Have Mercy

And she is on her way. As I said on Facebook, Dear Lord, please be with the three adults in this van who are driving 8 children 14 hours down to Daytona Beach for a week. They do not make a strong enough Valium to get me to even consider taking on something of that scope. Fortunately there are adults who CAN do something like that, and Kaylee is in very good hands. :)

For the record, every time I look at that picture I posted yesterday of the airplane, my right foot twitches to stomp the rudder...

At lunch today somebody brought up the photo formation stuff, and I was thinking about some of those photo flights, with the "Thunder Pig", CJ-6, the (total of 5, wow!) Mustangs, a couple T-6s, and the T-28, and it's funny, I have the same reaction every time so far. I'm new to this stuff, just doing my best not to goof it up, stay as smooth as possible, be professional, predictable, clear and concise. I'm always concentrating, keeping an eye out, and then at some point when we're all up in the air and settled in, a moment comes where I'll look over my shoulder and really see the airplane(s) lined up right off me. I don't know how to really describe it, but I get this physical feeling, like a little electrical jolt in the chest, and I can feel it tingling down through my fingertips. It doesn't feel like adrenaline, at least not the adrenaline I'm used to, so I really don't know how to describe it, but it's like a lot of little bubbles, or light electricity. Too bad they can't bottle and sell it. ;) I get the same feeling when the Mustang is cranking around to come up on me, or is right off me or me off him. Watching the planes from the ground is one thing, and I enjoy that too, but being right next to them flying through the air where they rule, that's something else. Even one of the worst flights I can remember, at Oshkosh when I couldn't get fuel, missed most of the pre-briefing trying to get fuel, had radio trouble, probably pilot induced, had to do a go-around because I was too hot to land behind the Mustang safely, and pretty much just messed it up from get to go, very publicly...even that flight, after the photos were taken and we were just flying along, and we switched places so that he was flying off of me instead of me off of him, and I looked around for a second, and there we were, at Oshkosh, over the water, with the sun glowing off the polished metal, my hand on a warbird stick, a Mustang just a few feet away, and bam, there it is, and life is good. I think it feels a little like...awe. That's probably pretty close. With maybe a touch of fierce happiness. And normally I do not awe all that easily. ;) It's funny--when I'm not being my own worst enemy on a formation training scenario, getting all tense and goofing myself up--I am more relaxed and comfortable and happy/content flying along just a few feet away from another airplane than I am about anywhere else. It just feels right. It'll feel even more right when I can actually do it smoothly and consistently, if I ever get in enough practice to be able to get there. Okay, I'm done being sappy. But I'm still a girl, and I can get away with that. Occasionally. ;)

Let the weekend and Spring Break begin, ladies and gentlemen!