The best part of my trip!

The last part is the best part!
The best part part of my trip is coming home. I wanted to be a pilot ever since I was a little boy looking up in the sky to watch a jet fly over. It has always been a passion for me. As I grew I found a life long passion that means so much more to me. It is my family. I love to fly and see so much of our beautiful country but there is something so wonderful about coming home. A peace even in the midst of a storm that calms the waters.

This trip was very busy with a lot of late nights so not many pictures but I saved the best for last. Coming home.

Still flying

My beautiful view in the morning in New York
Passing the Lady (Statue of Liberty)
The mighty 747 landing in Minneapolis
A rare view of the awsome F-22 Raptor

I woke up in New York to a beautiful sunshiny day and opened my shades to see the.... Prison. Oh yah, I am in New York. Oh well, the next view was better. On takeoff out of New York today we would fly past the Statue of Liberty. It amazes me everytime. We flew on to Minneapolis, Detroit and Charlotte. In Minneapolis I took a picture of our mighty 747 landing. It amazes me everytime I see it. Look at the wings bending on landing. They are designed to do that it. The airplane was flying in from Narita, Japan. The flight is about 13 hours long and there are 4 pilots on board. Two fly and two sleep. They have bunk beds built in for the pilots to sleep. It weighs over 850,000 pounds. Pretty amazing something like that can even takeoff.

The last 2 pictures are of the military's newest fighter airplane called the F-22 Raptor. They were flying in long range formation across the country. They fly along like that and then refuel in the air along the way. That is how they move them over to Iraq. A giant fuel truck (Airplane) flies along next to them and extends a hose into a receptacle and fills them up and they keep flying. Pretty rare to see them so close flying by. We were at 38,000 feet and they were at 43,000 feet. Way cool.

Back in the Big Apple

Landing in New York

The Ford Test track in Detroit

New York Island

Number 35 for takeoff!

Our Deluxe accommodations next to the Prison.

Today we flew from Minneapolis to Washington DC and then to Detroit and on to New York.  A very long day although it was a beautiful day to fly.  The weather was great.  New York is such a neat place and frustrating place all rolled up into one.  It is so over crowded that the flights are always delayed and the traffic is terrible.  It is like flying into a hornets nest just after it has been disturbed.  It is a common sight to see 30 or 40 airplanes lined up for takeoff like today.  One airplane takes off every 2 minutes so you do the math.  You taxi out and the controller tells you to get in line you are number 40.  Thats the frustrating side, but when you look at the beautiful skyline it is so cool.  You are so close to the city and there is so much water around the city.  It looks like it is a island.  All along the river and coastal water ways there are huge ports that the ships unload their goods for delivery to our homes.  Some ships carry oil that is sent to the refinery to be made into gasoline and some items like cars come in huge boxes that are unloaded and put on trains to be shipped to other states.  Very cool.

I thought Austin you would like the Ford auto test track.  This is in Detroit and is where they test the new cars and reliability of some recent models.  They test handling and set up rain simulators to test the cars handling in rain.  In the large building next to the track they crash some of the cars to get the crash safety rating.  If you look closely you can see the FORD on the top of the main building.  It is neat to see.

Oh, the last picture is of our deluxe accommodations in New York.  If you look out my hotel window you can see the prison.  It was getting dark so the picture is a little blurry but if you look closely you can see the inmates in white clothing in the outside area.  Kind of creepy.

Well tomorrow off to Minneapolis, Detroit and Charlotte.  Talk to ya soon.

Back in the Air

Colorado Springs

Cheyenne Mountain NORAD

Valley Fair from the Air

Mall of America to the left of the runway

A barge moving up the river

Wow. I have been home for a couple of weeks. It was so nice. Now I am back in the Air. The job as a pilot is so different than most. We don't work 9-5 or have weekends off and we don't work 8 hour days. Our job takes a weeks worth of work and jams it into 3 days. Our days are usually 12 to 14 hours long and we can work 365 days a year. It is different to get used to and can be hard as inevitably everything breaks at home when you are on the road! The great thing is because we work such long days we do get more days off, which I love because it means more time at home. To make it work you have to be flexible and be able to adjust on the fly. I am still working on that.

The first set of pictures is Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was a cool trip as our pastor Dave Johnson from our church Open Door was on the plane. I talked with him for a few minutes as he was leaving; he is a man with an incredible depth and understanding of God's love, and at the same time, hilarious! Our church places all of the sermons on-line as a podcast, so I am able to download the sermons on to my computer and Ipod each week. As this Sunday I am sitting in New York, I can still feel near as I watch the sermon.

Colorado Springs is home to NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command. They watch over the world's airspace and in particular North America for any missiles, aircraft, or other attacks on our country. One of the amazing places within this command is a mountain called Cheyenne Mountain. NORAD central command was up until 2006 inside that mountain. It is 2400 feet under ground and a city that is mounted on giant springs in case of attack. Inside there are huge screens that monitor all of the airspace. They see all aircraft and satellites traveling around the world. I was extremely fortunate to visit the facility a few years ago and it is like something out of a James Bond movie. The Air Force Academy is also in Colorado Springs. They have one of the only Supersonic wind tunnels used for testing high speed aircraft in the world. It takes several hours to pump up the compressors to create wind speeds of over 1800 miles an hour.

The trip back to Minny we were able to fly over Valley Fair (our Amusement Park). It looks much smaller from the air (Where's Waldo?). We were about 10,000 feet flying over. Coming into Minneapolis we flew past a barge taking it's load up the river. Kind of a normal Mississippi river kind of thing but it still looks cool. Landing in Minneapolis it is hard to believe but the Mall of America is directly to the front left of the runway. I can't believe they allowed the airport to build a new runway so close, but it is kind of cool when you are landing. I think I saw a sale at Justice, but I flew past pretty quick. Well home tonight see ya soon.

Take a tour with me of Philly

We stay downtown Philadelphia.  It is a little walk to Independence Square where the liberty bell is displayed but the sights along the way are pretty cool.  The first picture is the downtown federal buildings.  That is where city hall is located.  You pass underneath it and keep walking to the Historic district.  The Federal building is unique in as you can see it is a historical looking building in the middle of all the skyscrapers.  It really stands out.  As you continue on there is a lot of buildings with painted art on the sides.  I snapped a shot of one by the Burger King.  Oh ya it is not uncommon to see a homeless person a sleep on the sidewalk along the way.  Very sad to see.

Next stop is the Liberty Bell Center.  The Liberty Bell is in a building next to Independence Hall were it once rang.  It is very cool to see it up close.  It is very big and has a inscription on it proclaiming independence years before it actually happened.  The Liberty Bell was first heard in 1753 where it rang in the top of the Pennsylvania State House.  That building was renamed to become Independence hall after July 4th, 1776.  It was the delegates in the State House that adopted and later signed the Declaration of Independence.  The document was mostly drafted by Thomas Jefferson but Benjamin Franklin helped revise the document for approval.  The last picture is the grave site of Benjamin Franklin and his family.  A lot of history here.  The Liberty Bell rang for Independence and cracked sometime in the early 1800's.  They tried to fix it but it never rang again.  It is guarded in the building it now sits and a few years ago a crazy person tried to ring it with a hammer and struck it and was promptly taken into custody at gunpoint.  I guess they are serious about no touchy.

Early Morning to Philly

Today is the one year anniversary of the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.  The first picture is a picture of the bridge from overhead after takeoff.  If you click on the picture you will see it larger.  It is currently completely connected.  They started rebuilding the bridge first from the foundation and then from each side to meet in the middle.  It is getting closer to being finished although there are a lot of people still trying to get to that same place.

The second picture is of a famous Nuclear Power Plant.  It is called Three Mile Island.  It is famous not in a good way.  In 1979 when the United States was turning to a very new power supply called nuclear power this plant had a string of malfunctions which ended in an overheat causing a partial meltdown of the core.  It leaked radioactive particles into the air which could be very dangerous.  It was shutdown and new safeguards have been put in place to prevent the same problems in subsequent plants. Those radioactive particles are know to cause radiation poisoning and cancer.  They found there was not enough released to harm anyone.  If you click on the picture to see it better you will see the 2 stacks on the right are not operating.  That is were the meltdown occurred.  They will not run again.  The stack on the left still operates today.  Google it for more info.  We do not fly over it very often.

The last picture is again in Philadelphia.  If you look past the gate E8 you will see a cargo ship.  The airport is right on the water and it seems a little weird to see so many huge ships right next to the runway.  You land over the ship yards and the air swirls around from the water making it tricky to land.  Tomorrow off to Minny and New York.  Be good.