Indianapolis Air Show - 6 JUNE 2009 06/11/2009
 USN Blue Angels Streak Across The Sky The weekend of June 5-6, 2009, the Indy Air Show was the the 'place to be' for a good lot of CAP folks from Indiana Wing as well as a few chosen members of Michigan Wing who were invited to 'come and play' at the state's premier air show event. Members of my unit, Boulle-Norman Memorial Cadet Squadron, made their way to the Mt. Comfort Airport just north of Indianapolis, IN on Friday and on Saturday to assist in the ground operations of this air show, which featured the U.S. Navy Blue Angels. One of our newer Senior Members, 2LT Robert Bonner, had the privilege of running communications from mission base for most of the day Saturday. Coming from a position where 2LT Bonner has logged over 40,000 hours behind a radio microphone for the City of Grand Rapids, MI, it seemed like the logical choice. The cadets who traveled down augmented teams from the local area in performing security of the static and active airport ramps. One particular aircraft being looked after was a USN F/A-18 Super Hornet, which was positioned with it's wings in the up position, causing an 'exposed edge' which needed to be protected.  A-10 Pilot gives crowd the thumbs up! Working the show as a Public Affairs Officer, the highlight for me was having the unprecedented access to the active ramp during the afternoon on Saturday. For someone who has a love of aircraft and aviation as well as photography, I was in my glory and snapped close to 500 photos in just that one day! Here is a link to my photo gallery, enjoy! The photo you see to the right I am particularly fond of, in fact, if I would not have backed away from the taxiway when I did, I would have been wearing the right wingtip of that particular A-10 for a hat! ;-) Airspeed Online - The Blog 05/24/2009
 I hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day Weekend! I just wanted to share with everyone that I have added a link to the blog 'Airspeed Online'. This blog is managed by fellow Michigan Wing CAP member, Steve Tupper, or 'Stephen Force' as is his online persona. Steve is a Lawyer by day (and night?) for pay and for CAP and is an incredibly fervent pilot who loves to share his passion for flight with everyone. Needless to say I am *VERY* jealous of the man and the opportunities he's had to fly in different and unique aircraft, up to and including a recent flight with the USAF Thunderbirds.  Just recently Steve had the opportunity to fly back seat in the T-6A Texan II. Check out his blog post on this. Awesome stuff Steve. Keep it up! Operation: Wolverine - Pt. 2 05/17/2009
Attendance for this years Operation: Wolverine was impressive. Many Cadets and Senior Members from thoughout Michigan Wing showed up to participate. The Weather wasn't very 'air friendly' until 1300L when the ceiling lifted and we actually had seen some blue skies. Winds were gusting out of the west 20-25 to 30-35 throughout the day, so that made taking off and landing a bit challenging. Capt Jo Hendrix from the Traverse City Composite Squadron and I went up in the afternoon as 'Highbird'. We made it to 6k feet and flew in circles and figure 8's for aprox. 2 hours. While I'm still working on my Mission Scanner rating, this gave me a chance to try out the Mission Observer role. Some folks were rather impressed my radio abilities considering my experience level, so that's good. Capt Hendrix remarked a few different times what a good job I was doing and what a pleasure it was to fly with me. So that was nice. The day ended around 2400L with some night mission GT's out doing the usual. I brought my tent, but was never able to set it up; which was just as well since it was so darn cold out. Everyone was made to come inside anyways. So I setup the air matress and sleeping bag and down I went around 0030L and was back up just before 0630L this morning. Most of the aircrews are out, so I'm sitting here twiddling my thumbs for right now and posting to the blog to kill time. Hopefully I'll be able to get up and at least get one MS-T excercise completed for my SQTR. Hopefully. (Photos after the break) First Post! 05/14/2009
So I've had this 'usafaux.us' domain since the great Tedda, of 'Civil Air Portal' and now Swivel Chair Patrol fame was kind enough to let me take over. If you've ever seen a 'PortalPerson', this is the Tedda in question. |  Mark L. Curtis, 1st Lt, CAP
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