The first attempt at "Operation:GO!" was relatively successful! Especially when you take into consideration all the factors that were in play; a short lead time for planning, a conflicting date for other events, the weather, etc.

The weather was really the biggest factor affecting us, as it had been raining/storming off and on for the better part of the week leading up to the event. We had the mother of all storms blow through the night before that dumped many, many inches of rain on the area; flash flooding of areas that I can't recall having ever flooded before, were going underwater, quite wild. The rain pretty much cleared out in the early AM.

The storm system was still trudging east; which presented another issue for us, our glider tow plane and pilot were still in Flint, and the glider was in Marshall. Flint was IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) and Marshall was MVFR (Marginal Visual Flight Rules). So unfortunately, the glider flights had to be scrubbed.

The weather almost caused an issue for our change of command for our group commander. Two of our color guard cadets were getting an O-Flight in from KGRR (Grand Rapids) and by the time they made it into Sparta, they had all they could do to get changed from their BDU's into their blues!

For whatever reason, the outgoing group commander decided not to show up, nobody could get a hold of him, so we could not do an official 'Change of Command', but Michigan Wing Commander, Mike Saile was able to give Maj Keith Sikkema the Oath of Office at least.

We were able to fly 18 cadets in 16 O-Flights throughout the day, so that is the best thing to report from the day. We had plenty of hot dogs and Coke products/water and Frito-Lay chips to keep everyone there fully satisfied.

It would have been nice to have seen the news media show up, but apparently a bunch of cars sitting in flood water was more important than covering an event such as ours.

Plans are in the works already to get ready for next years event. With the advanced timeline we should not have any problems getting everything and everyone into place for an even better event.

...well...except for the weather!