Well, I had this blog post cued up to publish two days ago, but the computing gods saw fit to blast it into the ether for some reason; so here I am again, lets hope I have better luck this time.

As I mentioned in my previous posting, I said I was going to be in Ann Arbor this past weekend for Michigan Wing's Guided Training Exercise, or GTE for short. This is where our CAP-USAF overseers come in to work along side of us during a Search and Rescue Exercise and point out areas of improvement for next year when we have our 'evaluated' mission and actually get scored on how we do things; and if we keep doing things the way we are doing them and improve a few little things here and there, an Excellent rating is surely ours to have. Everyone at the mission should be proud of the efforts they put in.

It would have been nice to have seen a larger cadet presence at this SAREX. Not sure if it was vacations or what, but they really missed out, I think. For the cadets who were there, they had a ball, and actually seen two real ELT missions, one on Saturday evening and the other Sunday afternoon.

Our Region Commander, Col Charles Carr flew in for the day on Saturday. It was good to see him again and have a chance to talk him about my new assignment at region. It's nice to have your efforts recognized, and it's even nicer to have a new fan of this blog! Thanks Col Carr! :-) 

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With close to 100 members of Michigan Wing on hand, everyone broke into their individual groups and went to work. It wasn't too long before I got the opportunity to fly myself. Two missions in a row and I get right seat on a Highbird sortie, nice! According to the Hobbs meter, we were up for 4.6 hours. Thankfully the weather was nice. 2d Lt Duncan Harper was the pilot for this flight. At a spry 71 years young, Duncan knows his way around a cockpit, and was quite the company on what can usually be a pretty 'ho hum' flight.

We started out at 6500' MSL, but the clouds wanted that airspace, so we went up to 7500' and played above them. Some nice views of the University of Michigan campus (GO BLUE! ;-) ) and the Chrysler Test Track.

The next day the weather was looking a little rough for flying at the start of the day, but soon the sun rose and burned away the clouds; but the winds picked up and gave everyone a heck of a crosswind to deal with, but that's nothing for our skilled pilots. I didn't get to fly anymore that weekend, but that's ok, it gave me time to catch up on some misc. tasks.

Besides, I got to play Safety Officer later in the afternoon... but that's a story for those who know me personally. ;-)

Next mission is set for September in the U.P., and from what I hear Wisconsin Wing is coming to play with us, so that'll be fun! See you all up there!