Here is this week's song of the week. There's a hidden message in there somewhere ;)
Monday. Nothing happened whatsoever. Well, I went to work and that was about it. Maps and I met our instructors from
Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort who will be teaching us the differences between the F-35A and the F-35B. The F-35A is the Air Force variant of the Joint Strike Fighter and this is the variant which we have been training on since last October. The F-35B is the Marine Corps variant; the main difference between the two is that the F-35B is the short take-off / vertical landing variant and has a lift system which enables it to hover so it can be deployed aboard an aircraft carrier which does not have a catapult launch system. After changing the order twice, the UK is currently planning on buying an entire fleet of B models, but the Government refuses to rule out changing the order a third time and buying some A models too. There is a third variant, the F-35C, which is fully configured for carrier operations and is destined for the US Navy.
Tuesday. More work. And then baseball! It's the baseball
spring training season and Phoenix is a popular destination as a host city for Major League Baseball teams to come and play a series of practice matches prior to the main season starting. Our two instructors are both
Kansas City Royals fans, so after work we went to watch them play
San Diego Padres at the ballpark in Surprise. Unfortunately, Kansas lost 4 home runs to 5, but it was fun watching the game and learning all of the rules. And eating lots of popcorn.
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| Popcorn! |
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| Surprise Ballpark |
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| Let's Go ROYALS! |
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| Me, Nort, Maps, Thurston and Dearders |
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| The crew! |
On Wednesday, one of the Lockheed Martin executives paid a surprise visit to Luke and asked to see us. One thing led to another, and he ended up inviting us out for a beer after work. A beer after work soon turned into beer, dinner and a trip to the Westgate Mall to look at the classic rally which has started again after a break over the winter. There were some fantastic hot rods and lowriders there this week:
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| Low, low, low |
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| Sweeeeeeeeet |
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| T bucket |
On Thursday, we started the simulator training phase and practised short take-offs and vertical landings. At lighter fuel loads, the B model can take-off at 50 knots. The kneeboard I am using in the simulator still has my pilot notes for the
Cessna 152 written on it and the take-off speed for that is 60 knots! The F-35B is such an incredible aircraft, with a full fuel loads, it weighs over 20 tonnes but can take-off slower than an aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of 750kg. I am struggling to comprehend it!
On Friday, my good friend Andy Watts (Wattsy) came over to visit. He and I served together in the RAF but he married an American girl and moved to Los Angeles when he left the RAF a few years ago. He looks very much like Colin Frissell from the film Love Actually, especially in the scene where Colin moves to America to find beautiful women:
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| Andy Watts |
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| Colin Frissell |
We had a boys' night out on Friday. No photographic evidence exists for various technical reasons.
Then on Saturday, we had a boys' day out to the NASCAR race. It was mostly rubbish: the race was halted for rain three times and there were no sideshows this time round.
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| Patiently waiting for something to happen |
This is what the first two laps looked like. Multiply this by 100 and you have an idea of how a 200-lap race pans out:
And here's how I wrapped up this week. I think that there has been some progress here:
Finally, here's this week's
horse of the week. It's actually a 'puddle light' from Maps' new hire car. Hopefully a full run down of the hire car along with a test drive in next week's blog!
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