Nat's Blog - Day2
Wednesday 07.11.2011
So today is the 7th of December and the weather has been magnificent, sunny, hot and humid and I'm all set to open the show with the first display. I get to the jet 15 minutes before I need to start, do the walk round and get in the cockpit. Now I have to brave the black widow spiders all over the aircraft who have left webs everywhere, especially in the cockpit. I once had a large bright green grasshopper jump on my leg whilst doing some low-level flutter testing at 600kts, that was one thing, but sharing the cockpit with black widows is another. However, having convinced myself there weren't any in my oxygen mask I strapped in and everything was great until my pen fell out of my jacket and under the ejection seat! Now that would be a great start to the show wouldn’t it, missing my slot because of FOD.
For various reasons, I have to start at the last minute so I don't have the luxury of being able to go for the spare aircraft next to me due to time. Fortunately, with an upside down "liney" and a bit of raising the seat action, the pen is retrieved and I'm away. Of course nothing is simple in flying, but in this case it was events on the ground that caused a delay to the show, so having flown 80 miles, I was getting "the new time on target is" and then "go back to original" and finally "don't do anything and how long can you hold", so I say "10 minutes" - the black widow I've just noticed on the stick top is looking rather hungry... Three minutes later we're off and the show starts, I've got bored of the spiders and get on with the display. Seven minutes later, I'm on my way home, it's all over (until tomorrow) and I can relax (a little) as I have a 10 minute transit back to RMAF Butterworth.......I wonder where that spider went, maybe the doc will have some bites to address tomorrow!
For various reasons, I have to start at the last minute so I don't have the luxury of being able to go for the spare aircraft next to me due to time. Fortunately, with an upside down "liney" and a bit of raising the seat action, the pen is retrieved and I'm away. Of course nothing is simple in flying, but in this case it was events on the ground that caused a delay to the show, so having flown 80 miles, I was getting "the new time on target is" and then "go back to original" and finally "don't do anything and how long can you hold", so I say "10 minutes" - the black widow I've just noticed on the stick top is looking rather hungry... Three minutes later we're off and the show starts, I've got bored of the spiders and get on with the display. Seven minutes later, I'm on my way home, it's all over (until tomorrow) and I can relax (a little) as I have a 10 minute transit back to RMAF Butterworth.......I wonder where that spider went, maybe the doc will have some bites to address tomorrow!
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