup - my fiancee left me here in the path of an approaching storm to go fly an old airplane. Don't think he won't pay for this; my souvenir from the airplane retirement community in Arizona better rock (maybe an old ejection seat that could double as a desk chair?)